dating...just got WORSE!?!

OH WOW! that's all i have to say. well, of course that's not all i have to say- but it's a start. tonight i was going to post about our awesome superhero team that emerged victorious from the st. louis "warrior dash" this weekend, but that's going to have to wait. don't worry. i will get to it soon...complete with photos. tonight, however, i want to revisit the dating scene.

i promised in an earlier blog post that i was over it. dating, that is. specifically online dating. truth is that i was almost over it. i have to admit that i continued to dabble just a little bit, convinced that there had to be some redeeming quality that i had missed. i started a conversation a few weeks ago with a guy that seemed pretty decent. he had a lot to learn about communication, namely listening , but he made up for it by being intelligent and interesting while he was droning on about himself and his life. he also had a super sexy voice, which didn't hurt (haha). i wasn't convinced that we would make a great match, but he was...and he started to convince me that maybe he was onto something. he is a major in the army, and currently stationed in alaska, but is scheduled to come back to kansas in a few weeks. during our nightly phone conversations, he would ask that i give him a chance. he told me how much he enjoyed my company and how excited he was to meet me face to face. he even offered to fly me to alaska so that i could make the drive back with him when he made the move. every time i would voice a concern about some of our differences, or our values, he would assure me that we were much more the same than different and that we would complement each other beautifully. he became more attentive, and started to ask questions and to listen. he started to work his way under my skin a little bit. i started to believe that he found me beautiful, funny, sexy, intelligent, interesting, sweet, good-hearted, etc... i even let myself begin to hope that maybe, just maybe, i'd finally get to a second date. i should have probably waited until i had the first one under my belt before i got that optimistic. anyway...

this weekend, as i said earlier, i was in st. louis competing in the warrior dash. he sent me a few texts, encouraging me and letting me know he was thinking about me. that was sweet, actually. after the "dash" i cleaned up and decided to pull out my phone and text him an update, letting him know i survived. before i did, i caught sight of an email with a subject line reading "the real heath h." any guesses who it was from?

his fiancee.

the best part was that it was addressed to me and 18 other women, all of whom were having some kind of relationship with him. according to his fiancee, the list wasn't comprehensive- she just stopped reading after the first 19 because she was afraid she'd vomit if she read more. that morning (while i was "dashing"), he was laying in bed with her planning their wedding. he left her house (where he LIVES) and left his email up on her computer. because of a prior online indescretion he'd had with another woman, she didn't fully trust him and she gave in to the urge to snoop his in/outbox. i don't condone that for one second, but thank god she did! she found that he had been emailing naked photos to women, and they had been reciprocating. he had been flying women to alaska to have sex with him when she was out of town for work. he told most of them (i guess i should use "us" since i am not excluded from the list of women dumb enough to get sucked in) that he loved them and couldn't wait to start a life with them. some, like one woman whom he had been involved with for 4 years, already thought they were sharing a life together. these are smart, accomplished, successful women, too. we are a nurse, a microbiologist, a cardiology fellow, and more... and we are all reduced to some guy's sick fantasy. it is truly humbling to realize that no matter how smart and independent you are, you can still be suckered- especially in matters of the heart.

today i went on the dating website where we met to see if he had removed his profile. it is still there, but the pictures are gone. now instead of being 6'3", he says he is 5'2". instead of blonde hair, suddenly it is black. no longer from kansas, his profile says he's from colorado springs. he removed "military" from the profession box, but that may be true once  his fiancee gets done with him. it seems he's still on the hunt. beware ladies! i will protect his privacy (though he certainly didn't protect any of ours) and will only use first names- but check with me before dating anyone named heath, and stay away from Sabot1 on plentyoffish.com. 

it's good that i love a great story, or this kind of thing could get me down...