The Imaginary World of Online Dating

I would like to pretend I have never gone out with someone from an online dating site. I would like to pretend that I was never fooled into believing some huge lie that a person concocted on the internet. I would like to believe that I was always up front about who I was or what I looked like. Unfortunately, what I like to pretend is real and what is actually real are always two very different things.
This brings me to my topic for today; the imaginary world of online dating.
One of my first online dating "boyfriends" was a guy named Chris, I am not hiding his name to protect sources because quite frankly I am not convinced this was his real name. I was living in Nebraska at the time and attempting to scurry up a date in the middle of nowhere. Chris was from Oklahoma and according to him a very high powered IT executive. This should have been my first clue... my second clue came when he told me that he was flown in a corporate jet all the way out to Chicago on New Years Eve and given a huge promotion where he would be making millions of dollars.  The online relationship fizzled but and every now and then I would touch base with him to hear the new and unique things he was making up. For example,  he had too much money and needed to invest in a second house, oops didn't buy it but bought a condo instead, nope didn't buy the condo but went to law school, graduated law school but decided not to practice law, instead became the CEO of his own company in Arkansas.  My favorite one is that he was offered a position to teach law at Harvard law but turned it down. I mean who doesn't believe that Harvard recruits law professors from Oklahoma.
Side note: what does a divorce in Oklahoma and a tornado have in common; either way someone is going to lose a trailer house.... too much? oops my bad...
I would like to tell you that Chris was my only online mistake, but then I would miss telling you about the guy in Montana that I met online who had solved the dilemma about chewing tobacco. Apparently there is no need to worry about spitting it out and being gross when you can swallow it. After a while you stomach gets used to the chew and stops cramping.  Just to defend myself I did not learn this talent until we went out our one and only date.

Fluffy Puppy

So now I have to admit that I am scared of online dating. Last year I watched a friend take out a girl from the internet only to have her tell him at dinner of her psychotic episodes, arrests, and current outstanding warrants.  She offered him the sex only to send out the same offer to other men via text when he most emphatically declined. Don't worry the guy that responded yes to her text was considerate enough to send a cab to pick her up at the restaurant.
If this is what is out there, I am going to have to embrace being the crazy single lady with lots of cats or maybe just one really weird fluffy dog.