Kiki looks into being stood up

In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe there is a time when Aslan leaves the children despite their victories. He leaves quietly when no one is really looking. And will continue to come and go throughout their lives. I have been in on again off again relationships- but the on again off again dater, who has a similar philosophy, is a bit trickier because it is hard to tell when they may decide to stand you up. However, like Peter going into battle sans Aslan, one must always be ready for the unexpected.

Frances and I met while we were both out through mutual friend groups. We hit it off and exchanged numbers that night. Our first date was a success. We laughed, we ate and then we met up with our mutual friends for drinks. Things seemed to be off to a solid start.

After the first date we continued to talk and exchange texts. We planned our second date- a meal at a local restaurant in a nearby hotspot.

The night of said date I drove to the shoreline area we would be meeting. There was an unexpected event at this place so parking was a challenge. I had to circle a few times but was able to find parking. I sent Frances a text that I was on my way up to the restaurant after the parking challenges. As I am walking into the place Frances replies to me saying that he couldn’t find parking so has decided to head home. No other follow up text. Just his decision to leave me at the place.

I am not one to be stood up so marched myself right to my car and proceed to drive to his apartment (you can surmise how I know where he lives) when I arrive I do not see his car and he does not answer the door so I sit myself down on the curb to wait his arrival. Fifteen minutes later and he is walking up – I do not know how I beat him to his own home but I have a few guesses. When he sees me sitting on the curb I can tell his brain is not registering the picture in front of him, I use this moment to say: “I was promised a meal” and just stare at him. With that, he mumbles a few local places we could try and we walk ourselves to the now closed Thai place. Dinner was a solemn event that went by rather quickly. I never got an answer that made sense as to why he would drive to a place and then leave knowing someone was waiting for him. Parking was bad but one could find spots. Needless to say there was not a third date.

I have been stood up once while I was at a bar waiting for my date (not a cat fish we had met in person and gone out a couple of times.) When he was a no call no show, I venmo requested that man the price of my drink since he was the one who offered to buy me one in the first place. My bank account is still minus that drink order.

Kiki looks into catfishing

Cat fishing is defined as a deceptive activity in which a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service for the purpose of fraud. Be on dating apps long enough and one will experience at least one catfish. Technically, Lucy was also cat fished by Mr Tumnus the faun. His plan was actually to kidnap her and take her to the queen but later changed his mind. Much like these dates.

The first time I was catfished my date never showed up. Prior to the date he communicated through text and the app. The day of the date as I was driving to meet him he blocked me on the phone and then by the time I walked up to the restaurant he had deleted me from the app. As I circled around the place there were only groups seated. Not a solo person to be found. Inquiries to staff lead nowhere they had not seen a singleton at the place in hours. As I walked back to my car I was panicking- this man knew what I looked but I had no idea of his appearance. I watch a lot of Criminal Minds so my pepper spray was at the ready. However, one time when a catfish did show up there was awkwardness a plenty.

I matched with Kacey who seemed normal in his photos and bio. After riveting conversation he planned a great date at a fancy restaurant. A man picking a place, time, day, and making a reservation for a date is not the usual so I probably should have known something was up. When I showed up it all became very clear. The man who was seated at the table was definitely not the man in the photos. Not in the completely separate person way, but rather the photos were clearly from his glory days in college. Kacey’s hairline had definitely moved back and his face had aged not as gracefully as he probably would have liked. He clearly knew what he was doing was wrong and seemed to want to make up for it through planning. Like the queen he felt he had to lavish gifts to hide his duplicity. In this case it was through order after order of food even after I only wanted one dish he asked for several items. Conversation was halting unlike on the phone because at that point the sham was up. It’s like he just kept ordering food to lengthen the date. It was a painful couple of hours.

I was able to finally get my Uber but Kacey insisted on waiting with me, unlike some prior dates. After what can best be described as an air side hug I jumped into the Uber and the driver said, “Ooph that was awkward, huh?” I asked him if it was that noticeable- he answered: “ Even Stevie Wonder could see that this was a bad date.” We drove home exchanging dating horror stories and laughing.

Kiki looks into dating Disney characters

Narnia is a small place, but not as small as dating in Los Angeles with your other single girl friends.

A couple of years back I met a man named Simone on the dating sites and we texted on the app for a couple of days and exchanged numbers. We started texting and it was going well- banter, memes, and GIFs flowed. The witty to serious conversation ratio was spot on, good wait times, and things were progressing. We scheduled a Sunday brunch date- the only thing that set my radar off slightly was when he pushed the date back a couple of hours to an earlier time, but things happen so I did not think too much of it (however, this becomes important to the plot shortly.) On the Saturday before the date he called me for the first time.

I will pause here to describe Simone. His profile showed a very tall, very handsome man. In all his photos he is well dressed, with a strong beard, and a sharp hair cut. He had sent photos in his text, nothing crass, all looking recent and matching the profile- all good. Back to the story.

When I answered the phone what I heard knocked me sideways- and not in a good way. Although Simone’s number was on the screen (remember: tall, sharp, good looking) all I heard when he said hello how are you was Minnie Mouse’s voice! I thought maybe it was the connection, but no. As Simone continued to talk his voice remained the same pitch. This man could have voiced over any number of Disney shorts: Locked in Love – check, A Fancy Gentleman- check, New Shoes- check, check. If Minnie was in it Simone may have voiced it over. Was this a lucrative side hustle he had forgotten to mention? I was too stunned to say much so let this Minnie voice over talk about his background, kids, and whatever other topic he covered. When we hung up I still did not know what to do but didn’t feel right cancelling on such short notice.

That night I had dinner with the girls and we were discussing our dating lives. One of my friends mentioned that she had a date the next day with a man she had met while out. She had had to change the times because of some prior family commitments ( I know you see where this is going , dramatic irony and all) As we were discussing our respective dates’ attributes some of the qualities seemed to overlap- but were slightly off. She continued to discuss her date but then said slowly, “the only thing I can’t get passed is his voice- it’s so high pitched.” I stared at her for a minute, took out my phone and said: “is this who you are going on a date with tomorrow” and showed her a picture from the text. She took out her phone pulled out matching photos from their thread. This Minnie Mouse sounding guy was reusing photos; and, and he had moved our time back because she had had to reschedule theirs. He booked two dates in one day !

To top it all off the attributes were off because he told us different things including background and family size! Needless to say we both cancelled on him, and he still had the audacity to try and argue with us.