And my life flashed before my eyes...

"Horseman" was one of the scariest experiences of my dating experiences.  At first glance, he seemed to be perfectly normal.  He worked with horses, played polo, and sailed. He was much different than anyone else I had dated. We decided to meet halfway between our towns for dinner one night, however, he was running late for work and asked that I drive the hour to meet him. I love a good adventure and agreed with his request. By the time this was decided, it was late, and I did not get to the restaurant until after 9.  When I walked through the door, I noticed him.  He waved to me, and I walked to his table. When I sat, he told me that the kitchen was already closed but we could have chips and beer. I was hungry but had traveled all that way to meet this man so I did not complain. At first, things were fine. We talked about normal first date things, family, friends, and work. Later in the evening, it was obvious that the restaurant was closing up so he paid the bill, and we left.

Once outside, he told me there wasn't much to do in the town on a Thursday and suggested we hang out at his place. I wasn't getting any bad vibes yet so I agreed. We stopped at a store first. I needed a pit stop, and he needed to get food for his cats. When I came out of the bathroom, he was waiting the register with a bag of imitation cheese puffs.

"What's that for?" I asked. 

"It's for the cats," he responded. 

"Your cats eat cheese puffs?" Ok, that was weird. 

We left and got into our separate cars and headed on our way. Things were still fine, however, as we got closer and closer to his place, the surroundings got scarier and scarier. We came to a stop at a gate; he got out of his truck and opened the gate for us to go through. Once on the inside, he closed and locked the gate. This was the first thing that scared me. Then, on his way back to his car, he stopped at my driver's side door and tapped on the window. It startled me. When I rolled down the window, he said, "You look like you're scared I locked you in." I laughed it off, but that's exactly what was in my mind. A side note: my best friend had all of the details about my date...safety first. 

When we parked our cars and got out, I was in the middle of a dilapidated barn. That's right, a barn. While it was dark, I could see that the ground was littered with broken down trucks, boats, and random debris. My date got out of his vehicle, opened the bag of cheese puffs, and threw the bag out into the darkness. I heard what I assumed were cats descend on the bag. Who knew? Cats like cheese puffs. 

At this point, I should have left, but for whatever reason, I did not. My stupidest mistake. He said he was going to build a fire as it was quite chilly.

Scavenging the yard, he started building a fire. When it was finally going, he offered me a beer. I'm a polite person and accepted it although I did not plan to imbibe much of it. I even secretly poured small amounts of it out while he wasn't looking. As soon as that drink was done, my butt was out of there! He started talking about all kinds of crazy things. For example, he swore that the government was tailing his nephew. Oh my. When the fire was burning hot, he sat down and said that the fire was so hot, he could even throw an online date on there. What the hell kind of thing was that to say?

He went into the barn which was the only building on the property. When he came back out, I had to go to the bathroom again and asked about a restroom. He said there was one in the barn, and I followed him inside and was appalled by the bathroom. The toliet was black, there was no door on the room, and there were wires strung everywhere. It could have totally been the site of a scary movie. My desire to leave increased. I came out of the barn and "finished" my beer. He tried to give me another one, but I declined and said I didn't want to drink because I was driving shortly. At this point, when he realized I was leaving before he wanted, he got pissed. He started being rude and making pleas for me to stay. He said I could even sleep in the barn on the couch with the electric blanket. Yeah, right. That was not happening

When I made my move to the car to leave, he said, "I can't believe you're going to leave me here all night alone."

"I've got to get home."

"Fine. Go." 

"Can I get our of the gate?" 

"It's not locked."

"Thanks," I replied and hightailed it to my car. When I was safely inside, I locked my doors and reversed as quickly and safely as possible. I made it to the gate, hopped out to open it, and got the hell out of there. Once I was finally on a main road, I started to breath easier. 

It was late by the time I finally made it home and I had a message from him waiting for me. It simply said he hoped I'd made it home ok. I figured I'd message him back the next mornings and cut things off. I definitely had no desire to date someone who reminded me of the unibomber. But when I went on the dating site the next morning, he had blocked me. Really? He must've been really mad at me. That made things easier for me. I was doubting that my lobster was out there for me, but the search continued with hopes that my perfect man was looking for me, too.

XOXO,

Leia