My best friend is psychic.

Before I go any further in my story, I must take a short detour about my best friend. We are so alike, it's weird. It's as if we were separated at birth. As such, her opinion is of the utmost importance. When I first started asking her opinion, I really didn't know what to expect her to say, but what has happened since has been slightly creepy. She has an uncanny ability to spot red flags and make predictions based on a cursory glance at men's photos. I have more than one example of her amazing powers of perception.

The first time I really remember her exercising her power was with "Babyface." Cori looked at this guy's pictures and asked about his details. I told her his name, age, location, and career. She immediately said, "Those pictures are old. There's no way he's 35." I scoffed off her assessment and met him a few weeks later. Sure enough, he looked at five years older than his photos appeared. 

I didn't think about my friend's comment until the next occurrence which happened with "Catfish." This man and I started communicating and messages for weeks straight. Again, Cori looked at his profile and said, "That's not him and if it is, those are old photos." You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but I again ignored her and still talked to him. We were planning to meet and decided to webcam one night. I was waiting patiently to talk to "Catfish" when he sent me a message. It basically said that he was not single and his photos were not him. The story goes that a friend saw his girlfriend on the dating site so he made a fake profile in order to catch her which he did.  However, although we had a connection, and he was interested in me, he could not break up with his girlfriend because he worked with his dad and would be fired.  Kind of a far-fetched story.  Anyway, I was shocked, for one, and surprised that my friend was right again. 

Not to belabor the point, here's a final example. "Scrap booking Boy" was apparently a fan of Instagram and many of his profile photos included photos from his account. I showed Cori and without skipping a beat, she said, "He's not straight." Oh, come on, I thought. But sure enough, she was right (I'll spare you the story that he decided to share with me that proved her prediction). At this point, I always listen to what my best friend has to say when it comes to men. She is the Miss Cleo of online dating! 

XOXO,

Leia