Covid Catfish?

As I’m laying down with my son at bedtime my phone starts chiming.  Text messages.  My son fusses because he was almost asleep and now he’s been disturbed by the noise. I reach over, pick up the phone to silence it, and see who it was. 

The banner on the front says I have a photo message.  I select it.  A photo of a man in a surgical mask and medical gown appears with some light bruising visible around the gown.

There’s a message with the photo, ‘Hey beautiful lady.  Had the surgery and a difficult time after.  Now I’m a week out.’

Xander.  

Let me back up.  I updated my online profile in February.  I figured I’d changed since I first wrote my profile so it was time to revisit my public relations.  I cleaned out the defensive undertones that I didn’t realize were there when I originally wrote my introduction, and genuinely described what I wanted in a partner in a way I hadn’t before. 

I received numerous good responses over the following few weeks.  I had taken a break from dating at the end of the year and I was excited to meet new people.  Quickly, I had dates set with three different men.  Two of the men I met - dates about which I will post here, given a bit of time - and I enjoyed the dates.  In short, my dates with the first one didn’t do much to build chemistry; my date with the second was fun and comfortable, but when quarantine began our communications got lost in the shuffle of shifting to work-from-home.

Then there’s Xander. 

Someone asked me recently whether quarantine had ground my dating life to a screeching halt.  Umm.  YES.  However, I’m left seriously wondering whether it has put a damper on the practice of malicious catfishing…

Xander and I have never met; we’ve never even spoken.

Xander’s initial message to me was long and detailed.  By the end of it I was excited about him.  The message hit all my buttons and he was many things I was hoping to find.  Physically, he wasn’t particularly handsome, kind of goofy-looking in fact, but he had an athletic body – a very nice physique. 

I responded.  I was nervous to, which for me is usually a strong sign that I’m actually interested.  Over the next two weeks we messaged back and forth.  Eventually we moved to text.  He initiated contact.  He wasn’t too busy for me.

He asked me out to dinner.  I said yes and we picked a day. 

He asked me which of several restaurants I’d like to go to.  I responded with two of them.

He made reservations.

The week going into our date the news about Covid-19 escalated.  People started working from home voluntarily where it was easy to accommodate.  Our date was scheduled for Sunday night.  Saturday evening my throat started to get sore.  Sunday morning I awoke with a headache and a low-grade fever. 

I told him that I wasn’t feeling well and asked for a raincheck.  The next week the quarantine orders were issued. 

We continued chatting over the next couple of weeks, and I began to get inklings that suggest maybe he has a dramatic lot in life. 

First, we’re having a nice text chat about planting a garden.  It makes him think of his grandfather, which is endearing to me.  He shares with me that his grandfather lived with him during most of his twenties and that he took care of him until he died.  Again, this is endearing to me as I’d like to be with a man who is capable of, and willing to give, such care.  He then tells me that he believes this is why he’s still single, because he didn’t date much in his twenties, yet, he’s now in his forties.  Hrmm.  I wonder at this.

In our next conversation, we’re sharing a few jokes back and forth.  It’s evening.  I ask him if he’d like to talk and say that I would really like to hear his voice.  He goes silent.  He ghosts.  In the morning, he says he didn’t see my message because he put his phone on the charger in his kitchen and went to bed.  However, he didn’t end the conversation in any way before doing so.

Then, he tells me that he’s awoken to a flooded apartment.  I’m sympathetic.  I’ve had this happen to me and I tell him so.  I wish him luck with the plumbers.

A few days later my phone chimes.  Xander calls me beautiful and says he hopes my weekend has been a good one.  We text a bit, nothing big.  I suggest a virtual date.  He’s weird about it and tells me that he’s introverted and isn’t good at connecting with people that he hasn’t really had a chance to get to know.  I think that that’s exactly what I’m hoping to do.  Instead of saying so, I tell him that I understand and that I’ll imagine meeting him on some lovely future evening. 

The truth is, while I want to understand, I’m skeptical.  Is he that socially awkward or is he in quarantine with someone that doesn’t know he’s chatting with me?  Either way I’m not really into it anymore.

Our text becomes a sporadic dribble.

After a few weeks, he sends me a picture of an x-ray.   He says that he has a fractured vertebrae.  I think of how he was running, seemingly normally, over these past weeks.  I mention this and ask what happened.  He doesn’t offer a sensational story of injury, but tells me it just came on suddenly.  I express my sympathies and wish him luck with the surgery and recovery.  He goes on to tell me that during the last surgery he had the doctor removed the wrong organ.  THE WRONG ORGAN.  WTF?!?  I ask about this and he’s nonchalant. 

I’m very much feeling like he’s telling me increasingly more dramatic tales to solicit my sympathy.  Cue the gown photo.  I haven’t heard from him in weeks and I choose not to respond.

Is Xander is catfish?  Most of this makes me heavily suspect that he is.  If not, is he seeking sympathy or trying to set up the kind of emotional drama that underpins a push-pull dynamic?  Or, is he just awkward?  I don’t know.  The one tidbit that keeps me wondering is that he took the initiative to ask me out and plan a date before quarantine started. 

Is he too socially awkward to speak to someone on the phone that he hasn’t met?  Maybe.  Was he just looking for someone to occupy the week of vacation he had?  Is he really married and his wife was out of town that week?  Both maybes.  Was the date an elaborate catfish set up that would’ve ended with me being stood up?  Again, maybe. 

Who knows?  I don’t. 

What I do know is that it’s possible to talk on the phone, to video conference, to play an online game or watch the same movie from different locations.  It’s also possible to go for a walk or a picnic outside.  I don’t want to spend this year in endless solitude.  Yes, I know I need to act responsibly, but there are ways to have a socially-distanced date.

Is it possible to find love in a time of Covid?  I actually think it is and I hope to.  Maybe Xander was a catfish, maybe he wasn’t.  Either way, he didn’t give any sustenance to nourish my fledgling affection.