By September of this year I had been a member of a dating site for several months. The previous summer I went on dates with a few different girls from NYC (where I had been living) whom I'd met on the dating website. Nothing took off but I didn't lose hope.
Then I received a message from a woman who appeared to be a qualified candidate. She was a pre-med student at Columbia and had a good doctor personality. I sort of have a thing for women doctors.. She was from the same neighborhood where I lived for 6 years near my college. We were genuinely surprised we didn't meet before or have mutual friends. We even shopped at the same obscure food market.
The following weekend we met for dinner. We had sushi and the date went smoothly with no lack of conversation. She had a couple of quirks, but ones I could live with. As we finished dinner, I thought our date went well overall and was looking forward to calling her about a second date during the week. However, she made sure to secure a second date with me before the bill arrived. Fond of the personal initiative, I proposed we do something that I had in mind. I have excellent second date ideas no one would ever turn down. First dates are just for screening purposes.
We planned to message during the week on Facebook because it was more laid back than the dating website, where you send "intimate messages." When I looked at her profile, I could only view some of her info, 10 profile pictures, and couldn't see her wall because she applied austere privacy settings. I figured she was either a private person until she gets to know people or was afraid I would be distasteful enough to broadcast the fact that we were now dating on her wall to others.
I called my parents on the phone the next Saturday and mentioned there was a girl I had went out on a date with a week before and it went well. I told them her name, I intended to see her again, and that we had been messaging through Facebook. My parents are cool people and I'm generally open with them about what's going on in my life. They also got Facebook accounts recently, which began a pattern of wall messages from my mother that she apparently didn't notice I was deleting -- lets take one I remember: "Hi, my oldest son! How are you doing? Haven't talked to you all week. Hope all is well at work. Talk soon, Love, Mom" -- perfectly innocuous and devoid of substance, but not the sort of thing you want your friends from college to read on your Facebook wall. So when I was on the phone with Mom, I asked as kindly as possible that she not write anything about that on my wall nor message the girl since she now knew her name. She said "of course sweetie, I would never do that," and we moved on in the conversation.
The night before our second date, I phoned just to touch base and make sure we were still on. Before she responded about whether we still had plans, she said there was something she wanted to mention to me. My mother messaged her on Facebook! I asked if she was sure it was my mother, trying to give my mom the benefit of the doubt and feel the waters. "Yea, she messaged me. I just thought you might want to be aware. It's just little weird, you know.." I apologized for my mother and tried to explain that she doesn't always stay seated in her rocker. "Its okay, it was actually a very nice message, I just wasn't sure if you knew... By the way, I don't really think I have time to meet tomorrow because I have a lot of schoolwork right now." It was the first week of classes. Then came the "don't call me, I'll call you" thing.
I called my mom the next night. It was a tough thing to bring up because I don't like to criticize the actions of people close to me, nonetheless those of my mother. Ultimately, I had to de-friend my Mom on Facebook. I knew she frequently visited my Facebook page and looked at my pictures, but it was necessary to avoid future mishaps.
Then I de-friended the woman on facebook I had went on a date with. I know it's pretty weird when you date someone once whose mother contacts you for no reason, but if you can't deal with my crazy mother you probably need to expand your comfort zone. I never did find out what exactly Mother wrote to her, but I am happy not knowing so I don't have to cringe as much at the memory.
