Date #16 "The 4th Date"

So Date #16 changed his mind and insisted we go out - he even picked me up - but I made it clear that I would pay for my own dinner to which he was verbally grateful (sigh).  I put a frock on and he took me to a Thai Restaurant in Ponsonby.  On the way there I did tease him about a few things and I guess I didn't realise that it could have upset him but he didn't say anything.  An example was when we were searching for a park and he tooted at a carload of girls in front of him for going too slow while pulling out from a give way and yelled out the window "go!" or whatever at them...  I was honestly embarrassed and told him so.  Another time was when he told me to stop talking while he was reversing into a park (parallel parking) and he said he wasn't good at reversing and had to concentrate.  I teased him saying we all have our little quirks... but meant nothing by it.  By the time I got out of the car he had crossed the road and it was clear that there was something wrong.  I said "are you OK?" and after the second time he said that if I asked him that again he was going to blow up at me.  So we walked largely in silence up to the restaurant as I was a bit taken aback by the change in direction the date was now going.

After the exhausting afternoon with my toddler I just felt like crying to be honest, but he made small talk and we seemed to make a recovery enough to enjoy our meal together.  Most beautiful green thai curry I've had in a long time.  A trip to the supermarket after that was uneventful as we walked arm in arm or hand in hand.  With the weather clearing up and it still relatively early he suggested we light the bonfire anyway so I bought a bottle of wine.

It was back in the car on the way home that things started to unravel again.  We had started a conversation about sex and condoms and in the space of maybe 20 seconds he informed me that he had diabetes, that it affected his performance and followed this with a defensive comment that I now can't remember - but said it all quite angrily which made my eyes go wide with surprise and was totally lost for speech apart from perhaps stating "Oh my gosh!"  which I think he misunderstood as my reaction to the information he had just given me but was in fact the reaction to the sudden blurting of this information followed by an angry defensive comment made at me.  All I could say was "you just told me all of that in 20 seconds and that's a lot of information to process all at once!" but I don't think he understood still and started to have a go at me for the way I reacted. Then said that he'd been "biting his tongue" all night bringing up the incidence of tooting at the girls in the car and said that I was critical and over-react to things or make a big emotional drama out of stuff that is unimportant.  His rant continued and he started to speak down to me like a child, suggesting that I was emotionally immature compared to him and lacked some intelligence in this department.  He started sounding very much like a cross parent giving me a lecture for behaving very badly and started to say that he was taking me home.  Mostly I was in shocked silence.  He went on about how I had made him feel bad and that he didn't like who he was with me, that he hated conflict and that I had some major flaws in my personality.  From memory, my responses were to tell him that he was speaking down to me like I was a child and it came across as very arrogant.  He agreed with me but said it was the only way he could talk to me.  He said he was very angry and that he was not going to change his tone.  If I wanted to talk about it, then he was going to continue using an angry tone of voice because he was very angry.  I mumbled something about understanding that he felt criticized and how I hadn't any intention of doing that - to which he had a go at me for assuming I knew how he felt!  The conversation seemed to point to the fact that I had "brought this all on" by poking at him (by the teasing).  So I apologized for that - and by the third time he seemed to accept it and calm down and we were heading to his place for the bonfire.

Now before you think I am absolutely crazy for going to his place for the bonfire, I have in my defence two things:  First, I was a little bit tipsy from the wine.  Second, I have been accused of similar things by my husband and it is actually something about my personality that I wanted to work on - so despite his reaction I paid attention to what he was saying for this reason.  However, you have to understand that I was feeling uneasy and concerned.  He said to me that we needed to talk about it and resolve it but that he was feeling very sick due to the bag of lollies he'd just eaten (being Diabetic).

By now we were on Scenic Drive.  Now if you know anything about Scenic Drive, you will know that it is not well-lit open road.  Date #16 went around the roundabout and started on the stretch along Scenic Drive.  Just before a curve in the road he started complaining about the car behind tailgating us and then suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the road with 5 or more cars backing up behind him and just sat there.  I can't remember what I said apart from "What are you doing?" and covering my eyes.  He started ranting about the "boy racer" behind him tailgating and then yelled out the window "PASS YOU CUNT!"  bearing in mind that he could not safely pass since we were right before a corner and there were no passing lanes and Scenic Drive is not only windy but often narrow as well.  It felt like several minutes passed and I cannot tell you how terrified I was in that moment because the whole scene felt like sheer lunacy and after the rants that he'd been on prior to this I had no idea what this man was capable of but I wanted out.  With my eyes still covered as he finally started moving, he started to try and reassure me not to be scared as if I was scared of the boy racers behind me but I said to him that I was terrified and that I wanted to be dropped off at the beach which we were not far from.  He said he would turn around and drop me off at Titirangi shops and started ranting at me again about how I was f-ing psycho and that I had been playing mind games with him all night.  He said that he didn't want me to say anything about him to anyone (he meant on the dating websites because this has apparently happened to him before) and that he knew how to ruin my life if I did.  He said not to phone him up whimpering to come and get me and not to ever contact him ever again and that I was nuts that I wanted to be dropped off in the dark in the middle of nowhere but I said I would call my ex-husband to come and get me.  I assured him that I wouldn't contact him and asked that we just drive in silence till Titirangi but he didn't let up.  Totally frazzled I grabbed my things when we finally got to the shops and got out of the car and he drove away.  Searching my bag I immediately realised that I didn't have my mobile phone and it must have fallen out in the car.  I thought maybe I could use a pay phone but wasn't sure if they accepted coins so I approached some guys to ask for their phone and explained a bit.  They looked concerned but didn't immediately help me so I went across the road to the only remaining store open in the whole shopping centre, which happened to be a cafe that was closing and packing up.

After briefly explaining they kindly let me use their phone and I phoned my ex-husband and he told me he would come and get me.  While I waited, the staff talked to me about what happened and gave me a drink while I waited which was very kind of them.  Titirangi is like that - had I been dropped off in another Auckland suburb I could well have been in very big trouble without a phone and without a car.

My ex-husband was angry at me for getting myself into a mess but good about it and drove to Date #16's house in the hope that he could pick up my phone for me.  The lights in his house were on but the moment my ex knocked on the door the lights seemed to go out and my ex-husband decided that it was all madness at that time of night and he'd try and pick it up the next day.

The next day I got these emails:

"I take it that you left your phone in my car to cause me further trouble.  It'll be on a courier on Monday to your house.  Don't contact me again" followed by "I refuse to believe that you sat there talking to your friend and did not see me while I stood in front of you at my gate holding your phone up asking you to get out and come and get it. The games you play are ridiculous.  Courier on Monday. Tough luck if you need it before then, I don't want you at my house again."

Then I got a phonecall on my landline with him offering to bring my phone over to my house.  I said to him that my ex-husband was wanting to pick it up from him that morning.  At that point he asked me why I couldn't see him in the dark waving at us while our headlights were on and that he'd thrown the phone at us and we'd nearly driven over it as we drove away.  My ex believes that we definitely would have seen him (despite the dark) and personally I think that he turned the lights out the moment he heard a knock at the door because he was scared and didn't want to have his 5'6" self meet with my 6'2" husband and so came up with this half-baked story.  But who knows.  Anyway he said he didn't want a scene and said he'd bring the phone to me but I said I didn't want him to come over.  His reply was then "F- you then, and f- your phone" and hung up.

A bit later my ex tried to call him several times on both landline and mobile but there was no reply or he rejected the call.  Finally a text message came through asking that we stop calling him and the phone was in the post.  In his text message he suggested that I "go and practice my insanity somewhere else."  He has blocked me on facebook, via email and everywhere else (which is fine with me!)  What is astonishing about the whole thing is the way that he treated me as though I were the one behaving insanely!  My ex-husband laughed at the whole story (as well as being angry at him obviously) and said he was a lunatic.

So I either get my phone back in the post hopefully, or else have to write it all off as a bad experience.

Since the ordeal, I have had time to think about it naturally.  We once talked about our personalities and he said to me that he was the Myers Briggs personality type ENTP.  If you look that personality type up here:  http://typelogic.com/entp.html it described Date #16 very well.  But there are a few more things that I'd have to add about him.  One is that he is extremely sensitive to criticism and that tells me that there's some insecurity issues there.  The other is that he is very controlling and domineering and even admitted that to me during our argument in the car.  Based on his personality-type I'm thinking the argument was like a game to him that he was going to win no matter what, even if it meant that he had to completely dominate me into submission psychologically.  I don't know if that makes any sense to you as I can assure you it was confusing for me - I have not met a personality like this before - but I certainly felt like I was caught up in a mind game with someone who was very clever but clearly also had issues with his temper (despite denying it) and could not be trusted.

With my profiles on all dating sites now closed or deleted thus ends my internet dating journey at this point.