"Manti Te'o
acknowledged to ABC's Katie Couric that he maintained the illusion of his dead
girlfriend in the weeks after he received a call claiming that Lennay Kekua and
her death were hoaxes,"
according to a CNN
article.
Of course, this could
never happen to you, right? WRONG! Every
time you are ONLINE led on by someone who's connecting with you, texting,
calling, and causing you to move into high hopes and big expectations, you're re
MAN-TIED. Oh how our imagination works! It's supposed to when we want to fall in love.
Take Kate. Educated, good-looking, independent woman
friend. Mr. X responds to her
profile. They appear to hit it off. Kate has
been looking for MR. #1 for a while. Lots of dead ends, goofballs, idiots,
liars and some rebuffs. Some desperation. She's quite happy when this one seems on be on
track. But Logical Kate knows logically it's
nothing more than a connection. What she
doesn't know that she'd more delighted than she may know. Her brain is in need
of a good boost of happy neurotransmitters. They rush out and make her happy
but they are not done with her. Her
reward center, the one that is connected to love, sex and desire is switching
on.
Kate and Mr. X begin
texting one another. Back and forth they
bat cute comments and quips. "We're
so much alike," she says to me at dinner. While she is thinking she might have just
discovered her other half, I want to bleat, "What do you except? Do you think he'll tell you he doesn’t like
romantic flicks?
He's in Panama digging
the canal and they can't yet meet. He's
collecting insects for a research project.
He doesn't like the phone. Her
comment, "He's an intellect." My thoughts? Can't make himself available, travels a lot and
bugs, the bug thing is a turn off. "Does
he know that you call the exterminator for fruit flies?"
Three weeks go by and
she has callouses on the finger tips. X is wonderful, considerate, and funny. She's imagining his home, the smell of the
blueberry pancakes she knows he's cooking.
She pulls up his profile and tells me to read a line she's intrigued by.
"I like the ordinary, I find consolation in the ordinary events of
the day, a butterfly on a flower, the morning dew on a blade of grass—oh war is
not me!"
"He's deep; he
doesn't seem to need a lot to make him happy." Here is what I hear. Ordinary.
Who doesn't appreciate the simple things? And who the hell would say "I like the
complicated things in life. And that war
thing? Where did that come from? Day by day imaginary boyfriend grows larger
than life and they're imaginarily traipsing through her mind and imagination. Suddenly
Walt Whitman-Alan Ginsburg is going on hikes with her; she'll bring brie and
wine. He likes Pinot Noir. "I'm going to take X to the nature conservatory,
what do you think? "There's the new
art exhibit in town, German Expressionism.
I felt like Munch's The Scream,
and I did. "This guy isn't real—you've
never met him!"
It's week four. Suddenly X's opinions matter. "So today, X, said that there is going
to be a wheat shortage in Italy and the price of pasta will soar." as a consummate Italian, normally a
pasta-world-crisis would pull me out of a deep sleep. I look at her. "Since when is X a part of
your opinions?
"You know, we’ve been
talking for over a month. It's like we've
been on thirty dates."
"If you had really
been on thirty, dates, made it to thirty dates, you'd be having great sex,
wonderful meals, holding hands and spooning as you planned moving-in, a honeymoon
or a vacation. You'd know his family,
kids, and all his nuances.
Nuances? Yes, the shit that can make it our break
it. The throat clearing, nasal spray he
just have to use—and God forbid the wandering eye.
'Wandering eye?"
"My friend Bunny
dated a guy with wandering eye. She couldn't tell from the camera shot, his eye
had a three second fix point but then it would move off to the side. She had to
take Dramamine just to follow his conversations.
"Whew, you got me worried."
Said Kate. "I was thinking about the other
wandering eye, you know the kind of guy who can't focus on you and as
you're talking, he looks off and follows some bouncing ass across the room.
"Oh, he had that
too, In fact I think that's how got it—eye torsion, he was the worst cheat."
Week five. Imaginary boyfriend is stalled in the
amazon. No contact for three days. I was
waiting for him the send her the ransom note looking for money. I packed her and her vodka up and we went to
my house for the weekend. An artic storm hit and the power went out. She sat in my snowbound car charging the
phone and waited for her imaginary boyfriend to respond.
"I sent him five
texts today and he hasn't answered! Do
you think that's too many? I mean after all he could be kidnapped, he could be
sick, I'm just concerned."
"No you're
desperate."
My friend was man-tied. Her
emotions were Shanghaied. It could have been deliberate; he could have
been pranking her. Or he could have been
living out a pseud relationship just to have semi-phone sex and a feeling he
was really dating. Dabble-dating, a
form of flirting. Anytime anyone amps up
your amorous expectations and doesn't come through you are Mantied. T'o-ed.
RULE: Keep texts and emails brief, unemotional, light and to the
point. Unless you want an imaginary friend,
you need to meet. If they can't, you ask
them when they think they will be back from Mount Everest, the golf tour, digging
in Egypt and say, "I will contact you again when you are free." Don't stray.
Don't be weak. Don't succumb to
keeping even a light contact.
Why would you do that-desperation? You think he'll find another love if you snap
the chord. Well, consider this a
test. A serious guy will want to get
down to business sooner than later.
Did friend ever meet
him? Yes. After months imaginary boyfriend showed
up. He had a voice like Mr. Rogers. Yes, the
Mr. Rogers. The man with the Kids TV
show. And he was wearing a cardigan.
