Dean and I have been together for a little over six weeks, but our relationship is in over-drive. He reworked his walk-in closet by purchasing a closet organizer from The Container Store so that I now have use of half of it. We have keys, extra sets of clothing, and toiletries at each others’ places. He’s meeting my family this weekend. I’m meeting his family next weekend.
Then I found out he was still on Match.com.
I found out late at night after he had called me drunk from his favorite neighborhood bar. I tried calling him immediately, but knew I wouldn’t be able to reach him. He’d already said he was wasted and wanted to call me before passing out.
Here is how it played out over email.
Email from Catherine to Dean
Subject: very important
you totally lied to me.
you said you got off match.com and clearly you did not. i find it completely humiliating to have a friend tell me that your profile is still active on the site. dean, i don’t even know what to say. i didn’t even know how to respond.
i am so infuriated and sad and hurt. i would like to make up some drastic excuse like i’ve come down with pneumonia or something to that sort to cancel the party. i cannot imagine going through with it.
i wish i could call you now and confront you, but i know you’re drunk and probably won’t even answer the phone. i don’t even know where you are. i can’t even trust you anymore.
whatever you say—it’ll just be an excuse.
if you still wanted to search around and meet other people, why did you get so serious with me? i feel totally taken advantage of.
i don’t get it. i thought you really cared about me.
i’m going to cancel the party in the early afternoon and say i’ve come down with something. let me know if you think there is a better way to handle.
———————-
I didn’t sleep that night. I took an Ambien, but still tossed and turned after waking up a few hours later. I watched my digital clock flicker minute by minute.
In the morning, I blasted this text:
I sent you an email late last night. I am breaking up with you.
No response. On the verge of losing it, I called him.
“Hi baby. Why are you so mad? I couldn’t return your calls last night because I was drunk. Why do you think I called you before passing out? I’m on my way to work now.”
“Dean, why are you still on Match? I saw that you logged on a few days ago. You are an asshole and I never want to talk to you again. I’m breaking up with you. We’re totally done.”
“Baby, baby, baby. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear to you I am not on Match, I cancelled my subscription after I met you. I swear!”
“FUCK YOU! You can check it out yourself. You’re still active. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.” I hung up on him.
Email from Dean to Catherine
Baby, I am so sorry. I just got to work myself. Please believe me that I cancelled my subscription. I am going call them right now and get you an answer. No lies; I swear! I love you and do not want to be with anyone else. I am really sorry that you had to go through this.
I’ll email you straight away with an explanation after my call to match.
Email from Catherine to Dean
1. what is wrong with going onto the site if you cancelled your membership? just check it out. you’re active so what’s the big deal. see for yourself.
i want you to think about this scenario:
ed calls you up and says, “your girlfriend is still active on match.” and you’re like, no way, i don’t believe it. and you log in with ed’s username and password and you search nerdyvixen and see that not only is she active, she was just on the site recently. wouldn’t you feel caught off-guard?
2. i don’t know why you can’t just forward me your cancellation. it’s very simple. i will do it right now. very easy. clearly, you cannot do the same.
Follow-up emails from Dean to Catherine
Hold on. I am trying to locate their number without going to the website. Ask yourself about my behavior. I am completely into you and want to be with you all the time. Does this sound like a guy who is on match? Not at all. Give me a minute to prove it.
I just got off the phone with match.com and I have an explanation and proof. It turns out that I cancelled my subscription online, but match kept my profile up (without my knowledge). They are taking it down, sending me an email with all the information. I promise. I love you! You are all that I think about!
I think this is an excellent opportunity to build trust… especially, when everything looks bad. I want you to believe in us… no matter what. Personally, this is something that I am working on.
I can totally see things from your vantage point and I know you’re are handling this better than I would be. I’m still waiting for their email. I’m going to call them again.
I know that you had a hard night and completely understand how you could think I was fooling around. It’s unfortunate. Yet, good news! I wasn’t. You’re going to have to let this go at some point, so we can go back to being in love. I just completed my third call to match in an hour.
End of emails
Is it April Fool’s Day? Not yet, but this might as well have played out on April Fool’s Day given the nonsense and hilarity of it all.
I was extremely upset. I was emotionally and phyically wiped out from not sleeping and crying all night long. My boyfriend was still on Match. Yet he was declaring innocence.
We—no joke—got on a conference call and called Match together.
“Thank you for calling Match.com, my name is Christina, how can I help you today?”
“Hi Christina, my name is Dean Barbella. Can you confirm for me when I cancelled my Match subscription?”
“Yes, sir, can you give me your user name and your social security number?…Ok, it looks like you cancelled on March 2nd.”
I stepped in. “Hi, this is Dean’s girlfriend. If he cancelled on March 2nd, you would have kicked off an email confirming his cancellation, is that right? Dean can’t seem to produce that cancellation for me.”
“No, not necessarily. It depends on if he checked the radio button to have an email sent. If he can’t produce the email, then we probably never sent him one, but I can confirm that he did cancel on March 2nd.”
“Ok, another question. If he cancelled on March 2nd, why is it that last night when I looked on the site, he was not only active, it also showed that he had logged on within the past three days.”
“Well, that means, he logged onto the site.”
“See, Dean. Like Christina is saying, you logged onto the site. Why would you be logging into the site unless you want to scope out other chicks, huh? I mean, you already know that I got off Match, so it’s not like you’re looking to communicate with me.”
“Wait one second. Hold off. I don’t know why it showed I logged onto the site. Maybe I accidentally clicked on the site through a bookmark. Baby, I don’t know. Christina, please, take a look and tell my girlfriend that the last email I would have sent would have been to NerdyVixen. Please, tell my girlfriend. There’s no way I’ve been emailing anyone else.”
“Well, sir, we don’t have the audit trail to see who you sent your last email to since it’s been more than ten days, but I can confirm that when you last logged in, you did not send an email or wink at anybody.”
“See, baby, I love you. I promise you I’m not trying to find anyone else. I swear. You’re the only girl I’m thinking about. Forever. It’s me and you forever. I promise.
“Ok, is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“No, I think that’s it. Thank you for your help with this. Baby, I’ll call you later after work, ok. I love you.”
“Thank you for calling Match.com.”
if it’s worth having, its not easy. you leave yourself vulnerable in any meaningful relationship. hang in there.