Confusion

Okay, what? That was pretty much my reaction to a text message I received yesterday afternoon. I don’t like that I keep blogging about internet dating – this post being no exception – but what happened to me yesterday was strange enough that it warrants a mention.

I’d been talking to a couple of girls online a few days ago. One was older and a writer, the other was younger and sounded like more outgoing. Both seemed nice. I haven’t spoken to the former since that night but I have spoken to the latter. She seemed pretty interested in me, asking for my phone number and giving me hers. I sent her a text message the next day asking her if she’d meet me for coffee somewhere. Her reply came back that she didn’t want to have coffee; instead, she invited me over to her place to watch some TV and a movie. I was a little surprised that she’d invite me back to her house before we’d even met but I told her I’d be there. She sent me her address, told me what time to get there and that was that.

A few hours later, about an hour before I was supposed to get to her house, I got this message: “Hey, I should probably tell you that I have a boyfriend. It’s cool if you don’t want to see me”. What? Did I read that correctly? Is the girl who approached me on a dating site, spent hours talking to me online, and then invited me around to her house, telling me that she’s not single? I sent her a message back telling her I didn’t really understand what was going on. Her explanation was that she’d met the guy a few days earlier (on the same dating site) and they were now together. But she was still inviting me over to her house. Needless to say, I was pretty darn confused. Still, I figured that I had nothing to lose by going and meeting her (especially given that I had no other plans for my Saturday night) so I told her I’d still come around. I also thought that if I met her in person I might be able to ask her exactly what she was looking for on a dating site if she’d already found a boyfriend.

I parked my car on her street and began looking for the house number. It didn’t exist. There was no house bearing that number. I began to think that I was being toyed with, perhaps by a fifteen year-old boy posing as a girl on the net as a practical joke. I dialed her number to make sure. A girl answered (so far so good) and I told her I was looking for her house and it didn’t appear to exist in the physical realm. Apparently, she’d given me the wrong house number by mistake. She gave me the right one (a very different number than the one she’d originally given me) and I walked down the street to her house.

I buzzed at her front gate and she came downstairs to let me in. She took me upstairs where we walked past her parents, neither of whom seemed to see me and neither of them acknowledged me, and we went into her room where we were joined by her two dogs. She sat down on her bed and invited me to do the same. So, we ended up lying on her bed watching TV. We hardly spoke. I wondered why she’d invited me around and I wanted to ask her why she was still using the dating site if she still had a boyfriend. But I didn’t. I just sat there watching TV and then she put on a movie. I asked her a couple of questions in an attempt to initiate some sort of conversation but she didn’t seem to want to talk.

Halfway through the movie she asked if I was hungry and went downstairs to make us dinner. She came back with a couple of plates of pasta and we ate in silence as we watched TV. It wasn’t a tense silence, it sort of felt comfortable in a way, but I was rather perplexed by the situation. I didn't know if she was shy or whether she just preferred the silence. We finished our dinner and the movie ended but we still didn’t really start talking. She had to go out somewhere so I told her I’d get going. But before I did I told her I was a little confused that she asked me over when she had a boyfriend. Her reply was that she’d met the guy a few days earlier, they’d hit it off and they were now going out. She told me she thought I was a nice guy and that she still wanted to meet me. Perhaps it was just me but that didn’t really compute. We’d met on a dating site. She knew I was looking for a girlfriend and not just friendship (as are most users of dating websites). I didn’t say any of that to her, of course, I just politely thanked her for dinner, put on my shoes and headed for the front gate. She then said goodbye, told me she really enjoyed my company and asked me to text her tomorrow.

I left not knowing what just happened. I still don’t know what happened. Why would anyone do that? Can anyone enlighten me?