Was he for real? First how was my cover blown and second “get my shit together” if I could get my shit together I wouldn’t be online looking for a diversion from my shit! I called him immediately and started spewing off at the mouth on how he doesn’t know me, he doesn’t know anything about me and just because he knows my favorite color is purple and purple tulips make me feel better does NOT mean he knows me. And then it hit me. No one really knew me. They only knew what I showed them and if you were a guy I tried desperately to only show the bright and shiney parts. You didn’t know the horror, the heartache, the turmoil I’ve been through. You didn’t know what made me who I was. You didn’t know the struggle the sheer terror or physical pain I’ve gone through. You knew I was 5’9″, 116 lbs., long brown hair and brown eyes. You knew about as much about me as the DMV. And even they knew if I was an organ doner! I was livid. Mostly because I was hurt and partly because I was caught. I thought I was so clever. Apparently the only one I was fooling was myself. The main reason I was so mad was because he was right. I was using him, I did want a diversion and I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I was a joke and I felt like a fool. I deleted his number once I got off the phone. I also deleted my online profile. I did not have the thick skin needed to online date. It was like auditioning for Broadway and all I’d done is amateur night. I was not emotionally ready for all the rejection. Online dating was hard core and as bad ass as I thought I was I would look in the mirror and still just see a girl. Like in Knotting Hill, a girl standing in front of a boy asking for him to love her. How could anyone love me when I didn’t love myself and when I couldn’t let anyone in? What if they found out I don’t have everything under control? What if they realized I was just as insecure as everyone else? What if I was so transparent that they would see the real me and not the me I was pretending to be? I couldn’t handle that. I was not emotionally ready and jolly guy knew it and called me on it. He pissed the hell out if me and somehow he made me respect him at the same time. I knew I had screwed up. I knew that I would probably never hear from him again. And I didn’t blame him. He was very upfront, he said he was looking for a relationship. He says he was ready to settle down. He said he was looking for the “real” thing. I was none of those things. I was certainly not the real deal cause I wasn’t being real. Not to him, not to myself. I wanted to wish my history away. I wanted to wave a magic wand and make the torture of my every day disappear. I wanted jolly guy to not see through me. But he did. And at the end of August, nearly six weeks after we started talking…he was gone. Just like that. Or was he?