Tales from the dark side

A cautionary tale. Details have been changed or omitted to protect the guilty.

I met a dancer at a bar who was really hot and also really sweet. Good looking, smart, a good conversationalist. She was a grad student part time, and dancing to help pay her way through school. She lived by herself, locally, and seemed very level headed. Really pretty, but in an innocent, not super slutty way. We talked a lot, she never really pressed me for anything. Our LDs were pretty innocent too, lots of making out, but no sex. I really liked her.

I let her have my number and email, but never pressed her to call, and she never gave me her number. Then eventually she emailed me, and asked me to see her at the club. Then she eventually asked me to see her OTC.

After a while, though, I started to get a little concerned. Some of her stories weren't making sense or matching up. Her email address allowed me to figure out her actual name, and being a cautious guy, I looked her up using an internet seach engine. It checked in some sense -- there was someone with the right name in the right area, and some details matched. But other details did not match. Certain relatives she talked about didn't exist. Her age was off by 3 years -- not a lot, but given how significant her age was at certain points of her "life story," the fact that that detail didn't match was troubling.

Then she called me with a mini "crisis" and wanted my help. I obliged, and it was not a big deal, and the problem was easily resolved. She asked and I agreed to go out to dinner, and we had a very nice evening together. No sex, just a pleasant dinner. Again, as we talked more and more things didn't make sense, she seemed to have a real problem handling her money in particular, though she put all that down to the cost of attending grad school. Still, in person she continued to seem normal, sensible, level headed. But I had an underlying sense of unease. She was clearly lying about certain things, even stupid things, but why?

Then I started getting a series of text messages from her. Saying her boyfriend found out about her calls to me, was really upset, was kicking her out, she was going to be homeless, etc. I try to find out the problem, to no avail. Then the boyfriend starts texting me, saying he is going to beat her, etc. I explain, truthfully, that I had not done anything sexual with her, had no designs on her.

Finally, the boyfriend calls me and we talk directly. According to him, he is not her boyfriend, but her husband. He knows she's a dancer, so I explain what happened, that I had only helped her out in a jam, we hadn't done anything, not even in the club (which was true). But it turns out the real problem is this. She's a major junkie, and was in the hospital on an overdose. That's why she can't handle her money. That's why he found out about the phone calls -- because he looked at her phone when she was in the hospital.

Who the hell knows, of course, where the truth lies in all this? Suffice to say, I am feeling lucky I had not done anything further than go out to dinner with her. I am sure I am not out of the woods on this yet, I will probably be the recipient of more weird messages or calls. But at least I know the general nature of the problem I am dealing with, and what I need to do to avoid any greater entanglement.

No big moral to the story. Obviously, desperate people will do and say desperate things. But certainly when your flags are raised and your BS detector is dinging, it is probably a good idea to trust your instincts and proceed with caution.