Ask Elisa Podcast

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

It’s another Dating Storytime episode of Ask Elisa, and I’m here with Hilary, who has a crazy story to share. Thank you for coming to tell us this story, Hilary. Absolutely.

I love telling this story. It’s one of the wild, I think it’s one of the wildest things that ever happened to me. It was something that made a lot of my friends very thankful that they were in happy marriages and not in the dating scene.

So, yeah, I dated a lot outside of my, not outside of my marriage. After your marriage. Yeah, after my marriage.

I was creeping around, though. After my marriage, I dated a lot, and I feel like I’m drawn to people from other places, if that makes sense. So like a lot of people that I met, they’ve lived other places or have other experiences.

I just feel like we have a lot to learn about each other and share. And so, one time I matched with this woman, we’ll call her A, and- Like on Pretty Little Liars? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, you’ll never know. Get her secret. Exactly.

I cannot keep it. Okay, I’m glad that you know Pretty Little Liars. Yes.

No, I, yeah. I’d like to say I watched it to relate to my students, but that’s not the case. I watched it for myself, and I was like, anyone else watch Pretty Little Liars? Oh, none of you? Okay.

Okay. Me neither. Top tier drama.

And also just- Riverdale too. Oh, I haven’t watched Riverdale. Okay.

I started watching it ironically, because my youths were watching it, and then I was like hooked. And I was like, this is embarrassing. It’s Riverdale, but yeah.

So I matched with this woman, her, we’ll call her A, and she, so at the time I was living in Tacoma, and she, that’s a lie, I was living in Kent. I don’t know why I lied to you. How dare you? Yes.

Yes. Yes. And she was living, I’m going to say with what was told to me, which we learned was not actually the truth.

So this is what I was told and believed to be true. So I believed to be true that A was separated, getting divorced from her wife, who lived on the East Coast. A was from the East Coast, went to school in Texas.

But then had separated from her wife, and she was allegedly driving a camper around and just kind of like, almost like having like a study abroad year, right? Like moving around the US, living in other areas. Her job was something about like parts or something that she could do remotely. Ordering part, I don’t know.

Something about parts. I overheard like one work phone call, but. So in the camper park, RV park, was all the way up kind of like near Gold Bar, like way out.

Like Highway 2, like we’re talking like probably a good hour and a half drive from Kent. And so I was like, what, how is this going to work, right? Long term. Like it didn’t really seem like something that would be a long term thing, but we did it.

We had a couple of dates. So she, very first date, she drove down to Kent and we met at a restaurant and had a beer and dinner and talked. And it was a really good date and just like very like chill personality, easy conversation.

Things were good. I had said, you know, I’m divorced, recently divorced. My divorce had just gone through.

She was separated, working on the divorce. It takes a while. It’s like a process.

Right. So I was under the impression that like divorce paperwork had been filed. Okay.

And so we went on another date a little bit closer. So up in like Bellevue, which is, you know, a little bit up more of that area. Again, really good date.

Just really good vibes and energy. And we were texting a lot and messaging a lot. We weren’t saying like, we never were girlfriends.

We never made it official. But I felt like we were very much getting to that point where I’m like, okay, like, like we might make it official at some point. You were feeling good about things.

Yes. Very good. You liked her.

Yes. One of our dates, this lady had said, oh my gosh, you guys are so cute together. Like said that we had good energy together.

You know, I was like feeling it very good. And then I even went out to the campgrounds where she was staying. Met her dogs because she had two dogs with her.

And she cooked me dinner, all this stuff. It was great. Like we made out and it was good, right? Then probably like she had stayed at my house, my apartment one time.

And so like multiple dates have been like a couple of months now. And then I got a text really early one morning from a very random phone number. And the text was from A’s wife, current wife.

We can call her N. And N sent this really long text saying, hey, I’m A’s wife. I went through her phone. I felt like things were weird.

And I saw that you had been texting. Are you seeing each other? And I texted back. I said, call me whenever you want.

And so N called me and we had a very long conversation where I said, ask me anything you want. I answered every question. Girl’s girl.

100%. I said, let me screenshot some stuff for you. So I went through and I screenshot a bunch of stuff and sent it to her.

We had a little code too, where like I would send a raccoon and she would send back a croissant. It has to do with my tattoo. But it was kind of like, not like an I love you, but kind of an I love you, right? Like this meant like, kind of like I love you.

And I said, that’s what that means. So anytime you see that, like she sends that, like that’s what that means. And we had only taken one picture together.

I’m a big picture taker. I like to capture moments. And even in the time I was like, she doesn’t want to take a picture.

It’s kind of weird. We had one picture taken and I sent her that one picture and it was a great picture because we were both in bed together. So it was like, if I had any incriminating photo, like that would be it.

So I learned that she was not divorced. That the reason she’s traveling around the U.S. is that her current wife, who believed that they were fully monogamous, is a travel nurse, a NICU travel nurse. And had gotten a post somewhere, I think maybe in Bellevue.

And so while she’s working these long hours as a nurse, her wife is out there fucking around on her. And so I sent her all this stuff. I ended up finding out that there were even more people.

And I forget exactly how I remember this, how I learned of this, but I ended up meeting up with one of the other girls that A was talking to. We met up for drinks in Tacoma and just shared notes and had a conversation. And then I updated N, A’s wife, about a couple things that I learned from that too, just a little more ammunition.

And then A, very quickly after that, filed for divorce. She ended up falling, this is the best part of the story, she ended up falling in love with one of her other travel nurses. And they got married and now they’re having a baby.

Oh, and you’re still in touch. Yes. Yeah, we’re friends on Instagram and I think we follow each other on TikTok, but yeah, so she now has dodged that entire bullet and now is living this very happy life and gonna grow her family.

So it ended up working out well for everyone. Hopefully not for A, I wouldn’t know, but yeah, for a while, everything seemed great. Like I was getting sent coffee, which I love coffee, you send me coffee, I’m like hooked.

No one sends me coffee. Right? Well, you just need to find someone who is secretly cheating on their spouse. Every morning I ask one of my cats to make me coffee and they never do.

Can I brag a little bit? My fiance is a former Starbucks manager and loves making coffee, is so smart about coffee, did a special select training for whatever. She can be like, oh, that’s an Arabica, blah, blah, blah. But she often, including this morning, will make me coffee.

Like this morning I had a specialty, some sort of vanilla iced latte. So she made me, yeah. That’s really nice.

I know it worked out well for me too. When Jake’s here, he makes me coffee. We share the responsibility.

Yeah. Whoever gets up first basically makes the other one coffee. That’s perfect.

Yeah. As it should be. But I’m here by myself a lot of the time because we don’t live together, so it’s just, none of the cats learned how to press the button.

Actually, I think some of them could learn. Not my cats. They’re too dumb.

Yeah. That’s crazy that she was like juggling multiple people. Mm-hmm.

Wow. But it made sense why she didn’t want to take a photo. She said she didn’t have social media.

Oh. Turns out it was a lie. They always have social media.

Yeah. Just wild. Just wild.

Did she say why she didn’t have social media? Was she like, I just don’t like it or what did she say? She said, I’m just not really into it. Yeah. And to be fair, I did end up finding her Instagram eventually, and it didn’t seem like she took a lot of pictures.

But again, you probably wouldn’t and didn’t want to have it connected to yourself so much if that’s- It’s weird. Yeah. If you’re hooking up with other people.

Yeah. So she had a camper though at a campground. Yes.

Well, they were staying there together. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Ooh. So yeah.

She was a little bit out, and then her wife would go in and do her, I think it was more like you do two or three days where you’re kind of more or less staying at the hospital. But that was long, I imagine. Yeah.

Just a beautiful NICU nurse working hard, being a good person, and then dodging that bullet. You know, thank you for sharing this story because we so often just hear these stories about men being the cheaters and doing this kind of thing. So you know, women can be terrible too.

Feminism. Yeah. Women can be trash too.

Yep. Thank you. You’re welcome.

Okay. You have another story about somebody who threatened you. Yes.

You had once shared a story about talking to someone and sharing with that person that you were casually seeing other people, and that guy took it badly, right? Very similar thing happened to me. I went on a first date with this woman. Can I say the name? Yeah.

I’m going to say it. Rose, you psycho. Rose.

Rose. Jailbird. You know that? Which is so fun.

Right? I don’t know that one. Okay. No.

So I married the next murderer. It’s Rose. Oh, I’ve only seen that like when it was on VHS tape.

Oh my gosh. Sorry. I’m going to have to rewatch it though.

That’s old school. Mike Myers though. Yeah.

So I went on a first date with Rose. I love a dive bar. So we met- Yeah.

You’re from Bellingham. Just got to love a dive. So we met at a dive bar.

I feel like Bellingham also has a lot of dives. Yes. Oh, they have.

Yeah. Bellingham has really good dive bars. Waterfront is a good one.

Yeah. We met at this dive bar in Kent and had a couple of drinks. I should have known, this is kind of a judgment, I’m going to say it, I should have known there was a weird thing.

Her drink was like just melon liqueur, like Midori on ice. I’ve never met anyone who drinks Midori on ice. So I just was like, that’s a choice.

I don’t know. I’m just thinking about like the texture is like syrupy. Like syrupy.

Yeah. Gross. Yeah.

Like a melon syrup. Yeah. Ew.

Which is fine. I drink PBR. You know what I mean? I’m not- Yeah, but add some soda water to that.

Right. So I was just like, that’s interesting. So we had a date.

She dressed up for it by wearing a Seahawks jersey and a baseball hat. Very like, have you ever heard of like a Hey Ma lesbian? Hey Mama lesbian? No, but I love this. I’ll show you a picture.

It’s very, like very stereotypically. And honestly, I don’t mind. I like a little arrogance, especially if I’m not like wanting a relationship.

I think arrogance a little bit is attractive. So kind of had that like arrogant vibe, but we had a date. Things were fine.

I did say, let’s go to my apartment and hang out. So we went to go hang out and we made out a little bit. And then we were talking and she had asked me like, okay, so are you seeing anyone else? And I said, well, you know, I’ve been going on dates, yes.

And she found out, well, not found out, I told her that, because same thing, she was like, well, when was the last date that you went on? And I was like, well, actually yesterday. And she was like, oh, and kind of got a little quiet, but it was like, fine, so we had a conversation. But then, you know, she ended up leaving.

And then the next day, I texted like, hey, how are you doing? You know, nice seeing you and didn’t respond. So maybe like an hour later, I was like, you good, like, are you okay? And it was just this immediate like barrage of text messages, basically saying like, how can you say you want a relationship when you are dating all these people? You’re acting like a slut, all these things. And I was like, you, we don’t owe each other anything.

When I find someone I want to be in a relationship with, I will not be dating other people or sleeping with other people. We had one date, what’s going on, right? And then even challenging that, that sent her into a spiral to the point where the final message before I ended up like screenshotting and blocking was, you fucking bitch, I hope you crash your car in a ditch and die. I will, if I ever see you, I will kill you.

Oh my God. Like psychotic. That’s terrifying.

Because I was dating other people. You guys, women can be psycho killers too. Great.

You know, women on women and crime. Yes. So to the point where like, I had blocked her already on Tinder, which I should have waited to report the profile.

Yeah, I didn’t report the guy who did that to me too. Although he didn’t threaten to kill me. Lesson learned, I should have reported it and then blocked, but I included like the picture and phone number because you usually have to give a phone number and email when you register.

So, um, I was like, you need to get this person off your app. Like they are actually crazy violent. So, um, yeah, definitely dodged a bullet.

But from then on, never on a first date, even if it’s like a, let’s go back to my place. Never. Um, I actually have been seeing on threads like 911 operators saying never, never do a second location.

Yeah. Never do a second location. I am actually a proponent of secret second location when a date’s going well, but the second location is not your home and you drive separately.

So like, you know, if you, you, you make the first part. So if you, like you were saying with your, um, when you met your fiance and had your first date and you went directly to the comedy club and you were like wishing you could have talked more. So they wished you had dinner first or something.

I always try to make the first date a vibe check where you could sit and talk. And then the secret second location is if it’s going well to say, Hey, there’s a park nearby, we can go for a walk or, Oh, do you want to go bowling? Which I would never want to go bowling, but you know, do you want to get an ice cream? Yeah. Like have, have a little second, second thing in mind if you, especially if you think it’s going to go well and you’re excited about it and you, you would like to do more because if you, I don’t like planning those things because I don’t always want to stay on the first date.

Right. If the vibe check doesn’t go well, you don’t want to go to a second location. You don’t want to have a three-parter.

Yeah. And you, yeah. So if you have like a plan of somewhere to go, that’s not your home, but yeah, first I, the first time I had somebody come over without offer a first date, it was fine.

So when I did it the second time and it wasn’t, I mean, I didn’t get hurt or anything, but I really wish I hadn’t, I never did it again after that. It was that, that was the moment when I realized that my, I had to readjust my brain a little bit because I realized that before I went on a date with a man, I would screenshot, I would send the number, I would send a picture of the guy. This is where we’re going.

I would check in when I was done, let them know I was safe. But I never thought to do that when I would go on dates with women, like I didn’t have that fear of my safety until that moment. And then I started letting my friends know when I would go on dates with women as well.

But it was just a good reminder that, yeah, you know, I mean, you never know. Strangers are strangers. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Stranger danger, regardless of gender. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. I normally tell a story as well on a dating story time.

I think that I, I’ll tell a really quick one and you might have actually seen it on my TikTok, but I matched with a guy who we kind of had like a back and forth over a long period of time, but it was very slow going, which happens sometimes kind of depending on where you’re at in your life. And he was in grad school and he was finishing up grad school. So he was really busy with that.

So I was kind of just like, you know, I met him on match.com and I hated match.com. I wanted to delete it. And he was the last person that I had on there. So I was like, Hey, I’m going to delete match.

Do you want to go out or not? Yeah. You know? And he said, yes. And we, we were like, let’s go out tomorrow.

And I said, okay, well, here’s my number. I’m going to delete match. I’m deleting it now.

So I gave him my number, which normally now I, I don’t give my phone number until a first date goes well and I want them to have my phone number. But like that was maybe three o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday and we were going to meet for, um, like at a coffee shop at like one o’clock the next day, four o’clock my phone rings and it’s him and he calls me and I am like a true millennial. Don’t call me.

Don’t call me. I’m prompt. No cold calls.

No, thank you. Yeah. I don’t have your number saved.

I’m not answering. I don’t, I don’t want that. Um, I think I put it, I think I did know it was him.

So I answered it and I’m like, hello. And he just like called to talk and I was like, thank you. Like that’s very nice of you.

I appreciate it. I’m still working. I’m wrapping up my work day.

I will see you tomorrow. Yeah. So that was that.

I thought, you know, he’s, he’s interested. Yeah. And he was also like, you know, being a little, uh, more flirty and, um, kind of like calling me beautiful and that kind of stuff, which I normally don’t like, but he was a black man and often in black culture, like black men are just a little bit often more flirty like that.

And so it was, didn’t see, it seemed a little bit more like naturally a part of who they were. Exactly. It didn’t, it didn’t feel like an act.

It didn’t feel like an act. It didn’t feel icky. It didn’t feel like he was coming on way too strong, but the calling me immediately was like a little bit like, okay, I’ll, I’m going to meet you tomorrow.

It’s cool. Yeah. Um, love the enthusiasm.

Yeah, exactly. So I’m still thinking like, you know, he is a smart guy. He’s finishing his, um, master’s in social, social work or something like that, you know? So like totally my kind of guy and, um, and, and lived pretty close to me, which a lot of times in the Seattle area, you’re not like your people are 45 minutes to an hour away from you.

Yeah. So I am sleeping in on a lovely Saturday morning, like you get to do when you don’t have children and there’s nobody around. I was just sleeping.

That’s been great. My phone rings. It’s 8 45 in the morning, tis him, tis the man that I’m supposed to meet with at 1 PM calling me again.

He calls me and my, so my profiles always say that I’m, I’m silly. I’m the silly little goofball. I think might’ve might be a quote from, I don’t know if that was on that profile, but like I am, I’m silly.

I like to be silly. So he called me and he is drunk, still drunk from the night before and he’s being really silly and he’s just like, I thought you said you were silly. And I’m like, it is 8 45 on a Saturday morning.

And I’m taken aback that you call, you know, that you’re calling me. He’s kind of like giving me a hard time. And he, so he said that, you know, he was in his, he was 34 and I was 40 at the time.

He said that he went out with the younger people in his grad school class cause they just finished their finished. It was like the last day and he went out and he drank way more than he usually does and he’s still a bit drunk from the night before and it’s just so unattractive. Like don’t, what in his mind was like, I’m going to call this, this woman I haven’t met while I’m still drunk.

It was the, the, the boldness that alcohol gives you that it should, that you need to like have a little bit of a, a little bit of restraint around. And he was acting like I was being weird because I was, and I kept saying like, I just woke up, you woke me up. And I’m like, I’m going to see you at, I’m going to see you this afternoon.

You know, we hang out. And then a couple of hours later he texts me that he’s too hungover to meet and I said, that’s fine. We can reschedule.

He said, yeah, let’s reschedule. Neither of us ever texted each other ever again. I think though, I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I know, I think I kind of, I never texted him back at the, it was like, I think I dropped the ball and I had kind of unintentionally like ghosted him.

So a couple of weeks later I texted him and just said, Hey, I realized that, you know, I may have, I may have never like responded. I just hope you’re well and that things are going well for you. You know, like just kind of like, yeah, exactly.

Like I closed it out and he, and he responded nicely and said, thank you. And so I felt, I felt good about like just saying, Hey, I didn’t mean to ghost you. Cause I didn’t, if he had responded and said, let’s meet, I might, I might have still gone on a first date.

Cause I really believe that like a first date is not a commitment, you know, and like could have been a funny story of how, you know, what a, the bad decisions he made when we first met or something. Cause everything about him, he was, he seems to have a lot of, a lot of closeness with his family. And like, there was a lot of, there were a lot of green flags there.

So like, I don’t think he’s a bad guy, but he made this bad decision and I, I did not want to meet him after that, you know? But if he had said, Hey, I’m sorry, I want to meet you or like, I’m embarrassed or something, I still would have, I would have gone out with him. Well, especially like if you, you’re not a big drinker. Oh yeah.

I don’t drink at all. Yeah. So to have someone like still at nine in the morning, like that’s a lot for someone who, and I drink casually and that would be a lot for me.

I think. To still be drunk. Yeah.

That’s not a little bit. Maybe like. He was saying I couldn’t keep up with these kids, you know, like kind of.

But like. Part of the, part of the beauty of being an adult is knowing you don’t need to. Exactly.

Yeah. And even if they’re like, Hey, why are you being a little bitch? You know, or whatever. You’re like.

And I already. Just secure enough to know. Felt like I didn’t want to date somebody more than five years younger than me and he was six years younger than me.

So I already kind of was like, yeah, I don’t want to go that, that much younger. I haven’t had a lot of really, really crazy experiences. I mean, a handful of them for, for what? A year and a half of dating quite a, I think a good amount for a year and a half of dating before getting into a relationship, but it’s, it’s always interesting because human behavior is interesting.

Yes. Right. Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing your stories. I’m glad you’re safe. Stay away from Rose.

Yeah. I’ve never seen that. What would you do if you, I mean, at least, you know, they’re what, like Bellevue area or something.

So you’re there. Oh no. No Kent.

Oh yeah. I always wonder if I’ll like run into them, but I haven’t, so yeah. I don’t know if at this point they would recognize me.

Maybe Rose left. Maybe. Maybe Rose is locked up somewhere.

Jailbird. Check the rosters. Yeah.

I did get some pepper spray after that. Really? Yeah. That and sharing my location with my friends when I was going on dates with women were the two big changes I made.

Yeah. I really like scary movies and horror movies. And one of my friends from film school, when we were talking about scary movies and stuff, we were talking about our favorite ones.

And she was like, oh no, I like the ones where the humans are the villains and the bad guys because humans are way more scary than any fictional monster. Humans are unpredictable. Share your location.

Yeah. Be safe, people. Thank you so much for sharing.

Yeah. Bye. Bye.

Bye. See you later. Get out of my house.

You hang up first.

Thank you for listening to Ask Elisa, the good, the bad, and the ick. I’m your host, Elisa Sparkman.

This episode was produced by me and a guy I met on a dating app. Audio engineering, editing, and music by Jacob Patterson.