The Compulsive Liar

I continued to look at other potential guys on Match.com and started to date a computer techy guy whom when I first started emailing, was 35 years old. We went through 4 cycles of responding and receiving emails before our first date. We appeared to like the same kind of bands like Travis and Andrew Bird. Things appeared to be going well via email.

Our first date consisted of drinks at Cesars in Oakland, dinner at one of my favorite Italian places on Piedmont Avenue and drinks at my local tiki bar where we shared our first kiss. Things looked good, he appeared to be a musician on the side as part of a Weezers cover band. He asked if I liked Weezer and I explained my corky story of my friend Sean and I listening to the songs over and over again to know all the lyrics when the blue album came out. Our initial connection was fun and flirty for the most part.

After two weeks of dating, we started talking about our ages and I said "Well you are only 35 years old, it's not like you are ancient." He looks at me with a serious look and says "Carolyn, I'm 41 years old." I demand him to pull out his driver's license to confirm and sure enough, he's 41. He tries to pretend that he told me on our first date, pretending like he didn't lie about it. I assure him that I would have remembered that conversation, I have an excellent memory. I ask him why he lied and he says that girls like me won't even consider him because of his age. I explain that this is not true, that honesty is the best policy. To lie about something as silly as your age and be comfortable with that, makes me wonder what other things are you comfortable with lying about?

Later I went through my emails from him from Match.com and find that after each email where he started with 35 years old, he would bump up his age by two years on his profile. By the time, he finished his last email, he was at his age of 41 years old.

A couple of weeks later, we are having appetizers at my local pub when a subject comes up of lying again but about things such as how many partners have you slept with. He gets really defensive and says that lying to your partner about things like that is necessary to avoid hurting the other person. He then explains that if he ever cheats on a girl that he is with, that he would never tell her because what's the point in hurting the person with that information? Then he tells me his number is in the ballpark of 60-80 people and that he can't keep track of all the girls.

The next day, I call him and end it right here. Someone who feels so comfortable lying about things concerns me, even with my history aside.