I decided not to go to bed. I’ve decided instead to discuss Steve.

I’ve been getting into the online personal ads lately, through various websites. (I need to meet people.) A month or two ago, Steve responded to an ad of mine, as did a few other guys. Steve and I exchanged a few messages, perhaps once a week or so, but never got around to anything substantial; he didn’t really seem my type. The correspondence faded away until two or three weeks ago, when I got another message from him. We finally decided to exchange phone numbers, and we wound up leaving a few phone messages for each other but never actually managed to get a hold of each other.

At long last, we had a phone conversation on Saturday morning. There was something slightly odd about him; in fact, a friend of mine had also exchanged messages with him, and he said that Steve seemed a bit too persistent. I picked up on this. Still, we decided we’d meet up on Sunday evening for coffee, and he asked if I wanted to see a modern dance show with him beforehand. I didn’t really feel like it, but it was only going to be 45 minutes, so I decided, why not. He said he’d call up and reserve the tickets. Okay.

A weird thing about the conversation was that it was technically long distance, because he’s in Brooklyn and I’m in New Jersey, and under his long distance plan, he can only make long distance calls of up to two minutes, and then the phone automatically hangs up. We couldn’t get into a real conversation, because we’d talk for two minutes and then it would hang up. He had to call me back about five times. This got kind of old.

He also said something that, given the fact that I’d heard he was too persistent, came off as kinda creepy. He said that if we wound up hitting it off, he’d look into getting another long distance service. I know that sounds too mundane to be creepy, but his expectations seemed to be too high, at the same time that mine were getting lower and lower. (I suppose I could have volunteered to call him, but I just didn’t feel like spending the money on him. Does that sound selfish?)

We settled on meeting up on Sunday afternoon. Fine. I assumed that would be it, until Sunday afternoon. But on Sunday morning, he called again, and although it was after 11 in the morning, I’d been asleep. The conversation didn’t seem to go anywhere; apparently he just wanted to chat. Perhaps that would have been fine, if I hadn’t been quickly losing interest in him. I managed to extricate myself from the conversation.

About an hour later I decided that I really didn’t feel like seeing a show, or meeting up with him, and I did something I rarely do: I called him up to cancel, and I lied; I gave a fake reason. The phone was busy, though, and I had to leave a voicemail message for him. I told him I really wasn’t feeling well and that I wasn’t going to be able to make it, and that I’d call him next weekend.

Then I was online for a while, and when I got offline, there was a voicemail message waiting from him. He sounded annoyed. He’d already paid for the tickets, and he was on his way out the door and didn’t have time to find someone else to go with him. Also, he said that I’d sounded kind of “disgusted” (his word) when he’d called me earlier in the morning, and he repeated the fact that he was kinda screwed now that I wasn’t going. He leaves long messages.

I felt bad. So I left him *another* voicemail message, apologizing for bailing on him and offering to send him the $8.50 for the ticket. I also told him that I hadn’t been totally honest — that yes, I really didn’t feel well, but that I also didn’t think that we were too compatible. “These things happen,” I said. I apologized again. That was that.

Tonight, I got another voicemail message from him. He said that he’d lately become kind of jaded about the dating scene, and that that might have come through in his messages. He also said that he preferred to get the money in person rather than through the mail, because it could get lost or someone could open the envelope and take it. He offered to meet me at “any subway station” on Thursday or Friday evening, and that if I didn’t want to hang out, if I just wanted to give him the money and say goodbye, that would be fine.

So now it seems that I have to meet him anyway. Oh, this isn’t going to be awkward in the least, is it?