What Kind of Fool???

Oh boy do I have a post for you. I have done it this time...Try not to laugh at my ignorance as the story progresses. In honor of the lovely and late Estelle Getty (no snarky comments, cb)... Picture it...Lido Key, June 2008... A young man on a beach meets another man who asks him out. He goes and has a good time. That young man was me. For my two readers out in cyberland, you will remember that I went on a two week vacation to Sarasota. Despite the fact that I have been going to Sarasota for twenty years, I did not know that there was a "gay" beach until this visit. So I traipse my happy ass out to the beach where there was not a lot of people, gay or otherwise what with it being out of season and all. I met a man on the beach that struck up a conversation with me and we hung out, just floating around in the water and shooting the breeze. It appears that this man was a neurosurgeon/neurologist in New York City and lived in the Hamptons. He was 64, which I thought he looked great for 64. Well, he asked me if I would like to have dinner with him that night and I said yes.

Turns out, we go to a nice restaurant and back to one of his six condos on Anna Maria Island. He also has a big house on Longboat Key and a house in Big Sky, Montana. He told me he did not bring his cell phone on his vacation since he didn't want his work bothering him. Ok. Since then he has called me a few times from a restricted number. Jump forward to this week. I mentioned to my best friend that I talked to dude for an hour last Sunday and my friend started in on my ass about checking him out. Googling him. I said I didn't need to because I trusted him. My friend is somewhat cynical. He actually got real mad at me for, as he put it, sticking my head in the sand. What I didn't tell him is that I Googled him the day I got back. I didn't find anything, but I chalked that up to not being sure of how to spell his last name, and promptly forgot about it.



With all this renewed interest by others in my bidness, I decided to investigate further when I got back to work. I still came up short, so I decided to look up the property assessors public records for Manatee County. What I discovered is that my friend has one condo in Bradenton. ONE - not six. Nor does he own a home on Longboat Key. I did find an address with no city and state on the assessors page. I checked all of Long Island and that address does not exist there. I located it in Hatboro, PA -- a 1,000 square foot house that is smaller than my own. Using some other resources at my disposal, I discovered the he is not licensed as a physician in any state. Turns out that everything he told me was a complete lie. Everything. I mean, this man painted a ELABORATE picture and I fell for it ALL. I mean I had no reason not to. I am on a semi-private beach in Sarasota with huge-ass mansions behind me so it would not be shocking to meet someone walking in tall cotton. He told me all about his kids...four or five of them. Turns out he has ONE. Oh --- AND a wife, whom he told me was deceased. She is more than likely quite alive and well...



The thing that kills me is that all of this was a lie. I keep wanting to believe there is some logical explanation for all of this despite all the black and white evidence to the contrary. Because the other option is that I have been a complete fool. I feel stupid enough as it is. Generally, I feel that I am pretty good judge of character. I have worked in a law enforcement capacity for the past 14 years and see the dregs of society on a daily basis. I automatically assume that everyone is lying to me because, quite simply, they are. With the majority of people I deal with, I assume they are lying and try to determine what the polar opposite of what they are saying is and figure out what they are trying to get out of me and the system. Granted that is very cynical, but in my business, one gets jaded very quickly. I have just never been that cynical in my personal life. Unfortunately, that has changed.

In the almost two years I have been out, I have come across several people of shady character. Some of these people, I am fond of saying, are like dogs that should be put down. This guy is definitely one of them. Now comes the question of how to deal with him when he calls me back. I am inclined to say that I just started dating someone and want to be very committed to him, so I don't think it is appropriate to keep talking to him. Hopefully, that will get rid of him. My friend is pissed at me because I wont find out his story and put the squeeze on him before confronting him with the truth. My thing is, that will just invite more dialogue and lies and I just want hell and him gone from me.



Of course, all of this has not exactly built up my faith in humanity. I am at the point that if my best friend says the sky is blue, then I will go outside and see for myself. I don't want to be distrustful of people. Assholes like this definitely make it harder to take people at face value. Like I told a friend the other night, this is enough to make me go to bed, throw the covers over my head and eat Velveeta out of the box...with one of these boys.