The dirt on Cincinnati, Part Two

Scroll down and read Part One before you read this - otherwise you will be mega-confused.

Here is Part Two of the letter I sent to Cincinnati's other girlfriend after I dumped him. I should point out now that she was thankful I wrote her, and we've become pretty good friends.

On with Part Two of my letter ...

Cincinnati invited me to his place twice. Once was on a Friday night (August 9th) and one was on a Sunday evening (August 18th). Both times I drove from Tennessee to Ohio, but he cancelled both dates at the last minute. This was after I'd driven 300+ miles each time.

The first time, there had been a cycling accident the night before and his friend went to the ER. (This turned out to be true.) He said he'd gotten little sleep the night before. This was after I sat in a Starbucks for hours, waiting for him to contact me. He eventually said he was too tired for company.

I ended up in a hotel that night as he didn't even offer his sofa. I don't think he had any concept of the effort I'd made. I couldn't figure this out. He had claimed to be immensely attracted to me - even obsessed - all year.

Next week, he asked me to meet him Sunday August 18th at 5:00 pm. He wanted to take me to dinner although he planned to go on a group ride that would be over around 1:30 or so.  I asked him several times if he were sure this day would work out well for him, and he insisted that it was.

As the week wore on, he became oddly quiet about my visit, but he confirmed our plans Saturday the 17th. So the morning of August 18, I set out to meet him. 

Just before 2:00 pm he messaged me on Instagram, said he was overheated from the ride, and wasn't sure he would be up to seeing me. He said another cyclist was with him, waiting for him to recover enough to drive home.

Since I was already 300 miles into my trip, I offered to arrive two hours later at 7:00 pm. But he never responded. Hours went by.

As the afternoon wore on with no word from Cincinnati (I sent eight messages, all unanswered), I became increasingly worried, wondering if he was ill and alone. I tried to look at his Facebook page as he's quite active there, but I couldn't see it. This was weird.

Just before 7:00 pm, with no word from him, I decided to go to his condo to see if he were okay. I sent a Waze GPS notification to him. He finally responded, but his response was ugly. "You decided this on your own without hearing from me?" He said he wasn't up for company.

This, combined with the last four weeks of messages that ran from passionate to cold, made me decide it was time to confront him. I was dealing with two men - Instagram Cincy and Cold, Strange Cincy. I told him I wanted to visit to say goodbye. He eventually let me in, although he described my visit as "uncomfortable and strange" via text.

I don't think he had any idea how I felt about months of his cyber-seduction, then driving 380 miles after he invited me to dinner, only to be treated this way. He displayed zero empathy when I arrived and didn't apologize  for cancelling. He looked annoyed.

I repeated that I'd come by as I was worried about his silence, thinking he could be ill. But instead of appreciating my concerns, he was defensive. He did eventually begin massaging my leg through my hosiery and held my hand for a while. He became polite, talked about his job. When I asked why I couldn't see his Facebook page, he said he taken it down as he was "tired of the politics", although I never saw any politics there.

I felt stupid and confused and humiliated. But I kept hoping he would eventually be civil. He wasn't. I didn't dump him that night but I should have.

He reluctantly let me stay that night as I explained I had nowhere else to go (my Airbnb wasn't available).  The fact that I'd made no plans to stay elsewhere surprised him. But since he'd previously described how we would spend Sunday evening indulging in our mutual love of hosiery, I assumed I'd be staying.

Before he fell asleep, I said I wanted to talk to him honestly about how I felt about the relationship. I admitted that I hoped it might eventually become more serious. I reminded him that we'd often agreed that our meeting was providential, as we'd both hoped for years to meet someone who shared our lingerie interests. 

His only response is that it would take time to see if a relationship developed, but he didn't rule it out.  He turned his back to me in bed and fell asleep. I never slept.

I had to leave at 5:30 am. He had no idea - or didn't care - that there was nowhere I could go at 5:30 am as I couldn't check into my Airbnb until 3:00 pm. I parked at a Starbucks until it opened.

I received one text from him the next day. "I'm going cycling tonight if weather permits."  

I began wondering about Cincinnati's excuse to deactivate his Facebook page, as his political excuse just didn't ring true. Eventually I logged into Facebook with another account. I looked up his Facebook page and it was alive and well, not deactivated as he'd claimed.

No heat exhaustion mentioned anywhere. Instead, he raved about his "terrific memories from that incredibly enjoyable day!" and posted photos of you and him together. 

I'm guessing he blocked me on Facebook as he didn't want me to see the details of his happy day with you, which suggests you two aren't platonic friends.*

Please, I'm not saying this to vilify you. Until now, I'm assuming you didn't know I existed. But why did he invite me in the first place, if he already had plans to spend Sunday with you?

Something's really wrong with Cincinnati, although I can't figure out what it is. Let's put it this way:

Would you invite a woman to your home after wooing her for months and knowing her for nine years, go silent for hours after she's driven 300+ miles, and only let her in your home after she threatens to dump you, then lie to her face about the day's events?

I hate to play armchair analyst but I think he has some weird narcissist thing going. He fears intimacy, posts selfies of himself all over the Internet every week, and never apologized to me for cancelling two "dates". His stunning lack of empathy is the biggest red flag. 

I sent Cincinnati an email two days ago to break up with him. I asked him why he had been "unliking" some but not all of my Instagram posts - he just did this earlier this week. I also told him I'd discovered his Facebook lies, pointed out that it would been fucking easy for him to simply not invite me, and that I was done with him.

I didn't receive any reply. Instead he blocked me from all of his social media. 

There's more to the letter but it's more my hoping I didn't hurt this woman's feelings.

Here's how the letter was received - she contacted me immediately and said my letter was "the answer to her prayer".  A few minutes later, she texted Cincinnati and dumped him.

His only response?  "I see."  

Since then I've become pretty good friends with this woman. More next time, when we decide to jerk Cincinnati around a bit. 

* It turned out that this happy day had been earlier in the week and not the Sunday I'd shown up to discover Cincinnati with fake heat exhaustion. But it didn't matter - I did find out later that there was no heat exhaustion.

The dirt on Cincinnati, Part One

I have decided that the best way to share this horrible saga is to reprint parts of the letter I sent to the woman who was "just a platonic friend" of his, who turned out to more, although Cincinnati* was running hot and cold on her in similar fashion. And yes, I did rat him out to her, but only after I dumped him.

Although I don't think Cincinnati is a full-blown narcissist, he certainly has some similarities. I think he's closer to emotionally unavailable, although his months of messages to me suggested the opposite.

Anyway, here goes with Part One. It will eventually become obvious as to why I made the decision to write a letter to this woman, so bear with me.

Part One of the Letter

*******

Before I begin, I want to apologize for writing you out of the blue. But I have just gone through a miserable month with our mutual acquaintance Cincinnati, who I had a relationship with since 2010 (mostly online, with a couple of gaps and real-time visits). I recently discovered that he lied to me about some things, and two of the more blatant and upsetting lies concern you.

Since our relationship went on for nine years, it'll take me a while to provide an accurate picture (although some following pages are all screen grabs). 

(I'm going to cut out the history as it's already been mentioned earlier on this blog.)

After my 2017 visit and breakup with Cincinnati the following month, almost a year went by with no contact. By now, I had moved my mother near my rental to care for her. She died in hospice in February 2018. Later that year I decided to leave Texas as I had no family left here, and I hated the weather.

While packing, I found a saint's medallion I'd bought for Cincinnati in 2017 that hadn't arrived in time to give to him during my 2017 visit. I decided to mail it to him, explaining why I was mailing it after so long with no contact. I didn't expect a response, but I was pleasantly surprised when he contacted me immediately, saying he sorry I'd lost my mother. 

We began to chat again online, hesitantly at first. He eventually steered the to our mutual love of retro lingerie, and how we needed to get together so he could dress me in corsets and hosiery and garters. We spent hours online talking about our immense good fortune, and how we had despaired of ever meeting anyone who shared our interests. Many mornings, he would wittily invite me to have a shower with him online. We also chatted for hours about our next meeting.

Since I hadn't forgotten the disastrous 2017 visit, I insisted that I would only visit if he invited me. He kept mentioning this would happen, although he dropped hints on Instagram that I shouldn't postpone. 

By this time, I was again smitten with him. In July he ordered over $100 of hosiery in preparation for my visit, and even posted a screen grab of the receipt.

(I parked screen grabs of the receipt here for her perusal, and his asking me for my size.)

In mid-July I drove to Tennessee for an extended visit with my aunt. I also visited Columbus, Ohio to scope out possible jobs. I hadn't yet decided to move there, but it was one of several locations I was considering. Cincinnati knew all about this. Although he did not specifically invite me to Ohio, he said he would make every effort to visit me in Columbus. 

(here was a screen grab of an Instagram chat, where he says he'll visit me in Columbus.)

During my initial drive to Columbus in mid-July, I passed Cincinnati's condo by a few miles. We messaged about my stopping for an hour or two (bringing hosiery with me), but we decided to wait.

This is when things with Cincinnati began to get strange. It was if there were two different Cincinnatis.

Although he sounded desperate to meet me when I got to Ohio (I have over 150 archived conversations), they never happened. I began to notice that he talked about you constantly on Strava and posted photos of the two of you. So I began to wonder if you two were dating, since he was spending his spare time with you instead of me.

After a weekend when he had discussed getting together on a Sunday afternoon after a ride, but then going quiet and then posting pics of you all over Strava, I wrote him an email. I suggested we meet and simply chat. I got this email reply from him.

If there are nerves or doubts, perhaps we need to wait. It's been easy to get caught up in certain moments and discussions with you. Obviously it can be easier to express particular thoughts or feelings through this media compared than in person. I'm sure neither of us desire any regrets. More time might be what's best for both of us. 

This was nothing like his romantic Instagram messages and I didn't know how to respond. But eventually I wrote back and suggested we meet. He accepted this coldly and sent me a short note. "I'll be in touch". I was hurt, so I responded and said that I felt I had pressured him, and suggested we postpone meeting for a while. He didn't respond.

I eventually sent him a second email. I said that I felt that our meeting was more of a priority for me than for him, because he kept making choices how he spent his free time, and I was never his choice.

No response.

I eventually sent a third email and politely said that if you two were dating, he should be honest about it. I would bow out and let you two proceed with a relationship.

He answered the third one. He said that your relationship was platonic and you were a friend. In a few days, his Instagram messages became passionate again and he insisted we should meet before I left Ohio. Also, your photos stopped appearing all over his Strava app.

(Herewith ends Part One. The awful Part Two will appear later this week.)

The best and worst of times

I cannot provide a comprehensive report of my summer in one blog post. So here are the main points:

Although I never found a full-time job, I have more than enough freelance to live as a full-time, 100% remote freelancer. So this is my current job, and I have no plans to change this.

I have decided to move to Tennessee. I went to visit my aunt while on my way to Ohio to see Cincinnati*, and ended up staying for almost a month. I am back in Texas now, but only for a few weeks.

I have a lodger now. He has advanced cystic fibrosis but is the best rescue volunteer that the cat group has ever had. I felt 100% safe leaving him to watch the cats when I was gone.

Cincinnati turned out to be a sadistic narcissist. (I'll need to fix his entry in The Usual Suspects.) It was like he were two different people: Romantic Instagram Cincy, and Cold, Ghosting Cincy. I even met another woman who went through the same crap. We shared our Cincinnati intel, then we both dumped him within the same week. He's scared of us now and I like this.

In closing, here is my current life philosophy courtesy of Fredrich Nietzsche:

“For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!”

Time to nut up or shut up

Yes, I'm still here in Texas. But I'm 95% sure that June will be my month to pack up my truck and depart.

Last week I had two interviews that were better than any of the previous ones. One was with a mortgage lender headquartered just south of Cleveland, and another was a huge realty conglomerate based just north of Chicago. But even if neither pan out, I need to quit being nervous about moving. I can't even find a contract-to-perm job if I stay here.

My last two bicycle rides were too sweaty for my taste. It reminded me how I've been declaring for years that I needed to escape the wretched Texas summers. 

Another reason for moving is that I lost my elderly Emily earlier this week. She was a small black cat I'd had for over ten years, and she was legendarily talkative. I could never get on the phone without her suddenly climbing in my lap and getting mouthy. She had gone into renal failure earlier this month and the usual sub-cutaneous fluid treatment didn't work (it doesn't that often). I could have never have left her at the house, no matter who ends up as my tenant/cat sitter.

As feared, my unemployment benefits stopped last month and there was no getting an extension. These days, an extension literally does not exist. Fortunately, a former MetLife stapher has begun sending me work from her new job with yet another mortgage lender, and a second lender has just sent me a non-disclosure agreement. I can keep doing both of these jobs no matter where I end up.

The existing freelance work helps but doesn't pay all of the bills so I've begun pulling money out of savings. Ian* has sent me money a few times while apologizing for constantly postponing my visit to Buffalo/Toronto. His new job pays very well, but I'm still not that comfortable with this. 

* See The Usual Suspects.

Still jobless, beginning to fret

I will receive two more unemployment checks in April, then I'm done. Unless I can talk Texas Workforce Commission into extending them, which I seriously doubt.

My indecision may be to blame. Part of me feels cowardly because I don't simply pack up my truck and drive to Chicago, find a garage apartment, and attempt some personal networking. But I have it set up so I can access the funds required to do this in just a couple of days. I'm still clearing the junk out of this house.

I continue to enjoy my cycling at White Rock Lake and Cincinnati* continues to flirt with me, so life isn't all bad.

One of my friends, who is from India, has suggested I marry someone wealthy so I can do what I want. She's quite serious although she's as American as I am. Of course, this led me to surf some of the funnier personal ads. Most are from the London Review of Books, although they discontinued this service several years ago.

This ad especially intrigues me as the poster found her husband through it.

I smoke, I drink, I talk waaaay too much and think even more than that, I swear like a longshoreman, I’m usually covered in dog hair, I do not order salad as a full meal, I always want to Talk About It, I might be funnier than you, I want to be taken care of but hate feeling weak, I’m completely disorganized, I will keep cuddling until you pry me off you (and so will my dogs), I say “awesome” a lot, I don’t lie even if it’s easier, I tell my girlfriends everything, I expect to come, and I’ve been told repeatedly that I scare the crap out of men. If that sounds like your kind of girl, awesome.