When I was fresh out of graduate school and living overseas, I started dating a French guy. He was handsome and sweet and sexy. It was so exotic! One night we were sitting outside at a café having a drink and I asked him what his plans were the next day. I wasn’t on a fishing expedition, I was just making polite conversation.
He said he was going to buy some presents for his kids. Wait, what? Kids? Was there a wife attached to these children? He actually laughed at me when I asked and said something like, Yes, but we have an agreement that when I’m not home we each do what we want.
Of course I ended it, but I’d been dating this guy for weeks and never suspected a thing. I assumed a man in his position wouldn’t be gallivanting around with a girl on the side.
Just when you think you know someone, you don’t. Every single woman I know has been duped. Probably a lot of men too but I can’t even pretend to know what they’re saying, doing or thinking.
In hindsight, it seems like a lot of judgments are made about the new guy too soon. We somehow make up our minds that we’ve figured this guy out and then we’re disappointed (and surprised) when it turns out he’s not who we imagined. Why do we do this? Why do we rush the exploration phase of dating? And why do we jump to conclusions about his personality, character, and compatibility when there’s not enough evidence to support most (any?) of our assumptions?
There are warning signs of course, but for the most part we ignore them. For example, one of my girlfriends fell head over heels in a matter of days with a guy she met online. I knew it was going to fall apart the first time she gushed about him in an email. I pointed out my concerns because I didn’t want her to get hurt. She had an excuse or explanation for every single one of them. And guess what? She broke up with him last week for exactly the reasons I thought she would.
