In the early days of the web, friends started Match.com and I've always been a member.. A recent anonymous.com email from there got me started using it and I quickly added the local personals to my search. I'm amazed at how many people over 55 are online and looking. I already discarded a lot of the email that gives rise to these meetings, never realizing I would write about them online.

Robert
left his name on my machine either from my newspaper ad or his. He was miffed that it took me three days to return his call, but we managed a nice and interesting chat. He is a writer and was working on a book and had written some shorter pieces. He also organized and hosted a group of older people, but he emphasized that I couldn't join because there were too many women. He has a sailboat in the bay here in Sausalito but also ignored me when I said I love sailing. Oh well, it wasn't true anyway.

We agreed to meet, for breakfast at the Dipsea, a restaurant with a lot of local history. He was late; tall, thin and neat. He apologized for making me wait, said he had one phone call then another and suddenly realized he was still in his pajamas. He was a bit disconcerted but we sat down on the sunny terrace. He only ordered tea so I ordered coffee. We didn't eat.

We talked but he definitely wasn't interested in me. He had been alone for more than twenty years and just realized it, so he was trying to do something about that. He talked about what he wrote and the group he ran. Then he said he was afraid he was aging seriously and his mind wasn't sharp. I encouraged him to realize he was a writer and was producing work. He said he lost his hammer and finally found it in the freezer. When we left, right after that comment, I asked him what he was looking for. "I don't know, but I'll know it when I see it."

David
Now anyone who knows me knows that I've gone out with so many men named David that my daughter tells me "When you meet a man named David, just say no!" Well this David said he ran the largest political website on the net; he was my age; he lived in Mill Valley. Wasn't it wonderful. He went to my website and read all my columns but decided I was a real possibility in spite of my liberal persuasion and ignorance of bridge.

Now here's where I mind not having saved those email love letters. David wrote to me and said: "I've looked over your site. Here's what we can do. I always wanted to run for President so I've changed my name legally to "None of the Above" and I'm going to run with that name on the ballot. I want you to run as my Vice President."

Meanwhile I sent copies of his email to my friend Annie. She and her late husband have been watching out for my interests, especially this propensity for Davids. She writes: "You can't just eliminate him because he's named David and he supports the NRA, Ross Perot and is pro-choice. (She learned this from his website.) Maybe, Sherry, this is your chance for the big time — to meet the wheelers and dealers in our country and get everyone to wear purple afro wigs. Give him a chance. Keep writing to him."

So I replied to his email: "Dear David: Thank you for visiting my site, SherryArt. I looked over your whole site and you really are doing a great job and covering the territory of political information online. Congratulations. There aren't many our age doing real sites like this.

"As to your suggestion that I run for Vice President, I think I'd like to run for President and you could certainly be MY Vice President. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not the type to take a back seat, so I think it would work better this way.

"But you'd have to give up the Hawaiian shirts. (There's a picture of him on his site in a Hawaiian shirt.) I bet you bought them when the little Hawaiian shirt store in Mill Valley went out of business, right? Well, I'm an outrageous dresser myself. But if we're going to run together, we'll have to tone it down."

I finally received his reply: "I was astonished at your email. There is obviously no reason for us to meet." And so, to Annie's disappointment, there went another prospect.

Don
Before I ever wrote to him, I received an email from "Don" who was on my list of possible Match.com contacts, He lived in San Jose where I was working. He's a tall handsome just retired aerospace engineer. He is also an Afro-American which made me think he'd have an interesting story about how his career had developed, where he had grown up, etc. We agreed quickly to meet for lunch. I selected a restaurant near my office in downtown San Jose, one that was open and bright and airy so it would be comfortable to sit and talk.

It was a nice luncheon and a little difficult to tell if we would "click." He was reserved and that made me reserved. He had been divorced with custody of his two children whom he had raised. He talked a lot about his former wife and he seemed to still be involved with her.

When the check came I asked "Would you like me to give you some money?" He replied that this lunch was no different from lunch he had yesterday with George — just friends, right? So I paid my way while he complained about the check, saying he could eat for a lot less in a little place in Cupertino near his house. He then put down a 10% tip. I said I always tipped 20% because the waiter or waitress could be my child who had worked often in that capacity. He replied that his daddy always tipped 10% and if it were good enough for his daddy, it was good enough for him. When he went to the restroom, I added a few dollars to the tip, silently.

My problem was I had been in love with a man who was appealing in the same way as this man and who was also tight about money. And I had made this mistake other times way in my past. I'm not looking for an extravagant person, simply a generous person — generous with feelings, with enthusiasm, with money,with time, with everything.

On the way back he said he was really happy living alone and hadn't had a serious relationship for a while. Then he asked "What's next?" And I replied "We'll see what happens." He said nothing would happen if we didn't make it happen. These were mixed messages to me. I never heard from him, but I sent him an email with a question about something he had mentioned. He replied promptly but still didn't ask to meet. I wonder what is in their minds?

As soon as I sent the email, my doorbell rang. There were two piles of laundry and one of old newspapers for the trash in the entry way. I looked out and saw a big man and knew it was Joe. I opened the door and we laughed. He came in, climbed over the laundry, and then said "How about a hug?" Okay so far.

We sat down and talked and talked. I teased him and asked if he driven up there because he knew I had a great brisket I had made the day before. After an hour or so he said he'd better be going, so I decided not to offer him food if he were not interested enough to stay a while. But he remained another half hour and I suggested going out to lunch. He declined but said there were some great restaurants around there. He talked some more and then got up abruptly and left with barely a good-bye. I never heard from him again.

This sounds innocent enough but here is the subtext. When he had called me at work, he said he was a psychiatrist. That just about ended it for me, but I asked him if he went crazy if someone put the coffee pot down on the wrong part of the counter, i.e. was he obsessive compulsive?

At my house he told me he was so taken with my voice on the phone that he couldn't stop thinking about me. He had to "get it over with" and he didn't want to get involved in a lot of arrangements so he had just driven up there. If I hadn't answered or been there, he would have left.

He made it clear from his conversation that he rarely left home and that he had a great fear of driving. He was going home to the South Bay (a half hour's drive) at 12:30 to avoid the traffic for the 49ers game which started at 5 that Sunday. He never drove to San Francisco anymore; he occasionally went to daytime events and concerts in Palo Alto which wasn't far from where he lived. He couldn't account for his time very well except to say that he had given up his medical practice and was trying to figure out what to do next.

When this psychiatrist left my house that Sunday after Christmas, I was really shaken up. I felt almost as though I had been raped. I was distraught and didn't know what to do. Why? From our phone conversation, this man had formed a picture in his mind based on my voice, even though he had seen my picture on the web. He, by his own admission, had become obsessed with this person — so much so that he couldn't even talk about it, had to see her.

He never gave a thought to me, the real woman at home Sunday morning. He bombed into my house to satisfy his own obsession. He left when he had answered his own questions and the obsession subsided because, of course, it didn't correspond to reality.

I felt violated because I didn't exist as a real person, probably ever, for this guy. Once he heard my voice, he spun out into his own fantasy, like a rapist out of control, and had to satisfy the voices in his head. He seemed to have many symptoms of obsession and he had definitely left my apartment in the midst of a panic attack. I was an object to be used and thrown away for his own internal needs. I never existed.

What would have changed that? Maybe a simple comment or email that said "Thank you for taking me in. I don't think we have a future, but I enjoyed meeting you." Any word that would have turned me from an object into a real person.

I hope they all read this column. Meanwhile, I'll "offer it up," as Catholics say, and let the God of the Internet take care of me.

©2000 Sherry Miller. All rights reserved.