Fool me once, fool me twice...

I'm not quite certain how to begin this entry, I actually am about to shock you if you have kept up with the blog.  Have you ever heard of the store, Charming Charlie's?  Well it is a cute place with tons of costume jewelry and knock off handbags and the such.  I bring this up because of the "Charming Charlie" that I realized I have been dating.  This fellow, the one I have told you about in the last few blogs, the boy who was charming and such a gentleman, who gave me compliments and paid for everything.  About 2 weeks ago I started to have some concerns and about 24 hours ago I was given notice my concerns were well founded.  So, here goes...

I invited him to meet my friends.  We had a lovely night.  Lots of laughs and a few drinks as well.  Before we left to go on this date I went to the ATM to get out some money on the off chance he let me pay for anything and also because I wanted some cash on hand for Sunday.  As the night went on he would not let me pay for anything.  So Sunday rolls around and there are a few missing links in the previous night.  One being the one glass of wine we had out of the bottle we opened at my house was now empty, an empty bottle of rum which I did not drink was on my counter, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and Maker's Mark were in my liquor cabinet and I'm not usually one to put empty bottles back in the cabinet.  And the $100 in cash I had was now missing $40.  This wasn't adding up but I had to make myself believe that he couldn't have done all these things, he's too much a southern gentleman...He called me Darlin'...nobody says darlin' and takes booze and money from you.  So I chose to ignore this...sort of.

I invited him to join me at my monthly dinner club on Thursday night, he was excited to attend.  Come Tuesday, he was maybe going to have a work thing on Thursday.  This is fine by me.  We have only been out for a month, he doesn't need to spend time with my friends twice in a week and clearly his job should come before me...at this point.  He was going to have to drive to Austin and wouldn't be back until late.  He called me Wednesday night at 10:13 PM saying he was in a cab in a town about 45 minutes from here because he was looking at a leasing space for a client.  Odd to be looking at a space for a client at 10:13 at night, but what do I know about commercial leasing, I plan events for a living.  Still, one more thing I put in the red flag pot.

Thursday comes along and he texts me asking about my event, how everything went at the biggest conference of the year for me.  So sweet, he cares.   I asked him how things were going in Austin...twice, he didn't answer. He may not have seen this question since he was either making copies at FedEx/Kinko's or buying a rug at the Oriental Rug Mart since when I was driving home I saw his car parked there....2 blocks from my house.  Hmmmm...  Time passes on, I go to my dinner club, laugh with my friends about this situation, find it weird he didn't respond, but what explanation does he owe me?  My friend and I were having such a good time we decided to continue the evening at a neighborhood watering hole and stopped in to have a glass of wine.

Guess who we ran into?  Charming Charlie himself.  Seriously.  The odds of this are uncanny.  This is a bar about 3 blocks from my house, it is apparently about 2 miles from his house (I have never been to his house, but am going by where he told me he lives).  Once he sees me, an interesting exchange follows.  I inform him that I don't trust him...I mean, keep in mind that during this one month of dating he has:  Told me he was once engaged when I asked if he had been married on our first date, and I learn on date two he had in fact been married before for a short period of time; he may or may not have stolen $40 and drank me out of house and home on date number 3; and now he has decided to avoid his location to me on what could have been date numero 4. Because I like the attention I get from Charming Charlie I decided to let him apologize and accept it after a little bit of arguing.  I knew I wasn't going to end up being Mrs. Charlie, who argues and loses trust in someone only one month in and keeps trying at a relationship, but I didn't necessarily want the fun to end right now either.

Come Saturday night, sitting at my parents house, pouring myself a bourbon and diet coke and discussing this odd interaction with him to my mother.  She says to me, "If I knew something about him, would you want me to tell you?"  Ummm...yes, please, tell me what you know about this fellow, who is from another state, who is 39 and with whom you have nobody else in common.  I figured she did some background check on him, but in actuality she found some information out another way.  Well, it turns out I'm not the only one he stole money from, $40 to be exact, and apparently a drinking problem is the least of the worries, oh and we also discovered there is a lapse in his occupation history.

So things with this charmer are done, I'm assuming he knows I am suspecting him since I haven't heard from him in two days, but I'm not exactly feeling ready to call him now and end it, I'd like to wait until he reaches out.  Mind you I will not use his real name because of the slight fear I have of any repercussions, however, you literally cannot make this up.  I swear to you, this is real.  Now I'm back out in the field again, just hypersensitive to my cash, my booze, and of course my trust.  WOW.  Right??