I know.  I know.  It’s been way too long since I’ve written!  While I would love to tell you that I have been traveling the world and doing all sorts of exciting things with my life, the real truth is that I haven’t written in a while because I have been happily dating an English boy (with a sexy accent and fake lisp) by the name of John Thomas.  It’s hard to come up with good material when you are in a somewhat healthy relationship.  (Note: John Thomas is not this boy’s real name but rather a carefully selected name that I have chosen for him in order to help conceal his true identity.  Since he is from England, I wanted to find a name for him that was from his own birth country.  In England, the term “John Thomas” is slang for the word “willy”.  Similar to how in America, we use the term, “Dick”.)

John Thomas and I went on so many great dates with each other.  We met on an online dating site about three months ago and from the very beginning, he just seemed so…normal.  According to his online profile, he was a relationship type of guy who was looking to get married someday.  He had a great smile, was super fun to hang out with, and spoke to me with a lisp.  (As we all know, Dean loves a man who talks with a lisp.)  Also, John Thomas did not have a wife (or at least one that I knew of).  He wasn’t a recovering alcoholic.  And from what I could tell, he did not seem to suffer from any type of depression.  When I met him for the first time, I really felt as though I had hit the jackpot with this one.  Although my bar is admittedly low when it comes to men, John Thomas seemed like such a great catch.

But over time, I started to sense that something wasn’t quite right with John Thomas.  He began communicating with me less and less and our dates were becoming a lot less frequent than they used to be.  I knew for certain that something was wrong when he stopped returning my text messages all together.

As you can imagine, I didn’t like not hearing from my English boyfriend with the fake lisp, so I did what any normal girl would do in my shoes, and started responding to my own text messages on his behalf.  This was a drastic measure that I felt I needed to take into my own hands.  I would always put “his” responses in quotes and made sure to sign each text message with his initials “JT” at the end.  This ensured that we both knew who was texting when.

Example of How Dean Replied to Her Own Text Messages

Dean:  Hi John Thomas!  How about grabbing dinner one night this week?

John Thomas:

(HOURS PASS.  SOMETIMES DAYS.  NO RESPONSE.)

Dean:  “Sure, Dean!  I would love to grab dinner with you!  How about Tuesday night?  I should be getting off of work early and I would love nothing more but to take you out for a hot night on the town.  I miss your face.”  JT

Dean:  I miss your face too.  Can’t wait to see you on Tuesday!

John Thomas: C U Next Tuesday!

Okay.  I know what you’re probably thinking right now.  You’re thinking, “how is it possible that Dean missed all the red flags with this guy?  Isn’t she a dating advice expert?”  Trust me.  I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes.  Over the last couple of weeks, I knew in my heart that John Thomas was just not that into me anymore.  And like any girl who likes a boy who doesn’t like her, I straight out asked him what was going on with him.   On both occasions that I asked him, he insisted that he was very much into me.  In fact, he even went as far as to say that he really enjoyed spending time with me.  He supposedly had fun with me.  The only logical thing for me to do in this situation was to continue to date him…and to continue to send myself text messages from him every so often. I did what I needed to do.

Well as it turns out, John Thomas had some sort of amazing revelation last week.  He discovered that he wasn’t so into me after all.  And on the night of my birthday, after taking me out for a romantic, candlelight dinner, he decided to put an end to our relationship.  Prior to his big announcement though, he made sure to kiss me several times at dinner and to hold my hand throughout the evening.  Who knew that John Thomas was so into surprise birthday celebrations?!?!?!

I was having such a great time with John Thomas during our last supper together.  When we arrived at my apartment after our romantic dinner, John Thomas took a seat on my sofa and announced out of the blue that he was not interested in having any sort of relationship with me anymore.  He explained that it wasn’t me.  He just wasn’t interested in dating anyone at the moment.  (I must say that as a dating advice expert, it is a strange comment to hear coming from a guy who I met on an online dating site.  Perhaps John Thomas is not familiar with the rules of online dating.  The purpose of these sites is to meet people with the intention of wanting to date them.)

Before John Thomas walked out of my apartment for what would be the very last time, he asked me if I had anything that I wanted to say.  In that brief moment, there was SO much that I wanted to ask him but I simply couldn’t find the words or muster up the courage to say any of it.  For starters, I just wanted to ask him why?  None of this made any sense to me.  Was it the lighting in my apartment?  Did the dress that I was wearing make me look fat?  Or was it because my hair had become so frizzy from our walk home in the fog?  I wanted to know all of these things so badly.  But most of all, I wanted to know where my gift was.  I mean, shouldn’t he have at least gotten me a little something?  After all, it was my birthday.  Maybe in England, dumping a girl on her birthday is a kind gesture?  I guess I’ll never really know.

I started to cry within seconds of John Thomas leaving my apartment.  I can’t remember ever crying as hard as I did that night since the final airing of the Oprah Winfrey Show.  I was just so sad and so hurt by his actions.  I couldn’t understand how this could possibly be happening to me…and worst of all on my birthday.  It never once occurred to me that John Thomas was an actual “Birthday Dumper”.  Had I seen any of this coming, I would have spent my evening with friends, celebrating, and certainly not sobbing alone in my apartment.  It was a very sad night for Dean.

To this day, I’ll never know why exactly John Thomas decided to call it quits with me on my birthday.  Now I’ll always be left to wonder if there was something that I could have done differently that would have prevented any of this from happening.  Had I only adjusted the lighting in my apartment, or worn a pair of Spanx that night, or gotten that Brazilian Blowout treatment for my hair, perhaps I’d still be going on really fun dates with John Thomas today.  Who knows?

All that I do know is that some girls get flowers or chocolate or teddy bears or cool gadgets for their birthdays.  But not me.  Dean got the, “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.   And more than anything, I just wish that I could walk into some fancy retailer and exchange it for something a whole lot better.  But John Thomas didn’t leave me with a gift receipt.

He just left me.

And so as the saying goes, “if he seems too good to be true—he probably is”.