We had just taken off on a cross country flight when the woman seated next to me leaned over and whispered “I don’t want to bother you, but as soon as the plane levels off I’m going to have to pee.”
I responded “Don’t worry, I’ll turn my head.” While at the same time offering her my empty Styrofoam coffee cup.
She laughed at my joke, and then continued laughing for a long time. It turns out she was an off duty flight attendant and she claimed she’d never heard anything so funny. When she got up to go the lavatory, she also went and told all the other flight attendants what I’d said and everyone had a huge laugh. Realizing my opportunity, when she returned to the seat I gave her my card offering a discount on the purchase of my books. I told her that since she clearly enjoyed laughing, I hoped she’d also enjoy reading my books. She introduced herself as Shelly and we spent the rest of the flight talking and laughing. Of course it wasn’t long before we began discussing relationships and she shared a couple stories that I’ll now share with you.
She told me that early in the relationship with her current boyfriend she’d mentioned how much she liked organic Fiji apples. He surprised her a week or two later by showing up with a basket of that very fruit for her. She felt it was so thoughtful of him to have remembered, she offered to reward him orally. I said nothing, but immediately whipped out my always present piece of paper and began scribbling. She leaned over to see what I was writing and read my note aloud: “get organic Fiji apples ASAP!”
She burst out laughing again then added “I don’t know if that will work on anyone else.” To which I replied “Hey, it certainly won’t hurt to try.”
She then told me about a frightening experience she had from a guy she’d met online. Their initial meeting went well, but then he began calling very frequently. Because of her working on flights, her phone often had to be turned off for hours at a time. The man’s voicemail messages became increasingly angry and accused her of screening her calls and intentionally avoiding him. Upon the end of her work day she called the fellow back and explained to him that she didn’t think they had enough in common to pursue a second date. The man was furious and flew into an uncontrollable rage. She was then sure she’d made the best decision and, unable to reason with him, was forced to hang up the phone.
Well, this guy didn’t get over the disappointment as quickly as a normal man and instead reacted with a prolonged and intense viciousness. He copied photographs from this ladies online profile then created a new dating profile for her complete with her full name, real phone number and home address. This crazy scorned guy even went to the trouble of pasting photos of her face onto the naked bodies of men and uploaded this newly fabricated profile to a website specifically designed for cross dressers and their admirers. Shelly finally became aware what happened after receiving several emails and phone calls of an oddly suggestive nature. Eventually, one of the callers referred to her online profile and Shelly was able to view it. She had no doubt about who had perpetrated this identity theft and fraud so she reported it to police, providing the contact data of the offender. The profile was soon removed and the phone calls ceased, but Shelly very reasonably concerned about attempting online dating ever again.
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