Several years ago I met a wonderful woman at a summer bbq hosted by mutual friends in the Niagara region. We seemed to "hit it off" immediately and quickly discovered that we had similar interests, world views and belief systems. She told me that she was a visual artist and later showed my some of her fine oil paintings and some newer multimedia creations.
We began to date, and I'll never forget the day two months into our relationship when this woman's 3-year-old daughter ran up to me, gave me a big sloppy kiss and said, "dada?" To be blunt, I think all 3 of us were happy and at least thinking of a long-term future together.
But I was from the start a bit troubled by some of the inconsistencies I noticed in this woman's life: she owned a large house (a converted church) and paid a hefty mortgage, yet claimed to have as a source of income Canada Student Loans and a part-time job waitressing at a local eatery. Her hours were highly irregular, and sometimes she even called me out of the blue to see if I could babysit for a few hours in the evening. Her excuses were usually convoluted but didn't strike me as too unreasonable or unbelievable.
And then one day something shocking happened: this woman called me at work and asked if I would be kind enough to retrieve her daughter from a local child care centre at 4:30 -- all of the necessary calls had been made so that I could get the child without hassle. I agreed . . .
At the child care centre, one of the early childhood educators brought the little darling to me, asked to see my I.D., and then checked a clipboard to ensure that I was an 'approved" person to leave with the child. And then she frowned and said, "I guess (I won't use a real name here) is dancing again? I haven't seen you before." Turns out the "list" of eligible people to pick up this woman's daughter included more men than a SkyDome men's room during 2-for-1 beer day. And it gets worse: I pressed for details on the "dancing again" reference but got nowhere with the centre attendant, but did get much further with several parents who were picking up their kids. Seems most of them knew what the mother of this little tyke did for a living and forbade their own children from even associating with the little angel I had been sent to retrieve!
I was in denial and refused to believe that I could be lied to in this way. An artist? A student? A waitress? Hardly. At the end of that long day I had, through my own devices, discovered that this woman was not simply a dancer at a local SC but that the particular SC had a well-known reputation as "something more." The next day. when I was certain that the woman was indeed home and not working, I entered the SC for the first time, chatted with the barkeep and several staff members, and soon had all of my most horrible dreams confirmed.
So, as a man who has been through this situation, please indulge me for a moment while i make just a few personal observations that are in no way inteded to offend and SPs who read this board. First of all, the fundamental problem I experienced was dishonesty. I was lied to and manipulated by an individual who earned a living manipulating men. I was utterly overmatched in this department and had no capacity to "see through" the lies and manipulation when they were spun by an expert. Secondly, to this day I remain less shocked and hurt by the dishonesty than by the ease with which this woman, even indirectly, exposed her pre-school daughter to the industry. Clearly, my intitial observations were incorrect: we did not share a common world view nor did we share similar belief systems. I left the relationship immediately and haven't looked back since.
As they say in the world of 12-step programs, "thanks for listening . . . "
