The online dating world has created a society of crazies (more on that later), but I’ve found that the most particularly fascinating (not cool, fascinating) behavior is this whole practice of cat-fishing. (You know, when someone uses another person’s photos on their profile and it’s just terrible?)

So while this has never really happened to me (unless you count shorty), I’ve noticed that the concept has made a lot of guys very nervous and I’ve been on dates with several men who have experienced cat-fishing. It’s resulted in a practice of men wanting to Facetime before actually meeting.

I explain this because the story I’m about to tell you involves a guy so concerned about cat-fishing that he requested not one ‘check, you’re not a goblin’ Facetime session, but three.

Before I go further, one quick thing: Gents. Facetiming does not count as date. No, no it does not. Stop it.

Ok, so henceforth,  we’ll call this dude… Facetime.

Facetime was a seemingly funny, cute, kinda dorky guy who I met online when I first moved to Boston. I sympathized with his past dating mishaps and after three video calls – mostly about the innocuous details of our lives – we decided to meet for a real date.

Running parallel to this situation is a budding romance between me and another person who would later become by boyfriend of six months. (yeah yeah, #player. Whatever.)

I had been on one real date with future BF at this point and after date two decided that I was no longer comfortable dating around (#notactuallyaplayer). I decided to tell Facetime that while I enjoyed are little convos, that I was smitten with future BF and as such, would need to cancel our date and wished him the best of luck.

He. Lost. His. Mind.

Ladies and gents. I beg you, please embrace reason when communicating with your fellow humans. It would make everything so much better.

Facetime when nuts. He called me a b*tch who wasted his time, said I was not worth the tickets to the comedy show he had purchased (be still my heart) and that he couldn’t believe I would do something so horrible to him.

We never even met.

After said verbal assault via text, I blocked him number (Obviously. Ain’t no one got time for that level of crazy) and get this: He called me using a new google voice number to bitch about how I blocked him. Like… what?? Here I am, trying not to be the a-hole who ghosts and he comes unhinged? I mean, clearly dodged a bullet, but oh. my. god.

People. I can’t stress this enough. Reason and perspective. If someone is trying to do you a solid by being honest and upfront, don’t detach your brain from reality, ok? There are a million + variables that influence why a person may or may not want to date you and probably 90% of those variables have nothing to do with you.

Carry on.