2/13/2012

An American Legend Comes to Life

Story Sent in by Josephine:

On his profile, Reggie seemed clean-cut, sane, and funny. He wrote me first and I was excited to be in touch with him. We made plans to meet at a local farm stand, browse around a bit, then go out for lunch.

Reggie's photos, turns out, were a bit misleading, and by "a bit," I mean, "extremely." In person, he was morbidly overweight, wore a plaid, red and black checkered lumberjack shirt, had a massive, unkempt beard, and had somehow poured himself into a pair of tight-as-painted-on jeans. For all intents and purposes, he looked like…

"Paul Bunyan!" he said, extending a hand to me, "At least, that's what everyone else calls me."

I shook his hand hesitantly. "You don't look at all like your pictures," I pointed out.

He pulled out a key chain and showed it to me. It was a pewter woodsman's axe. He said, "Can't go around with a real axe, but I figure this would be a fitting substitute."

"Okay, why Paul Bunyan?"

He went on ignoring me. "I don't have my blue ox, yet. But check this out." He pulled out his cell phone and showed me a photo of what looked like a paper-mache blue ox, about a foot tall, sitting on a table, covered in newspaper. "I made it myself."

"Wow. So why Paul Bunyan?"

He replied, "Because that's just who I look like. I've even gotten paid to be a Bunyan impersonator at a couple of gigs."

"You don't look at all like your photos."

"No, I look more like Paul Bunyan, now." He laughed.

I said, "I'm going to go. I'm sorry. I just thought you'd look more like your photos."

"Whoa, hello Miss. Superficiality." He then turned around to face the farm stand and said, "I'm coming, Babe!"

I went home.



*
Non-American readers! Find out about Paul Bunyan here.

10 comments:

  1. Yeah because being a liar is an amazing thing. We read those stories before. Good for OP. Nipped the problem in the bud.

    Ok so this Paul Bunyan guy is a cartoon?

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  2. I can see why you left, but did you have to be so rude about it? There are lots of ways to leave graciously, the old "sorry, but I don't think this will work out" comes to mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was "I'm going to go. I'm sorry. I just thought you'd look more like your photos" seriously too rude for you?

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    2. No...just no.

      The guy intentionally posts misleading photos on a dating site and doesn't even apologize or give any reason for it when called out AND SHE'S RUDE?

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    3. In my opinion it's far ruder to be dishonest about the reason (or not to give a reason at all). At least this way he knows how he fucked up and can--potentially at least--fix it so it doesn't happen again.

      Delete
    4. So he's the one posting pictures that misrepresent him, but she is the one that owes him an explanation? Nice logic there, Andrew.

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    5. Why would Reggie DESERVE courtesy? People who do bad things aren't entitled to good treatment: that would fly in the face of logic and common sense.

      Delete
  3. Why shouldn't she tell the truth? The guy shouldn't get away with having completely out of date pictures.

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  4. I'd call her abrupt, but not necessarily rude.

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  5. The only mistake she made was apologizing in the middle.

    ReplyDelete

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