He Said He Was Single
He Lied to the Wrong Librarian
I’m a writer. After one of my essays ran in Money magazine, a reader who was, like me, in his sixties, emailed me about it and we began a pleasant correspondence. (I’ve always thought that connecting with a reader like this would be a terrific way to begin a romance…)
After we’d emailed back and forth for a few weeks, he wrote to say that he hoped it was okay if he continued to correspond with me.
“I like you and your writing,” he said. “And I think you’re attractive.”
“I’d love that,” I wrote back, “as long as you aren’t in a relationship.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
My last relationship, I explained, had ended when I discovered that the man I’d love and trusted for 20 years had a secret girlfriend on the side for over a decade.
My ex and his side chick exchanged thousands of emails, a spent hours on the phone and enjoyed secret phone sex for years without my knowledge. Because they rarely met in person, they didn’t consider this infidelity.
But, when I found out about it, I sure did, and threw him out.
“I’ve learned that people have differing ideas of what constitutes cheating,” I told my new pen pal. “Maybe I’m oversensitive, but If you have a…
