The Story of A Better Match
The story begins back in 2015 when I first began my journey into online dating. I had a good job in pharmaceutical sales, my health was on the right track after finding acupuncture (this is a whole other story!) and I truly felt as if I was finally in a good place in my life.. I was ready to find my match!
I joined Match.com, and paid for a membership because I wasn’t into the swiping apps. At 25, I was ready for something more serious. My initial experience left much to be desired. I met men who lied about their age, lied about their jobs. I met boys who ghosted me after a few seemingly good dates. I even “met” men on there who didn’t even want to meet! After a couple months of failed interactions, I finally found this one man who I thought could really be something special. We talked for hours and hours, we had TONS in common, and he made time for me in his extremely busy life. Little did I know what I was getting myself into..
We chatted for a while before agreeing to meet up when he got back from an overseas business trip. Our first date was interesting, he showed up late because of work, which made me think this wasn’t going to work out, but he was very communicative in the process so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. We had a lovely time and after we parted ways we agreed to meet up again later that week for our second date. The second date was incredible! We ate, drank and laughed all night. He was, seemingly, a perfect gentleman. We didn’t wait until this date was over to schedule another meeting.
From the third date on, we became inseparable. The initial mystery of his job and education taking him all over had just disappeared and he no longer had any of those responsibilities. It was almost as if he was by my side 24/7. This was somewhat alarming to me, but I went with the flow since he was so wonderful in so many other ways. *sidenote: I am an overly cautious human being, and even though I pushed those feelings of trepidation to the side, I still kept a mental note. I call attention to this because I think it’s important to do so*
Within a month, he had met my parents and we started planning a road trip to go to a family friends wedding down south. Things were moving QUICKLY. During the 14 hour road trip, I learned a lot about this man who I thought I was starting to fall in love with. During the road trip he took a phone call and had to give his address and date of birth. I immediately realized he had told me he was younger than he actually was and I also quickly jotted down the address he gave, which I later found out didn’t match where he told me he lived. I confronted him about his age when he hung up and he admitted he didn’t think I would have been interested in him with the larger age gap (*highlighting the fact that he lied on his profile, so this wasn’t just about me), but I believed him at the time and moved on.
We decided to stop at a hotel about two hours away from our destination. This is when I realized this man was not the same man I had been getting to know. He started saying disgusting, hurtful things to me and decided he wasn’t going to sleep in the same bed with me that night. The next day we woke up and made our way to the final destination. We didn’t discuss the events of the night prior with the anticipation of him meeting my brother and family friends later that day. When leaving lunch, he asked if I wanted to check into the hotel first and unpack or meet my brother right away. Either was fine with me so I said that it didn’t matter what we did. My indecision triggered him in a way where he then swung his fist and punched me in the face. He took my car keys and threw them on top of the roof of a house and then threatened to break my car windows so he could get his belongings out of the car.
This is when I called the police. He came back and begged me to hang up the phone, profusely apologizing. He said he didn’t know what happened and he would never do it again. There was no way I could believe that. I talked to the police, they helped me retrieve my keys and they gave him his bags out of the car. I decided not to press charges because I would have to come back down south to go to court. After learning more about this man, I wish every day I had made a different decision and pressed charges.
His lies began unraveling. I ran a simple background check on him. It turns out he had not only given me a wrong age and address, but he had lied about his employment and education status, he had given me a false name, and he had a federal court case against him because he had an ex-wife, who I knew nothing about, who he had abused on an army base.
My life hasn’t been the same since 2015. This person still contacts me to this day and I constantly wonder if I’m safe. I had a security system installed in my house because I didn’t feel safe living alone, I didn’t like coming home alone late at night. Had I known the type of people on dating sites, I would have been more cautious leading into any relationship. That’s the premise of this organization. I’m aiming to educate people. I was lucky because my situation could have been much worse. A Better Match was created because I want to change the definition of lucky. I don’t want to consider myself lucky that I was only in the situation for a few months, when that situation could have been prevented entirely. I want to hold the dating apps accountable for facilitating abusive relationships.
There is a cycle that begins when a person goes through a traumatizing experience. I have tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to date since 2015 and have found myself in numerous toxic relationships. I’ve even given online dating another chance after swearing it off completely. I’ve encountered numerous narcissistic abusers since then, but I do also have many friends who have found their spouse, fiancés, and significant others on a dating app. Online dating works, if done correctly with caution, which is why our mission at A Better Match is not to eradicate online dating, but to make it safer. If you’re entering into the online dating jungle, we want you to know that we at A Better Match are here for you every step of the way.
