They All Say Things You Want to Hear

The way Al and I came into contact is probably the last way his poor wife would ever expect him to be trolling for girls. See, Al is of that age where computers were just invented when he was a kid. He barely knows how to turn a computer on, much less do anything on it. Imagine the shock and surprise when the medium he chose to contact me on was Instagram! It started off innocently enough, he would "like" my pictures and I would like his. Then we found one another on Twitter and the DMs started. I will admit, I flirted, I encouraged his advances. I was young, and quite taken with someone who was on my TV screen every night since I was a kid taking an innate interest in me. I knew he was married, I knew he had a family, but none of this seemed to matter to him, so why should it matter to me?

We would talk off and on, mostly when he was at work. He would describe to me the things he wanted to do when we finally met one another. He would tell me about work, even confessing that he downed vodka and Coke before every newscast. He seemed thrilled with the idea of someone as young and pretty as me being interested in him. He had little confidence, always doubting me, asking why I had an attraction to him. It's like his fantasy had come true.

Our conversations grew more frequent and we even started exchanging private e-mails and pictures. For an older man, he was quite charming and eager to please. We communicated through his work e-mail which gave me a secret shot of excitement. It seemed even naughtier than it really was. When e-mails grew old, we started on the phone calls. The interesting thing? The calls were always to his desk at work. A desk that is featured prominently every newscast. I got off more on the secrecy of it all than anything else.

Then one day, out of nowhere, I was blocked on Twitter. Having not really "cared" for this man, it wasn't my feelings that were hurt, but I had to wonder why? What did I do? I wasn't the married one, I wasn't doing anything morally wrong, he was. That being the only conclusion I could draw, I settled on his conscience telling him to be faithful in his marriage.

Until a few months later, when he continued to "like" my pictures on Instagram and find my new Twitter account. The DMs were of the usual nature, and still being single, I accepted his attentions. Within a few months, the same thing happened again. It seems that this man, along with the majority of the male population, just could not make up his mind. Again I pondered if I had done anything wrong, but again came to the same conclusion that it was his guilty conscience causing him to act like a silly child. It was at this point I started debating whether or not I should "out" him to the public. This man has been prominent in my small town longer than I've been alive. I had pages and pages of Twitter DMs and countless e-mails, all the evidence I would ever need. I could single-handedly ruin this man's life and career. That kind of power felt good, it felt really good.

I debated the idea back and forth. I confided in my closest girlfriends, who ended up being the proverbial angel and devil on my shoulders. In the end I decided that this poor man was probably in the midst of a crisis. He's older, his kids are growing up (his daughters nearly my age), and he's been married longer than he's lived here. It must be hard. He's at an age where everything has become routine and nothing is exciting. Who can blame him for being flattered and encouraging the attentions of a girl less than half his age? He didn't deserve to be punished for that. In the end, he didn't cheat on his wife, and that's what matters, isn't it?

The innocent flirtations haven't stopped. We still "like" each other's photos and leave comments here and there, but any "talk" of more has ceased to exist. It's not that attempts haven't been made on his part, he's definitely tried to talk to me again, but after the first two times, I decided not to get involved again. That, and I had moved on to bigger, better, younger, more attractive men on the news to entertain myself, but that's a tale for another time.