A Date with King Nothing

(**As I write this, I can’t help but sing Metallica’s “King Nothing” in my head.)

I met King Nothing a few months ago on Tinder; he seemed like he might be a good match. Seemed is the key word here. While we had a lot in common and he was within my preferable age range, he claimed he’d been single for a over a year and had been living alone for a year. Initially, I thought he’d said he had been married 13 years, but it turns out I didn’t hear him correctly. It was 23 years – big difference when someone has only been single for a year! And technically, he is still not divorced, but the paperwork has been filed – all part of my “just say no” rules. He assured me that he was definitely over his ex and had already rebounded. Still, my guard was up, because I’d dealt with this too many times before.

King Nothing was in touch with me for a few days and then seemed to have fallen off the earth. When he finally contacted me, he’d said his dad had just died, so we met out to talk about it. I figured he was going through a lot between that and the divorce, so being friends won’t be an issue. We kept in touch a few more weeks, but I left him alone to let him grieve and contact me when he was ready.

I’m very up front about what I want when I’m dating. Not only do I put it on my online dating profiles, I tell people to their faces “this is what I’m looking for,” so there should be no misunderstandings. But bad listeners or narcissists don’t give a rat’s ass one way or another. I was hearing from King Nothing so sporadically and inconsistently, I reminded him that I am looking for something substantial, not just someone randomly texting me when he’s bored and definitely not a booty call. If friendship was all it was going to be, it also has to work both ways. At this point, we hadn’t even kissed anyway, but I didn’t want to invest time with anyone that has no intention of moving forward. And I certainly don’t want to be dating someone that’s screwing around with other women.

Eventually, King Nothing asked me on a “real” date to his house where he was cooking dinner. This was actually shocking; I hadn’t had a man cook me a meal in three years! When I arrived at his house, I was even more shocked, because the place was beautiful and in a prime waterfront location, and I’d only seen the place from the outside. Dinner was good, and conversation was good, even though I’d heard more than enough about his “psycho” ex and all of their problems… another red flag, especially the “psycho ex” that I want no part of. I told him I was going to start charging him $2/minute every time he brought her up, because it was all he talked about each time we got together. We had some drinks, we kissed. I stayed the night so I didn’t have to drive home buzzed, but no sex. I wanted to be sure this guy really liked me and wasn’t playing games.

Again, after the date, I’d hear from King Nothing about every other week. This was a pattern that I knew all too well. I felt I was probably being played, he’s probably dating multiple women with no intention of settling down and moving on. It turns out I was right.

The last time I heard from King Nothing, he asked what I was doing. Since it had been raining nonstop, I replied that I was about to bang my head against the wall with all of the rain and being stuck inside. He replied, “Do you want to bang something else?” I told him I wasn’t interested in being someone’s booty call. He told me to get a sense of humor. I told him I already had one, and that was the last time I heard from him.

So why did I name him King Nothing? He refers to himself on social media as an alpha male (who I also suspect is easily pussy whipped) and a King (capitalized). Then I found out that while King Nothing was “busy” and “dealing with things” during all of those times I wasn’t hearing from him, he’d been consistently seeing and sleeping with other women around town. And not just one or two – several. I had suspected something, but not that. Does he think he’s the King of Women? More like the King of Drama and Bullshit. I had to move on from this guy. If someone is going to be calling himself a King, he’d better damn well know how to treat a lady like a Queen. Where’s your crown, King Nothing?