#66 THE AUBURN ART PROFESSOR: THAT TIME I GHOSTED SOMEONE ELSE (AND FELT AWFUL ABOUT IT)
The man who was one of the best conversationalists I’ve ever dated
I don’t know how ‘normal’ people online date, but back in 2011, after moving to Columbus, Georgia from my university town of Valdosta, Georgia, I saw online dating as a smorgasbord. There were all these handsome, professional men to choose from. How exciting!
Gone were the days of flirting, red Dixie cup in hand, stomach full of party punch, slurring about the stress of being a grad student, and wearing glitter and here were the days of being an ‘adjunct English professor’ where I could date ‘grown up’ men with real jobs who took me on coffee shop dates and to restaurants, the opposite of my grad school dating experience which meant hooking up and heading to breakfast the morning after with yesterday’s eyeliner caked on my face and clumps of mascara still crusted to my lashes.
One such lovely man I saw online was the Auburn Art Professor. I call him ‘art professor’ because it’s easier than typing out ‘graphic design professor’ every time, so don’t come at me designers!
The only trouble for him really was that I had also agreed to dates with Hot Jewish Doctor around the same time. And Hot Jewish Doctor became to me like catnip is to cats (a Bramwell 2.0, AKA ‘the red-haired sex god’).
As predicted by the nickname, the Auburn Art Professor was indeed a professor at Auburn University in Alabama, which has a good reputation academically (it was ranked fourth in the US in 2011 for public universities) and also because of American college football that many Americans are absolutely obsessed with.
He was tall, lean, and athletic, with ginger hair. He had a chiselled jawline and an intellectual face a bit more on the young Edward Norton side or Domhnall Gleeson but with stylish glasses and less gingery hair.
He’d more recently started his role of Assistant Professor of Graphic Design, after moving from Texas, where he’d previously taught. He was from Austin and most of his career had centred around Austin, which by all accounts is a very cool and progressive city in the heart of a State that is generally very conservative. But as many academics know, to get the jobs sometimes you have to move to places you don’t want to go.
As far as academia goes, he was a million miles further up the totem pole in his teaching career and otherwise (but he was also a decade older) – as he’d previously worked as a graphic designer before getting into academia.
He was also one of those people who Lance Armstronged (is that reference cancelled?) around campus, you know those cycling people? Where I live now in West Yorkshire, despite my amazing brother-in-law also being one of these people, I sort of despise cyclists on the road when they could cycle on the tops in the countryside away from the bulk of traffic, but it seems a sport (a second sport?) for them to gather the longest tailbacks imaginable and generally be annoying, all decked out in reflective clothing and bum pads.
But I digress! I didn’t have any strong feelings on cyclists back then. In fact, my Uncle Tim was also one of those people who thought going out for ‘sixty-mile runs’ on a fancy and expensive bike that cost more than my crappy car was a thing to do (the bikes were legit expensive but it wasn’t difficult to own something more expensive than my horrendous clunker of a red Mustang at the time).
Rather interestingly or fittingly, ten months after Auburn Art Professor left his job at Auburn, he worked for a while as a UX/UI designer (user experience, user interface for people not in the ‘know’) for the Livestrong Foundation back in Texas so I guess Alabama was not for him! (Thank you, LinkedIn, for that nugget.)
Columbus, Georgia is around a forty-five-minute drive from Auburn, Alabama, with Columbus being on the border of the two states (across the way from Opelika, Alabama). Our first date was at a coffee shop in downtown Columbus called Fountain City Coffee. I don’t drink coffee but he was a self-professed coffee snob and all places have tea (no matter how badly prepared) and we truly had an amazing time.
Our second date upped the stakes a little and he said he was going to take me on a date to quote a “place [that was] probably one of the better restaurants in Auburn, but it's nothing formal” when I asked for the dress code.
The restaurant was called Hamilton's on Magnolia. I recall dim, mood lighting and rich interiors. He suggested I park at his apartment complex, we walk around campus, take in some of the more interesting sights, and then go for our meal.
Perhaps, the story is best told from my journal from that time because, you know, I had to process everything by documenting it and writing about it. I just called him ‘Auburn’ in my email to myself.
12 September 2011 Journal
I had a date with Auburn on Thursday afternoon/evening. It went really well. The level of intellectual conversation and compatibility was amazing. We met at a neutral location, a coffee shop, Fountain City Coffee; he suggested it since he's a self-professed coffee snob. It seemed like a cool place. I arrived early because Auburn forgot that Alabama was an hour ahead of Columbus.
American time zones! A neighbouring state with a one-hour time difference.
I texted to say I was on my way, and he called after realising his error and said he'd leave immediately. Anyway, we had a nice time. I walked him to his car; he drove me to mine. We said goodbye. I texted to say I'd had a lovely time, which I did have a very lovely time.
Friday night I went out with Brittany to The Loft. It was expensive, but I had a nice time with her. We had fun watching "the suits" and their homo-erotic touching and self-touching despite the fact they each had a "Patti" with them.
A ‘Patti’ was our term for gorgeous, put-together, perhaps wealthy Southern women (Southern Belles, if you will) named after one of our grad school friends who was just that. The kind of Gone with the Wind era woman but an ‘appropriate’ one who followed the rules and married the right husband, had the right children, lived in the right neighbourhood, etc. I guess you’d just call this whole touching situation a sort of ‘bromance’ now.
Doctor was downtown too and I suggested we meet up for fifteen minutes because I was curious to see him. Brittany came with me. I was concerned to flirt/be myself around Doctor with Brittany around because I'm Brittany's Elaine around her, but I knew I'd be different bouncing off Doctor's personality, so I think I acted more giggly than usual, but, hopefully, I made an okay impression.
He thought about cancelling our date so no, I did not! Read about it here.
He was funny, if not seemingly very slightly nervous. We spoke briefly and he texted that I drive home safely. We had some banter back and forth. I'd said I wasn't driving home because Brittany was and he said that he didn't have a driver and probably couldn't hire one in time for our date and I said that was unacceptable, etc. Anyway, so the first meeting can't have been a total dud because he still planned to take me on a date.
Oh, it really almost was. Back to the Auburn Art Prof!
I had a date tonight (Sunday night) with Auburn. We had fantastic dinner conversation. He took me to a very expensive restaurant. I got the Caribbean Pork – it tasted like sausage. We had nice wine – it had that smoky flavour pretentious wine people talk about.
You’ll notice that my focus is often on food. I barely drank wine back then and had zero taste for anything good. And now a good bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape will do nicely. I’ve always been food and men-obsessed!
Anyway, we walked around the campus; he gave me a slight tour. He told me about the poisoned oak trees.
So this is how seriously Americans take college football that a man poisoned the famous eighty-year-old Live Oak trees at Toomer’s Corner (which is the boundary of the start of campus and the downtown) at Auburn University because he was a fan of a rival team (from The University of Alabama known as Crimson Tide that is about three hours’ drive away in Tuscaloosa, Alabama). Poor trees!
Again, we had more awesome conversation. There was the awkward I'm-seeing-you-to-your-car-I-had-a-nice-time-me-too-thing and I decided just to kiss him, which he seemed surprised by.
Maybe it was too soon because things only progress from there. Anyway, I'd like to see him again because I enjoy his company. But I'm chemically/physically more attracted to Doctor.
I was more attracted to Doctor’s pure physicality, humour, and muscles. But intellectually more into Auburn Art Professor. This is why sometimes I make bad choices in life. Auburn was very attractive but, just like my old defunct university blog title, ‘nothing about attraction makes sense.’ And Auburn would maybe have treated me better and been more into me. I didn’t even give him a chance in bed but he may have been electric. But none of that matters because, well.
When I’d moved to my new city with roommate, I did the whole online dating thing again and met Doctor and Professor. Doctor, ten years my senior, was a urologist. Handsome, cocky, muscular, into comic books, and art. Professor was a genuinely nice guy. Smart, funny, amazing conversationalist, into cycling. Naturally, I ‘ended’ things with Professor after our first kiss, skipped out on the amazing theatre tickets (why-oh-why?) that he’d gotten for us, and ignored him in a move I can only describe as what was I thinking?
And I pursued Doctor because he became [Bramwell] number two in the bedroom – the cat nip thing again. I learned I have made some bad decisions because of between-the-sheets talents.
Then, I gave a 400-word summary of my dating life with Doctor that I’ve already written about so won’t bore you again except for these couple of lines.
Doctor faded out when I got a long-term boyfriend, but I still snuck away for lunches with him – legit lunches without sex – and then we’d sext. I went over and had sex with him again before he moved away [post-Captain Thor breakup, of course].
Also, I didn’t have sex with him during these lunches (generally amazing Korean BBQ) but flirting with someone outside your partner is a no-go, obvs. SMH! I mean Captain Thor was not into me, but that’s beside the point.
I never saw [Doctor again] after that, which is just as well. [When I was newly dating my first husband] he was passing through my town and wanted to get a hotel room for us and reveal something he’d figured out about us, but I never did hear what it was.
6 October 2011 Journal
What academics do: synthesize and connect.
Professor Auburn: "It's interesting that literary analysis is so similar in a lot of ways to what I do with teaching web design..."
Elaine: Okay, so I'm obviously boring doctor with talk of Pride and Prejudice, but maybe if I talk more he'll suddenly be engrossed by the story and see how interesting it is.
"So, then Mr Collins comes along and he's really obnoxious, but the estate has been entailed to him, so he thinks he's being charitable when he asks Lizzie to marry him and she's like, 'no, sisters, please don't leave me alone with him'..."
Oh fuck!
What doctor hears: Book talk. Book talk. Book talk. Does she ever stop talking about books. Oh fuck! She's going to keep going. How long will this last? How long can I feign interest? 30 seconds. Glazed-over-look. Glazed-over-look.
Elaine: Keeps talking...STAT. STAT? Is the doctor alive? Oh no, I'm losing him. Am I really that boring? God, I didn't even get to the end of the story. I really hate being treated like I'm boring. Oh fuck! I'm boring? But people seem to think I'm interesting or so I thought. Sadface.
And yep! I emailed myself the above little scenes. Why did I choose the one who I wanted more in the bedroom over the one who was legitimately nicer and more engaging? Anyone else ever done this? I mean my therapist explained why I made these choices, but sigh.
The Auburn Art Professor had emailed me with theatre options going on at Auburn and he’d booked tickets for ‘La Bête’ by David Hirson at the end of September. I have no idea why I didn’t just go. I messaged him on Facebook – that’s how I let him know.
[Name], I’ve very much enjoyed your company on our last few dates, but right now I’d just like to pursue a friendship with you. I understand if that’s not what you’re looking for.
So businesslike and harsh. He replied:
Wow. I’m a little confused. I assumed that because you initiated kissing me the other night that you had a deeper interest in me than just friendship. To go from that to this so suddenly is a bit odd.
Yes, yes, it is!
I replied:
Yeah, I know it seems odd and out of the blue and I’m really sorry. I feel like an arse.
I was an arse.
I know I did initiate the kiss, which I liked. And the transition/thought process does seem odd to go from one extreme to the other, but I do really enjoy your company and think that you’re a super-nice person so I wanted to be honest with you now. I’ve been feeling kinda terrible about it all day, so I’m really sorry. [Sadface]
I did legit feel bad and I didn’t know if it was best to explain I was seeing someone else. I didn’t really know how to let people down easily. But a couple of months later by the end of October, he started seeing someone else.
I sort of floated the idea of taking him out to dinner as a friend, which did happen and we had a nice time again but by this point said girlfriend had unexpectedly broken up with him by text.
I did say I had really liked him but I’d found everything overwhelming with moving to a new place and finishing grad school and whatever else and didn’t want to drag him into the drama of it which was sort of true and sort of not.
We have all been ghosted, right? We’ve all had a seemingly good date or a good conversation and then the person never messages again or sort of disappears and for me, it would send me on thought spirals as if there was something wrong with me, but from ghosting a couple of people (Eek! Sorry!) I know that it very much had nothing to do with the people. I was often simply deciding between options and chose a different one (usually the wrong one) but I wasn’t mature enough to have those conversations with the path (person) not taken.
He’s another one I probably missed out on who was a legit nice person and intellectually engaging; however, if you go in for stock that things are meant to work out as they are meant to then I’m in the place in life I’m meant to be and I’m happy and, thankfully, not plagued by any of my mid-twenties worries.
We talked on and off on Facebook Messenger months later about the other people we were dating at the time and he said, “I’m at a point in my life where I'm not going to foolishly chase after someone who doesn’t seem to want to reciprocate; I’ve got too much going on to waste my time with that” as he was dating an artist woman he was into but she didn’t want things to interfere with her art and only saw him once per week.
I lamented I was a magnet for “emotionally unavailable douchebags who treat me like shit” and he said, “Well, you’re a beautiful, intelligent woman, so you’re a magnet for a lot of guys and a large set of guys inherently leads to a larger number of douchebags; it is, unfortunately, simple probability math.” I didn’t even thank him for the compliment. I was that self-absorbed.
I did tell him one day: “I was thinking about you the other day. I still maintain you are by far one of the best conversationalists I’ve met. I really enjoyed our conversation so much.” (Also going back through my conversations, I don’t see how anyone thought I was interesting because I truly talked about some very dull topics.)
As far as his life goes, though, he did very well. I realise my Why We Met saga is littered mostly with men who ended up doing very well for themselves and I think ‘good for them.’ I’m legitimately very happy for them and happy I was in such good company for a time.
The Auburn Art Professor eventually became a UX designer for Under Armour and then started moving into upper management becoming the Design Director for various organisations and now works as a Head of Production Design for another large organisation.
He also seems to paint (thanks to Facebook stalking), the modern art kind and he’s talented, and even has works in gallery exhibitions; I think I recall at some point him getting married and having a baby.
Like all the men from my past, I truly wish him well and hope whatever is happening in his life, the good things in the universe are coming to him.
Coming up next, that time I got stood up on a date after we’d drunkenly made out at a bar.
, this one is for you (re one of our comment convos one time).Don’t forget to check out the other sixty-five posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.
So, have you ever been on dates with multiple people at once and have you ever gone for the more ‘exciting’ option over the more ‘practical’ one? How did you let people down if you decided not to date them?
P.S.
wrote this piece on women’s pleasure. It’s an interview and as usual, everything she writes is amazing. I was one who always enjoyed sex – orgasm or not – but I did ‘understand’ the narrative that men always had to come/enjoy sex but women didn’t necessarily. Not all men, of course, I had some generous lovers over the years and some not so much. I was generous myself sometimes and sometimes not so much. Human sexuality is interesting because it can be this really wonderful way of connection and expression but it’s private and also so embroiled with feelings of shame and repression (especially where I grew up in the Bible Belt American South). And I’ve been told many a time by other women that my sex drive has always been unnaturally too high.
P.P.S. I go to the writer’s retreat on Monday and I’m super excited about it. I read both the tutor’s beautifully written books so I’m ready! (Check out
on Substack and buy her book The Coffin Path.) Plus, I’ve read another one and a half books since then so I’m forty-one books down of my Goodreads target of sixty for the year. There are just always so many lovely books to read.P.P.P.S. My gorgeous friend Orienna, her husband, and their daughter are visiting Michael and I tomorrow! (So excited!)
P.P.P.P.S. (Can you have this many post scripts?) And I’m about one hundred pages into my fifth round of edits of my Grandfather’s memoir (of 288 pages – it’s about 93k words). After this, I’m hoping to send query letters to agents, but I also know that memoirs of unknown persons are notoriously difficult to pitch and sell but he had such an interesting life. I’ll write about it on my Substack to give a preview soon. I think outside of the memoir, it could be an amazing screenplay or television series done by the right writer (I’m not the person for it, though).
As someone who is about to re-enter the dating world, I am sure I will relate to much of what you wrote. Thank you for sharing!
What brilliant writing. Can't recall the last time I read anything from beginning to end that Substack promised would be a longer than 15 minute read. Now I did. Great stuff.
As for the Professor, you know the kiss-and-dump move would've traumatized him regarding his kissing skills. He'll have been searching his mind for what went wrong and will have come up with the trigger having been the kiss. All was going swimmingly, you kissed him ("yay, she likes me"), next day, friend zone. His only conclusion will have been the kiss. Poor guy. That's a tough break.