that time i went on a date with a serial killer
dear friends (or more accurately watchers of my facebook status),
some of you have inquired about the details of my felon-dating past. so here's the story. when i first moved to the town i went to undergrad in, i started volunteering at a low income restaurant. [patrons pay $1 or what they can and waitresses bring high quality food to their table-- a soup kitchen with far more attention to the dignity of the human person] it's a very special place and i won't name it because i would hate for its reputation to be tarnished in any way. i still go back when i am in town and have a great many friends who still volunteer or eat there. i started working in the kitchen and quickly made friends with my adopted irish grandpa paddy and the largely elderly crowd that staffed the place. the assistant co-ordinator was this guy named jason who was late 20s/early 30s and was dating a teacher who would stop in now and again. we were friends but he was definitely not on my radar for a million reasons. anyway, over the next couple of years i would become more and more involved with the place and the people who ran it and who ate there. there was a nasty split with the catholic church i went to that involved the restaurant changing locations and most of the catholic volunteers quit to start an alternate service but i stayed on. i brought friends. and by the peak i was working there 4 days a week. one of the friends i made there was a woman named veronica (name changed to protect the innocent) and she and i would have lunch a couple of times a month. one day she told me that jason had a criminal past and that he had just recently been out of prison. having heard nothing like this from anyone else who worked there, and since it seemed super out of character for someone who was shy and artistic and spent his life running a soup kitchen, i attributed it to veronica's sometimes tenuous grasp of reality. she had been battling schizophrenia for the the last 20 years and the illness and the meds made her slightly delusional sometimes. for instance, the conversation about jason's criminal past also included a story about how he had proposed to her at one point but she said no because her family and doctors would not like it, but if she were to get married i would be one of her attendants.
anyway, flash forward to my final year of university. i get a really awesome haircut. i come into volunteer one day and jason comments on said hair cut. then another day he hugged me. the finally he just asked me if i wanted to hang out sometime. now, aside from being a little suprised that this was happening-- my dominant emotion was guilt-- veronica was madly in love with him and i didn't think i could go out with him--even once without being a backstabbing bitch. but my roomates and friends seemed to think one date wouldn't be breaking the girl code and kindly pointed out that it was not like i had anything else going on, so we tentatively planned to go to the movies. as it happened, the day he picked was valentine's day. this whole thing led to much anxiety for the 22 year old me whose romantic past had including things like "hanging out", "coming over", "friends", "not my girlfriend", "whatever," "trading mix cds" (although not yet: the pretend marriage, and yes i did steal this list from the article on whimpsters). he specifically asked me to do something. he was going to pick me up at my house. except i was 22 and i lived in a student ghetto house of girls who maturely hid around the corner in the living room to try and get a good look when he came to the door. could i really be with someone over 30? anyway, the anxiety was for naught because we went to see chicago (his idea) and i am pretty sure he feel asleep and in general the conversation was fine, but i am not attracted to people who are literal. banter is important to me. anyway, i decided he was nice and nothing so awkward happened that we couldn't still work together but we wouldn't be going out again. and i think he felt the same way because soon thereafter he started dating another volunteer and then later a teacher.
flash forward to last winter, i get an email from a dear friend who still volunteers there, saying something to the effect of thought you would want to know about jason and a link to this article. turns out veronica was right! and, on top of that he had just reoffended! so, there you have it. that's the story of how i went on one date with a sex-offender. the only thing that really traumatized me was that it really brought home the idea that there is no "look" of a criminal. you wouldn't have suspected a thing. but i am not going to live my life afraid of things, so i choose to focus on a God who might have spared me from a lot worse. the wife in the article is the school teacher he started dating that year. and, it just gives me a ton of perspective--things in matters of the heart could always be worse.
and that's my true story.
cam
some of you have inquired about the details of my felon-dating past. so here's the story. when i first moved to the town i went to undergrad in, i started volunteering at a low income restaurant. [patrons pay $1 or what they can and waitresses bring high quality food to their table-- a soup kitchen with far more attention to the dignity of the human person] it's a very special place and i won't name it because i would hate for its reputation to be tarnished in any way. i still go back when i am in town and have a great many friends who still volunteer or eat there. i started working in the kitchen and quickly made friends with my adopted irish grandpa paddy and the largely elderly crowd that staffed the place. the assistant co-ordinator was this guy named jason who was late 20s/early 30s and was dating a teacher who would stop in now and again. we were friends but he was definitely not on my radar for a million reasons. anyway, over the next couple of years i would become more and more involved with the place and the people who ran it and who ate there. there was a nasty split with the catholic church i went to that involved the restaurant changing locations and most of the catholic volunteers quit to start an alternate service but i stayed on. i brought friends. and by the peak i was working there 4 days a week. one of the friends i made there was a woman named veronica (name changed to protect the innocent) and she and i would have lunch a couple of times a month. one day she told me that jason had a criminal past and that he had just recently been out of prison. having heard nothing like this from anyone else who worked there, and since it seemed super out of character for someone who was shy and artistic and spent his life running a soup kitchen, i attributed it to veronica's sometimes tenuous grasp of reality. she had been battling schizophrenia for the the last 20 years and the illness and the meds made her slightly delusional sometimes. for instance, the conversation about jason's criminal past also included a story about how he had proposed to her at one point but she said no because her family and doctors would not like it, but if she were to get married i would be one of her attendants.
anyway, flash forward to my final year of university. i get a really awesome haircut. i come into volunteer one day and jason comments on said hair cut. then another day he hugged me. the finally he just asked me if i wanted to hang out sometime. now, aside from being a little suprised that this was happening-- my dominant emotion was guilt-- veronica was madly in love with him and i didn't think i could go out with him--even once without being a backstabbing bitch. but my roomates and friends seemed to think one date wouldn't be breaking the girl code and kindly pointed out that it was not like i had anything else going on, so we tentatively planned to go to the movies. as it happened, the day he picked was valentine's day. this whole thing led to much anxiety for the 22 year old me whose romantic past had including things like "hanging out", "coming over", "friends", "not my girlfriend", "whatever," "trading mix cds" (although not yet: the pretend marriage, and yes i did steal this list from the article on whimpsters). he specifically asked me to do something. he was going to pick me up at my house. except i was 22 and i lived in a student ghetto house of girls who maturely hid around the corner in the living room to try and get a good look when he came to the door. could i really be with someone over 30? anyway, the anxiety was for naught because we went to see chicago (his idea) and i am pretty sure he feel asleep and in general the conversation was fine, but i am not attracted to people who are literal. banter is important to me. anyway, i decided he was nice and nothing so awkward happened that we couldn't still work together but we wouldn't be going out again. and i think he felt the same way because soon thereafter he started dating another volunteer and then later a teacher.
flash forward to last winter, i get an email from a dear friend who still volunteers there, saying something to the effect of thought you would want to know about jason and a link to this article. turns out veronica was right! and, on top of that he had just reoffended! so, there you have it. that's the story of how i went on one date with a sex-offender. the only thing that really traumatized me was that it really brought home the idea that there is no "look" of a criminal. you wouldn't have suspected a thing. but i am not going to live my life afraid of things, so i choose to focus on a God who might have spared me from a lot worse. the wife in the article is the school teacher he started dating that year. and, it just gives me a ton of perspective--things in matters of the heart could always be worse.
and that's my true story.
cam
Labels: queen's, scary, true story
posted by Ms. Cam at 11:08
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