woostify domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/latestwordpress/lonestar.a1professionals.net_public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131New fiction by Deepa Varadarajan<\/p>\n
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Excerpted from Late Bloomers. Copyright \u00a9 2023 by Deepa Varadarajan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n All these internet women lie, I tell you. All of them. Funny that the anonymity draws everyone in. But it\u2019s also what keeps you from trusting a word. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes the lies are about the fundamentals: previous marriages, whether they have kids, what line of work they\u2019re in. Oh, and age. Age is a big one. The last date I went on was with a woman whose profile said forty-one. Impossible! There wasn\u2019t a chance that Ms. Mittal (formerly Mrs. Mittal) was a day under fifty. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My son, Nikesh, laughed at me when I told him about that one. \u201cBut, Dad,\u201d he said, \u201cyou<\/em> are fifty-nine<\/em>.\u201d Well that may be, but I didn\u2019t go around grossly exaggerating for sport. I was more reasonable about it all. On my profile, I described myself as \u201cSuresh Raman, a healthy and active, five-foot-ten, fifty-five-year-old divorced man of Indian origin.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n All right, so fifty-five was four years ago, the height was a rough estimate, and \u201cactive\u201d was only an accurate description if it included toenail-clipping while watching CNN in my carpeted den. But these were reasonable deviations from the truth. RDTs, I called them. So long as you kept it reasonable, where was the harm, really? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was early evening now. I parked my SUV in front of a small, white brick house. I had to quash my misgivings\u2014for the next few hours, at least. I reminded myself: This was a first date, a new woman, a clean slate. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I sniffed under my arms. Good, still powdery fresh. I\u2019d left my house in Clayborn, Texas, two hours ago, but I blasted the AC the entire drive to Austin. Whatever my doubts about lying internet women, I\u2019d never want a date to see unsightly wet patches blooming across my shirt. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. Even at this hour, the late-August sun beamed harsh and unforgiving. My eyebrows looked like two furry worms wriggling around a pockmarked forehead. I licked my forefinger and tried pasting down the errant hairs. But it was useless. Hairs kept popping up in every direction. Oh well. Perhaps the restaurant would be dim and Mallika wouldn\u2019t notice the unruly duo dancing above my eyelids. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mallika<\/em>. We\u2019d been emailing each other for two weeks. Now, this one did not seem like a liar. I couldn\u2019t be sure, of course, as I\u2019d yet to see her in the flesh. At the moment, she was still three parts fantasy to one part reality\u2014a concoction of my hazy, lonely brain. Though given the mendacious tendencies of these internet women, it was hard to maintain any fantasy for long. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mind you, this wasn\u2019t just abstract cynicism talking. It came from months of experience. And in my months of experience, I\u2019d learned that even when these internet women weren\u2019t lying about important things, like age, then they were lying about ridiculous things\u2014things I wouldn\u2019t have even cared about had they told me the truth. But when I discovered they\u2019d lied about it, I had to assume it meant something. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Last month, for example, I went out with this divorced real estate agent from Baton Rouge named Usha. She lied about all kinds of trivialities. Favorite Food: Italian<\/em>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trusting this preference in her profile, I suggested going to the Olive Garden on our first date. It had been a tiring six-hour drive from Clayborn to Baton Rouge, but I wanted to show her that I was sensitive to this detail about her\u2014that I cared enough to remember. Upon hearing my suggestion, she shrugged and explained that Italian wasn\u2019t really her favorite. She wanted a steak. Feeling rebuked, I asked her why she didn\u2019t just say \u201csteak\u201d on her profile. She replied that she was afraid of scaring the divorced and widowed Hindu vegetarian men from answering. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now, I wasn\u2019t an unsympathetic man. Or a vegetarian. And while I questioned the sanity of anyone who enjoyed masticating thick slabs of beef, I understood that a forty-two-year-old divorc\u00e9e with two teenage kids needed to expand her pool of possibilities in any way she could. Only that wasn\u2019t all. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Over the course of that evening, which began and ended at Matthew\u2019s Steakhouse, I discovered that in the dozen emails and phone conversations leading up to our fateful meeting, she\u2019d lied about her car (a Honda not a Volvo), her glasses prescription for nearsightedness (minus four, not minus two), her tennis elbow (she didn\u2019t even own a racket), and her subscription to National Geographic<\/em> (ha!). None of those things in isolation would have caused me to do more than raise a puzzled eyebrow. But read together, the insignificance of those lies added up to one significant thing: She was a liar. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There had been countless such evenings. During the long (and sometimes multistate) drives back home, when disappointment sat in the back of my throat like undigested food, I\u2019d say to myself: \u201cEnough, old man, enough of this silly business.\u201d But at such moments, I too was a liar. For within minutes of pulling into my garage, I\u2019d head straight for the buzzing glow of my computer. I\u2019d check for new responses, answer the promising ones, and update my profile\u2014the three-step ritual that had become second nature to me, like the windshield-to-rearview-mirror-to-speedometer visual reflex of driving. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nikesh called me \u201chooked.\u201d I\u2019d describe my dating mishaps to him, and he\u2019d say, \u201cIf they\u2019re so bad, then stop; or just stay local, at least.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Local? What was the point of trying to meet an Indian woman in Clayborn? They were all friends with my ex-wife, Lata, who\u2019d left me, and would therefore be biased against me. And a non-Indian woman? That was too foreign to contemplate. But I didn\u2019t say any of this to my son. Instead, I\u2019d meekly reply, \u201cYou\u2019re right\u2014this is the last one. No more.\u201d But he wouldn\u2019t believe me. He\u2019d chuckle and chide, \u201cYou\u2019re hooked, Dad.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n