A meet-cute is a magical, serendipitous encounter where two strangers end up becoming romantic partners, and it’s a popular theme in romcoms.
But sometimes that effortless stroke of fate isn’t actually that. He thought he found the perfect girl-next-door kind of romance, only to accidentally overhear a conversation that proved his love story was carefully orchestrated, yet disguised as fate.
If you found out that your fairytale romance was actually a masterclass in premeditated surveillance, would you stop thinking that your partner is your soulmate?
It was a bit more than three years ago that this 28-year-old man moved to the city where he currently lives for his job. His new house is amazing, complete with a pool and a neighborhood running trail.
He loves being outside and swimming, so it’s been a perfect situation for him. In the first month of living in his new place, he had minimal exchanges with his neighbors.
They would wave at one another and say hello, and that was the extent of their interactions. But one day, after he came home from running, a woman named Kim and her sister Lisa knocked on his front door to introduce themselves.
Lisa just so happened to live directly across the street with her two children and her husband. They chatted for a bit, and in hindsight, he thinks that Kim and Lisa were trying to suss out if he had a girlfriend or not.
Lisa and Kim then invited him to come to their 4th of July cookout, and he replied that he would try to swing by. On the 4th of July, he decided just to hang out at home.
In the afternoon, Kim and Lisa dropped by and begged him to come over to have a burger, and he agreed. He was there for a few hours, and Kim asked him loads of questions.
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“After this experience, I start to see Kim regularly when I am out and about. There is a grocery store near the neighborhood, and I would see her there,” he explained.
“I also see her pretty regularly at a nearby coffee shop that I start frequenting. Every time, she tries to initiate a conversation. About six months into living there, I am doing a run on the trail around the neighborhood. I see Kim, and she flags me down. She said that she lost her phone and asks if I can call it.”
“I call, and we do not hear anything. She then asks if I can walk with her along the trail and help her look. I do. We walk for about 15 minutes, and I keep calling. She eventually finds it covered by some leaves a little way off the trail.”
Kim then said she wanted to take him out to lunch to thank him for helping her find her phone, and he agreed. He had a nice time with Kim and was surprised to find out they had many commonalities.
They began dating not long after that thank-you lunch. One year ago, Kim moved in with him, and four months ago, he proposed to her.
Last month, Kim’s friend discovered that her boyfriend, with whom she lived, was cheating on her. A couple of days later, Kim’s friend came to their house to drink wine and hang out.
He was busy taking care of the pool, but the girls were being so loud that he could overhear their entire conversation. Kim asked him to go grab them more wine, and when he returned with it, the topic turned to him.
“After a while, Kim’s friend said something like, ‘I just need to start stalking a good one.’ Kim’s response was, ‘I can give you the stalking to get your man 101 course,’ and then talked about figuring out a guy’s schedule, showing up to the places they are, and finding excuses to talk to them,” he added.
Kim told her friend it could be quite an investment of energy. They laughed about it and stayed on the man stalking subject for quite a bit of time.
Kim’s friend slept over at their house and left the following morning. What Kim had mentioned to her friend about stalking a man really made him upset.
So, he questioned Kim about it after her friend had gone home, and she at first tried to say that she was joking before admitting that she had stalked him before they started dating.
“She figured out when I would go running, go grocery shopping, go to the coffee shop, etc., and would be there. She had been trying to get me to ask her out for months,” he continued.
“After things did not work, [she] and her sister came up with the ‘lost’ phone plan on the trail. Hearing all of that really creeped me out.”
“Kim did not see the big deal. She has apologized, but she does not see the problem with what she did. It really has me second-guessing everything about the relationship.”
It seems to me that Kim has seen far too many romcoms, which helped her concoct this crazy plot to get him to date her when she could have simply asked him out and saved herself the headache of orchestrating a love story.
I don’t really find that alone alarming, but I am concerned that Kim bragged about what she did to her friend, while he’s been clueless for years.
It wouldn’t have been so problematic or creepy if she had confessed this all to him not long into their romance, but since she was so secretive and boastful about it, that, I think, is strange.
It’s totally fair if the truth changes things for him to the point that he no longer wants to marry her, but if he thinks there’s a way to salvage their future, couples counseling could be the path forward.
Or, if it’s not, at least it will help identify what he can’t live with or forgive.
What advice do you have for him?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
