I’d met a guy online through Yahoo Personals. This was the early 90s and I was very new to online dating. He was 38, worked at a hospital. He seemed to have his act together and appeared to have a nice personality —via our couple of weeks of messaging and emails. I had a policy of not asking for pictures because I wanted my impression to be made based on personality. We also hadn’t talked on the phone. This was the time of landlines and I didn’t want a stranger to potentially trace my number to my address.

We decided to meet at a coffee shop (I cautiously told my friends where I’d be, in case the dude was a creeper). I arrived to find a man waiting for me dressed in full cowboy gear (Wrangler jeans, flashy boots, a fringed shirt, and a huge cowboy hat). I live in a suburb of Washington DC—not the typical home of cowboys! He had a large cardboard box with him.

Upon introducing himself, he asked if I liked his outfit and before I could answer, he proceeded to tell me how his mom had picked it out for him. Over the next hour (I would have made it shorter if I could have politely exited) he talked nonstop about his mom—who was also his “roommate, by choice.” His other topic of conversation was his ex-girlfriend who couldn’t get along with his mother. He also let me know that he was looking for someone to marry who didn’t mind living with him, his mom, and their six German police dogs. There were so many relationship red-flags being hurled at me that I actually wondered if I was on some type of hidden camera reality show.

I had a cup of coffee and declined any lunch. I picked up the entire tab to prevent any ill feelings on his part about wasting his money. I let him know that it was nice to meet him and that I wished him well, but that I didn’t think we were a match. It was at that point that he said to me, “Mom had a feeling that you might not like me, so she sent you these books to get you in the mood.” He then presented me with the box. It was filled to the brim with Cowboy-themed romance novels!!!!

As we were leaving, I feigned the need to make a phone call from the parking lot payphone, so that I could be certain of the direction that he’d driven off in. I left about 10 minutes later and drove in the opposite direction and took the long way home just in case he tried to follow me.

Later that evening, I received an email from his mother asking me to reconsider!