OK Cupid update

Someone pointed out to me this evening, quite inadvertently, that I had used these dating profiles to rather seriously mislead people about what kind of person I am. I had, in fact, used them to also mislead myself. It might even be accurate to say that the target of my deception was really me, and everyone else got pulled along for the ride.

Confronted with the reality versus the image I had created, I realized I couldn't, with any sense of fairness or honesty, continue to pretend to be this person I had invented.

I pulled all the accounts. (I say 'pulled' – in fact, as I discovered, some of these free sites have literally no way to cancel an account. You can 'disable' an account, which I did, but you can't delete it. That's why they're able to claim umpteen million members. Many or most of the members have been gone for years.)

The meetings I had tentatively set up are off. I had actually arranged for those women to meet a man who doesn't exist, and whom I could never pretend to be without the camouflage of the Internet to protect me.

This was the right thing to do – in fact, it was the only thing to do. The truth would have been evident eventually, no matter what.

Olivia and Carol, I know you will likely never see this, but I'm sorry I misled you. I played a game with you and myself, driven by loneliness, desire and selfishness. No one deserves to be treated the way I treated you. I don't think I would be morally outraged if someone had done this to me, but I would be annoyed, and you have every right to be annoyed as well.

(Would a direct apology to these women be appropriate? Yes, it would, but I didn't think about that until after I had suspended the accounts. Now I have no way to email them without reactivating, and I'm not going to do that. I have Olivia's phone number, and she has mine. If she calls, I guess I'll tell her directly. Otherwise, I think our ships have passed in the night.)

If the rest of you think you know the details of what this is about, let me assure you that you don't, nor am I going to discuss it here. I will only say that it has nothing to do with anything that has been previously posted here, either by myself or by anyone in comments.

But let's see if I can get back to seeing things clearly and honestly, instead of through the filters of my own desires, preferences and aversions.

I really feel pretty stupid about this whole thing.