less comfortable meeting women. In September 2010, he had just dropped fifty pounds but was still a husky 250. He planned to lose more weight, but he was feeling fairly confident when he posted his profile on an online dating site. When it comes to Garret’s most attractive physical qualities, women like the fact he is tall, has a strong chin and warm gray eyes. A nondenominational Christian who is true to his values, he hoped to meet a woman who shared his beliefs. It wasn’t long before he met Liz via the dating site, and they made plans to get together.
On their first date, Garret and Liz watched a movie at his Omaha apartment. “We were intimate, but we didn’t have sex,” he remembers. Liz had made the first move, and after she went home, she texted him and implied he wasn’t interested in her. It was his body language that had tipped her off, she told him. His body language spoke louder than words, and it had practically shouted that he did not find her appealing. He couldn’t understand how she’d gotten that impression. He was actually very attracted to her, so he figured she must be insecure to need so much reassurance. “I had to convince her I liked her.”
Maybe Liz felt rejected because she’d expected him to be more sexually aggressive, but he was looking for a relationship, not a one-night stand. It was their first date, and he wasn’t the kind of guy to take advantage of a woman. Soon they were seeing each other regularly, and he was flattered that the slender, lovely lady wanted to be with him. He was thirty-seven, had not had many relationships, and it had been a couple of years since his last one had ended. Liz seemed to be into him, and he was pleased with “the attention she was giving me.” Oddly, she pulled away from him in public, but he admits, “I was just enjoying any kind of affection, even if it seemed like it was being hidden.”
Though they saw each other just a couple times most weeks, he knew he was on her mind, because she texted him so often. It made him smile to see her constant messages pop up in his phone, and unless he was working, he dropped whatever he was doing to answer her. After two years alone, it felt good to be the focus of an attractive woman’s attention. They soon became sexually intimate, but Garret didn’t find her to be particularly passionate, and, in fact, describes her as “a robotic” lover. Was she self-conscious because of her strict upbringing? Liz had described a stifling childhood, raised by adoptive parents who gave her no freedom. She told him that her family was extremely religious, but he wasn’t clear on their beliefs. Had she been shamed for her sexuality? Maybe she would become less inhibited as time went on.
It seemed to Garret that Liz had had a very hard life. She confided that she was disillusioned by relationships because every man she’d ever been with had mistreated and used her. He vowed to be different. “I was determined to be the guy who didn’t use her.” After everything she’d been through, it was understandable she had some insecurities, and she definitely had her jealous moments. Once, early on in the relationship, Garret had been talking on the phone to his sister when Liz became suspicious. He quickly put her fears to rest. “That was my sister,” he told her and assured her that he had no interest in pursuing other women.
He saw her jealousy as a sign she cared about him—cared so much that she was afraid of losing him. Was he going to cheat on her like the others had? He didn’t want Liz to worry, and she calmed down as he reassured her. Garret was honest and loyal, not the type to stray. He believed in monogamy, and as he points out now, “I never gave Liz any reason to be jealous.” He also believed that trust was important in a relationship and that it should go both ways.
Something unsettling occurred about two months after he met Liz, before they were officially exclusive. It was Garret’s understanding that she was single and free to date, but he was in for a shock when he got a text from Allen Motts. “Allen contacted me through Yahoo Messenger. Somehow he had broken into her account and gotten my name.”