Wildlife

She Said

“You can’t be serious? I can’t be expected to meet you out in the middle of nowhere, I mean, I don’t actually know you and this is our first date. We have to meet somewhere public in case you’re a creeper or serial killer. You get that right?” I knew genuine fear infused my voice in the recorded message and I was ok with that. Once again I started wondering if I should cut my losses with this guy and not bother talking to him again.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, his screen name on Match is “ShyGuy.” But come on, who suggests meeting five miles down a primitive hiking trail in the middle of a forest?

Even getting him to talk to me on the phone was a struggle. There always seemed to be another excuse, first he couldn’t talk because he was traveling for the holidays, which seemed legit. I even liked the idea that he was connected with his family enough to be visiting them for Thanksgiving. Never trust a guy who doesn’t love his mother. Once he was there he was busy with family obligations, dinners, drinks with the cousins, that kind of stuff, and that seemed legit too. But when a cousin died in a car crash and he still couldn’t talk because of all the funeral drama things started feeling a bit dicey. Shit happens, but we had been communicating through the dating app for over a month and you would think he was ready to take it to the next level too. Finally we did talk and it went well, so when he got back home I wanted to meet him.

I’m going to be honest, there isn’t a big pool of single guys out here out on the Olympic Peninsula. There probably aren’t many single women out here either, there aren’t a lot of people in general. I would have imported my own man with me when I moved here from New Mexico if I could, but I didn’t have one so here I am. ShyGuy got my attention right away. He lives off the grid and built his own home for one thing, cool right? I’ve always wanted to do exactly that, and that’s a big part of the reason I moved out here. Just reading over his profile I had a major crush on him, even though all his photos were out of focus or just featured his boot with a view of a forested valley or a slice of bearded smile buried in mossy trees. I knew he had a full shaggy beard which was a major turn on! Growing up out here in the Pacific Northwest my male role models were lumberjacks and Sasquatch, so, I loved a full bushy beard to nuzzle. But I had learned the hard way that you really HAVE TO meet people in person before you get too attached. One time I met this super cute guy whose mouth was a disgusting black hole of caked chewing tobacco, so, there’s a lot you can’t tell from photos and ShyGuy’s photos were more vague than most!

He Said

Her Match screen name is “GoodLookingMutt” and grrr, I have to agree! I should have known better than to even be on a dating site, its not like I could ever actually meet a woman and be in a relationship, could I? Anyway, always before I had just been a voyeur, looking at other people’s photos and profiles and having fleeting flirtations that never went anywhere and weren’t worth much effort, until I saw Mutt. How can I describe her? GLMutt was definitely a cutie, her face was roundish and she didn’t take herself too seriously, often pictured with a little goofy look like she’d been caught just before bursting into an impulsive laugh. She had long dark brown hair that was almost black and I couldn’t place her ethnicity, which is why the Mutt moniker was so perfect! None of her photos featured much skin and never cleavage or stupid “fashion” poses, yet somehow I could tell she had a nice figure. But what made GoodLookingMutt beautiful was her smile. She had a this huge genuine smile with teeth and lips slightly parted that felt just a tad feral but also inviting. That smile was real, it was a mirror of her soul and it inhabited her entire being. I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to meet this girl.

I knew the chances she would want to meet mr were slim, but there was zero chance at all if I didn’t have any photos. So I actually got together some pictures to post. Every time I went online I’d look to see if she was still there, to see if she was still single and open to starting a conversation. Relief and panic would flood my adrenals each time I saw she was still on the site and the internal battle would start all over again. These photos weren’t good enough, my profile wasn’t written right and I would log off again still hidden from view. Eventually I pulled the trigger and contacted her.

My screen name is ShyGuy, but I’m not actually shy exactly, I have social anxiety and don’t like being around people. Everyone in my family is like that, but I’ve actually integrated into the main-stream better because I got interested in computers and taught myself to code. So now I have crazy amounts of money in the bank from selling a program I wrote and I take contracts that interest me. The internet changed my world for sure, and I can live off the grid and by myself comfortably, until I started wanting someone to share it with.

After messaging back an forth through the dating site for a while she insisted we talk on the phone. Somehow I survived that, but now she wants to meet! I knew a magical spot a ways down a remote hiking trail where there were some early wild flowers peeking through the snow. It was perfect! And there wouldn’t be anyone else around to see us, or me I guess, so I thought I could stomach the meeting if we did it out there. I texted her the idea and waited anxiously for her response…

When the call came in I couldn’t pick it up, I felt like vomiting, so I let it go to voicemail. “You can’t be serious? I can’t be expected to meet you out in the middle of nowhere, I mean, I don’t actually know you and this is our first date. We have to meet somewhere public in case you’re a creeper or serial killer. You get that right?”

“Shit!” I expelled the curse out loud like the result of a sucker punch.

Mutt’s message is totally reasonable, damn it! How could I have thought only about myself and my stupid neuroses? How could I have forgotten about the real danger women put themselves in any time they agree to meet a man? How can I recover from that stupid douchey suggestion that we meet in the middle of nowhere? This whole idea was stupid from the start, but how could I know she would actually want to meet me? Idiot. I’ve gone and bought a lottery ticket and actually won, but can’t actually collect the money. If I blank her now I can live a fantasy of what could have happened, what might have been. If I actually meet her she’ll reject me and I can’t even pretend anymore, what’s worse I’ll be living in the nightmare of her disgust in me. Grrr! I hate myself sometimes! How can I save this disaster?

When Mutt’s text lit up my phone I was afraid to even read it, this was it, the end, she was right to be sick of me and my bullshit.

“I have an idea, maybe we could meet at a trailhead parking lot? That would be open and public enough for me to feel safe and you could still have the forest around you so you can feel safe too?”

Adrenalin shocked through my system when I finally read her text. Oh my god, am I actually going to meet this woman?

Wildlife

There were a couple other cars in the parking lot when I got there, so I parked in the closest spot to the trailhead and settled in to wait a bit. My dad was in the military and I grew up hearing, “If you’re not early you’re late!” I guess that stuck.

The first fifteen minutes went by pretty quickly, I walked around the trailhead area to familiarize myself, peed in the porta-potty, and played a little Candy Crush to pass the time. There was a light blanket of December snow covering the ground and exposed foliage but the sun was out and it felt warm on my face as I wandered around the clearing. This trailhead had half a bar of cellular connection, so when the clock hit 10am I texted him that I was there, “I’m here and in a light blue Prius, see you soon!”

Most people aren’t as punctual as I am, so I’ve developed a policy of waiting at least ten minutes after the scheduled time to let the mortals catch up. What, I’m not being a bitch, I just like keeping a competitive edge when possible.

When he still hadn’t shown up twenty minutes after our arranged time I started feeling pretty annoyed. Jeeze, I can’t believe I drove all the way out here to be stood up! And I should have known better after all the BS this guy had already pulled. I can’t even go for the hike either in case he’s lurking on the trail like his original suggestion. I’m an idiot.

I took a deep breath and started typing out another text, “I’ve been here waiting but you’re still not here so I guess we’re not going to meet after all.” Send. I resisted the urge to include a poop emoji.

To work off some of my frustration I got out of the car and started walking around the clearing again. Huge Jurassic ferns clustered around the edges of the trees and I relaxed into the intoxicating soft air. How could I have ever moved away from this enchanted place to the desert for ten years? The Olympic National forest is an amazing temperate rainforest and one of the few places in the lower 48 where you can get completely lost in the wilderness. I love this place and I intended to never leave it again. Just like when I was a kid I started to drift away into dreams and fantasies, imagining fairies and other magical creatures spying on me from the underbrush and deep carpet of pine needles.

**

I recognized her right away when she pulled into the parking lot. She even smiled that amazing smile when she parked and looked out the window at the trail. I noted every detail of her car; the sasquatch air-freshener dangling from the rear-view, a bumper sticker reading, “The trees ARE the view.” Damn, I couldn’t have made this stuff up if I were trying, this woman gets more and more perfect the more I know about her.

When she got out of the car I panicked and slid further into the trees, heart racing, eyes blurring. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god, she’s going to see me!” my mind buzzed at me silently. But she just cruised around the parking lot and used the porta-potty before getting back in her car. Relief.

I had arrived at the trailhead over an hour ago, it wasn’t too far from my house and I needed to stretch my legs and work off some of my nervous energy so I hiked there through the bush and along deer tracks that were like highways for me. I grew up in these woods and might walk twenty miles in an afternoon just to relax. I watched each vehicle arrive and the people inside them disembark; one posh couple decked out in REI everything and a young couple with a running kid and baby in a pack. I knew they wouldn’t be back for hours, the trail they took was a loop and there wasn’t much guesswork in how long it took to hike it. When Mutt texted me that she was here I guess I panicked all over again. I don’t even remember it really because I turned and blindly started to run.

Who knows how long I ran or ambled between salmonberry bushes and ferns, under long beards of Spanish moss, I sure didn’t know. But something inside me must have wanted to stay because instead of running away from the trailhead I ended up circling it from a distance, ending up maybe half a mile away when I felt my phone vibrate again. “I’ve been here waiting but you’re still not here so I guess we’re not going to meet after all.”

No! I’ve done it again and literally run away. Maybe this is for the best, maybe I knew I would run before I even got here? A numbing depression set in as I trudged back to the trailhead parking lot knowing she would be gone by the time I got there. This woman deserves so much better than me anyway, I did her a favor by not meeting her.

**

Stopping to ponder a particularly adorable cluster of mushrooms sprouting from a mossy log, I had become so focused on this tiny world that I almost missed the movement off to my left. Still crouched, I didn’t turn my head but just slid my eyes over to see what made the movement, expecting to see a deer or elk maybe. But what I saw was a tall bearded man leaning into a tree and peering toward the parking lot. He seemed upset, like he’d been crying , his shoulders were bowed and knees bent to suggest the tree was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

It was a long shot, but there was something about him that looked familiar, so I carefully called out to him, softly softly, “Shy Guy?”

**

Finally I staggered near the perimeter of the clearing around the parking area and let myself fall into the embrace of a concealing tree. I don’t remember crying on my trudge back to the site of my shame but now that I had stopped I felt the wetness on my face and the tightness in my throat. I don’t know why I came back here except to torture myself in some sick ritual of self hatred, and at first I didn’t understand what I was seeing until I recognized the Sasquatch air freshener dangling in a light blue car windshield. Suddenly it all clicked: she’s still here.

That’s when I heard it, “Shy Guy?”

My inner voice shouted, “This is my imagination, I am hallucinating. My neuroses have finally pushed me over the edge and I am hearing things.”

But I wasn’t hallucinating because when I turned to my left there was my Mutt squatting down in the underbrush like a wild pixie. Her eyes were an amazing shade of green, almost grey, almost blue. And I had never seen a person stay so still or sit so comfortably in a squat near the ground. No wonder I hadn’t noticed her there, she had become part of the place.

**

He turned toward me hesitantly, like he was dreading what he might see. But once our eyes met they were locked and I couldn’t look away if I had tried to. He had the most amazing deep brown eyes that I felt myself drowning in. Slowly and carefully I stood up without making a sound or making any other movement. This encounter felt more like spotting a wild fox in the forest than a man I had been corresponding with for over a month, and I didn’t want to startle him into running away from me.

He seemed to be choking and trying to clear his throat, like he might want to speak but couldn’t get the sounds out, so I decided to query him again, “Shy Guy?” I whispered.

When he answered his voice had a deep rumble to it despite the short syllable he uttered, “Mutt?”

I reached out my hand to him and held it there, open, inviting. After a few heartbeats he stepped toward me and took it in his own. We never broke eye contact, but his taking my hand let my vision expand to take in his entire face. That’s when I realized this man didn’t just have a full beard, he was basically furred.

“Let’s go deeper in the woods,” I suggested.

In a shocked daze he merely nodded to me before taking the lead and sliding us through the underbrush swiftly. I was meekly following behind him, his head and shoulders towered above me but he moved through the forest silently. Soon we were surrounded by nothing but trees and their sighs, just me and an honest to god Sasquatch.