Several weeks ago I met a man at a work-related party. He is in his 50s. I am 15 years younger. He introduced himself to me, we chatted and he gave me his business card. I emailed him and we arranged to meet for a drink. We met for a drink and got along very well. We had a second date which went well although I did notice at that point that he seems very unsure of himself.
We had a third date the other day. At this point a few things started to worry me slightly. Firstly, he had mentioned two friends of his, both of whom work in my same industry. He had said, "my friend XX is directing that movie." But by chance a friend of mine told me that in fact her own boyfriend is directing said movie. My date then backtracked and also admitted that the man he mentioned is not his friend after all. On our first date he had also talked at some length about his friend who is a writer. He talked about the books she'd written and he told me very funny anecdotes about this friend's experiences as a writer and about her love life. On our third date he started to repeat his stories about this writer friend but then he promptly admitted that actually he does not know her at all and has never met her. He said that he knows the woman's boyfriend's friend and that's where he got all the anecdotes about her from.
At this stage he also talked a little about his teenage daughter from a previous relationship. He did not have a good word to say about his daughter's mother and said she seems mentally ill and he talked about how his ex had prevented him from seeing his daughter for years and years. He also was very critical of his ex's new husband. Very disparaging indeed, in fact. He says that his daughter, who is in her late teens, is actually now coming to live with him in just a few months time.
On top of that he has a teenage daughter and on the 3rd date I asked him whether his daughter's mother is his ex-wife. He then began slagging his mother's daughter off to the point where I became speechless. He said she's probably mentally ill, that she has treated him horribly and he said he refuses to call her by her name but instead refers to her as "the mother". He also said, with a lot of pride in his voice, that his daughter refers to her mother not as mummy but as "THAT WOMAN." He really seemed to get a lot of pleasure from this.
Overall he also seems very hesitant. Rather than actually initiating dates he will drop heavy hints. We have tentatively arranged a fourth date, but I'm having second thoughts.
What do you think?