The guy from Craigslist
In 2007 I went on a date with a guy from Craigslist. I was 17 years old at the time.
I put an ad up looking to meet someone, I don’t remember the details. A guy responded who lived close to me, and so I emailed him back and gave him my number. He was actually one of the only ones who responded without a creepy message. He said his name was Jon and he was 26 years old.
This guy, Jon, and I, spoke for two days before meeting, and we met on a Friday night. We texted back and forth and he asked if I was single, I said yes. He asked what kind of food I liked to eat, because he wanted to take me to a restaurant. I asked him a few questions about himself, he told me he still lived with his mother but had the top floor to himself, and that he was a part time model that made good money. Judging by his picture him being a model was fairly believable.
So on Friday night Jon comes to pick me up. He drove a silver two door car, I want to say Ford. He popped me a message to say he was waiting outside, and after checking my hair and make up one last time I said goodbye to my parents, telling them I was heading out with friends, and left.
I got into Jon’s car and the first thing I noticed was that he looked exactly like his photo – the tall dark and handsome type. He had pale skin with dark hair and dark eyes. He looked a little older in person but he made up for it with a snappy fashion sense. He looked cool, and cute.
He was incredibly kind, and his body language and smile totally put me at ease. Yes, it’s really stupid to go on a date from Craigslist, but surprisingly this guy was normal. We chatted for a while as he started driving away from my home town, towards the highway. He wanted to drive us into the city to go to dinner, which wasn’t too far – around a 25 minute journey. Jon started to reveal more details about himself to me on this journey – he told me he was embarrassed to tell me he lived with his mother, that I might think bad of him for not having his own place at his age.
Jon got closer and closer to the highway and I can’t tell you what it was, I won’t make it up because I don’t remember, but it wasn’t anything remotely creepy, I just felt put off by him. You know where you’re on a date with someone and you’re not sure and then they tell you something that’s you’re biggest turn off? It was that kind of situation. Again, he didn’t say anything too creepy, just… off putting. As we’re getting closer and closer to the turn off I tell this perfectly nice guy “I’m really sorry, I don’t feel like going to dinner any more, I’m not feeling well”.
Jons initial reaction was sympathy. “What’s wrong?” “Are you OK?” “Is it my driving?!” I told him I just didn’t feel well. Jon then KEPT asking me “What did I say? What did I do?!” I told him it’s not him, it’s me, I wanted to go home because I felt ill.
Then he said “OK, let me just drive around for a little bit before I take you back, I don’t want to end the evening like this.” I knew that without him driving me home I’d have to walk over an hour, maybe more, so I told him that driving for a bit sounded like a fine idea. But, instead of him turning around and going back towards mine, he veered off and started heading to the town I knew he lived in. I should mention it was pitch black out and the town where Jon lived was surrounded by dense wood. This isn’t even worth mentioning if you take the highway and proper turn offs to get there, but he decided he wanted to go via the back roads because it’s more “scenic”, despite the fact I couldn’t see a thing.
Jon had gone from being incredibly talkative to almost completely silent. He kept driving further into the wooded area. A few times I’d ask him questions about himself to break the awkward silence. At one point I put my hand on his knee, affectionately, trying to regain the friendly, flirty banter we’d had earlier. He blanked me for the most part, occasionally answering in soft grunts or nods. It was like he was having a tantrum.
Jon pulled into the parking lot for the forest. It was around 9pm so naturally it was totally empty. He slowly kept driving, looking around for other cars and then parked himself up right at the end, close to the woods. There was nobody else in the parking lot and I hadn’t even seen us pass other cars to get there.
For 10 minutes he just sat there, staring into the darkness ahead. Which was… disturbing. I think I managed to make small talk for maybe 5 minutes, which is a long time when someone isn’t talking back. Then I joined him in his silence. I was afraid of appearing fake, I didn’t want him to think I was scared.
So some time of silence goes past and abruptly Jon gets out of the car, closes the door and locks the car. I was stuck inside. His lights were on so I could sort of see ahead. In front of the car was a field that maybe went on for about 20 feet (so really a patch of grass) and then beyond that were trees and dense forest. To the left was the rest of the car park and exit at the far end and to the immediate right was more forest with a small path.
Jon disappeared into the forest ahead.
