The Producer

I never “dated” Richard, but I felt he was worth mentioning in the run down of men in my life. The first I’d ever heard of him was because of J.R. Richard was J.R’s mentor. J.R. had wanted to break into the entertainment industry, and this is the field Richard was in. Richard produced commercials in the Newport beach area. He’d never driven a car in his life. He had a huge fear of automobiles. He rode his bike everywhere and basically never left Newport Beach. J.R. used to be a driver for Richard, amongst other things. The friend that had introduced me to J.R. had also been friends with Richard. She stopped talking to both Richard and J.R. when J.R. had dumped her in order to date me. I was flattered, she was bitter. Can’t blame her, although I think in the long run I did her a huge favor by taking the psychotic off of her hands.

During the days J.R. was stalking me, I got calls from Richard to offer his support and insight into the crazy mind of J.R., as well as helpful advice on getting rid of him gracefully. I really appreciated the advice Richard gave, and we began to talk on a regular basis. We started to talk about more than just J.R., and discussed everything from friends and relationships to our past and future dreams. Since at this time I clearly had a thing for older men, of course I developed a crush on Richard. I still hadn’t met him in person and had no idea what he looked like. After some persuading he finally sent me a picture of himself. Well….maybe a picture of himself isn’t the best description for what he actually sent. It was a collage of pictures, and in the middle of that there was a photo of Richard. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but there was a distinguished sexiness to his look (or so it seemed from this picture.) I started trying to make a plan for us to see each other in person, but he’d always have some excuse or reason for why I couldn’t come to his house and meet him. When he’d sent me the collage of pictures, his return address was on the envelope, so I knew where he lived.

One day I decided to go to his house unexpectedly and surprise him. I drove over to his house, and was a bit nervous. I walked up to his door and knocked. There was no answer, but all the lights were on inside, so I wasn’t giving up just yet. I walked around to the side of the house and saw a tall man through the kitchen window with his back to me. There was a door there next to the window, so I knocked on that one. He turned around, with a surprised look, and asked who was out there. I said “It’s me, Parker….surprise!“

This did not go over very well. Not only was he pretty snippy about me showing up uninvited, but my crush also went away as soon as he opened the door and I saw him. Richard was at least 50 years old, and he was not at all attractive. He had a strange, sort of scrunched up looking ruddy face, with crazy curly hair sticking out everywhere. He was wearing big black rimmed glasses, and he looked like a scrawny old man. I realized that the picture he had sent to me only looked semi-attractive because it was taken at least 20 years prior. I also then knew why he hadn’t wanted me to meet him face to face. We didn’t talk anymore after that day.