Romancing the Con

by Gwen Cooper — May 25, 2007

The receipt of a random prank phone call in the middle of the night last night--a phenomenon I have not experienced in many years--has caused me to think about my ex-boyfriend Jason. Those of you who read this blog regularly will remember Jason as the ex who showed up at my book reading two weeks back with the intention of rattling me. As I have a blog to write today and Jason is on my mind, perhaps it's time that the long, sad, sordid story of Jason finally gets told.

I first met Jason almost exactly six years ago, within about six months of my having moved to New York. I was, at the time, director of marketing for the largest technical recruiting firm in the City, and Jason was a guy who sold trade-show booths for career fairs. Our relationship was professional at first--he looking to sell and I possibly interested in buying--but a rapport quickly developed that led to a first date.

I shudder to think how many first dates I've racked up over the years, but this one in particular stands out in my mind. Over an intimate dinner at my favorite local Italian dive, I received a lot of information about Jason and his personal life. The first thing I learned was that Jason had spent two years in prison. Looking back on it all, this perhaps (duh!) should have been the first serious red flag--the kind of red flag that comes with, like, flashing neon signs and fireworks and a Broadway-style kick-line with somebody along the lines of Don Pardo announcing, "And now it's time for the Red Flag Dancers!"

But those who've read my book already know that a slight tang of the "bad boy" wasn't the sort of thing that would put me off initially. Perhaps I even found something romantically tragic in the thought of his previous sufferings, and his current attempts to put his life "back on track." He spoke movingly of his young daughter, living in Pennsylvania with her mother--a former girlfriend he'd accidentally impregnated with no intention of starting a family. But he was, he told me, committed to being "a real father" and working as hard as he could for his daughter's benefit, as she was the most important thing in his life.

I should also note that Jason was extremely charming and good-looking--albeit in what I now realize was an unctuous, smarmy sort of way. He was the kind of person who often succeeds as a salesman, not because of the quality of his product or his commitment to serving his clients' needs, but because he'd made a life's study of anticipating what people want to hear and feeding it back to them as if it were his own original thought.

And, boy, did he have my number. The primary characters in our budding Harlequin romance were now in place--the New Girl in Town Looking for Love and the Ex-Con with a Heart of Gold and a Troubled Past.

But the cast wasn't complete yet. There is, after all, no good love story without conflict--ideally in the shape of a third party, if you can get your hands on a good stock character. So enter the Borderline-Psychotic Ex-Girlfriend Who Couldn't Let Go...

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.