Little Failures: The Law School Student

A series about a journey down the broken road.

A woman in law school studying to be a divorce attorney eventually revealed to me, the third time that we spent time together, that she had done a thorough background check on me before our first date.

This may have been a red flag, in hindsight (though admittedly a pertinent move), but loneliness and a yearning for some sort of connection — or just to taste lipstick for the first time in a long time — can cajole a person into doing some inadvisable things. So I looked past it.

Said first date had ended up feeling more like a job interview. Or a one-one-one performance review conducted by someone who has never even worked with you. Also sort of like a deposition. I was a bit surprised she didn’t pull out a bible at the table and insist I swear upon it before answering any of her questions — not that doing so would have made me any less likely to lie, if I’m being totally honest.

I had no reason to doubt her online researching skills and prowess, given that the way we’d gotten in contact was by her digitally tracking me down. We’d matched on Bumble, and I’d missed her introductory message because my hopes were so low that I assumed if I did get a match she would not make the “first move” by sending me a message in the…