I was swimming at a beach park and I saw a homeless lady who lives in a car with three dogs. We were kind of friends but, like a lot of people who can't keep a job or place to live, she wasn't exactly a day at the beach. I'd kind of avoided her for a while. Now she was having a happening gathering at a picnic table, so I thought, why not start over?

There was this handsome but very dysfunctional guy there. He kept stealing my hat and wearing it, and transgressing on my personal space. He was trying to make it some kind of joke, but it wasn't funny. He claimed to be trying to pick up on me, but offering to meet on a date so I could read to him was about the lamest thing I've ever heard. He kept smoking hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes across the table from me in spite of my requests that he stop. He was an alcoholic. There were some other guys there. I had a nice conversation about art with this one guy. He seemed very civilized. Had memorized the entire contents of our art museum.

When the Civilized Guy left, the mood got seriously weird. My female friend related the story of how the Civilized Guy recently left her stranded ten miles from her stuff, at night, twice, for no reason, after taking her out to dinner. According to her, he didn't even say a word, just up and disappeared on her. That was weird because we had all been talking and she gave no indication of that. For part of the time she was happily stringing beads.

Then she said he was stalking her, had probably broken into her car earlier that evening (The spot she parked in is notorious for break ins). He had talked about putting rice on the ground near her car for her dogs and she said that it was just a stalking thing. It had been odd the way he spoke of it.

She said that the passenger side of his car couldn't open or unlock from the inside and that he "liked" it that way. In our area, this can be from break ins, but who's to say. Then she said that he said some upsetting things about her in church and then went to the pastor, apologized to him and gave him $300.00 for her to fix her car. She warned me vociferously against dating him.