It’s a Thursday afternoon. I’m sitting on the patio of Sushi 101 at the Boardwalk in University City with Michelle and Carmen.

Michelle is filling us in on how her quest to meet her husband before her thirtieth birthday is going. She’s got 46 weeks to meet her goal.

A couple of months ago, I went with Michelle to a speed-dating event. She was interested in six of the guys she’d met there, and three of them were interested in her. Unfortunately, she says they were all losers so she’d turned to dating online.

“I signed up for a couple of online dating sites, and I’ve been meeting a lot of guys that way,” she says. “You know, you have to cast a wide net and meet as many guys as you can to increase your chances of finding Mr. Right. It’s like playing the lottery.”

Michelle says that in the past month, she has gone on dates with at least 10 to 15 guys that she’s met online through these dating sites, which sounds a little scary to me. Isn’t that how people end up on the news in the morning?

“Don’t you worry that one day you’re going to hook up with some nut?” I ask her.

“Actually that’s happened to me before,” she says. “Well, he wasn’t exactly nutty, but his ex-girlfriend was.”

Just then the waitress drops off our drinks, which is a relief because I think I’m going to need one to get through this little sordid tale.

Oh, no he didn’t

A couple of weeks ago, Michelle met a guy online who said his name was Dexter. He came over to her house. They had dinner and drinks and then she actually hooked up with him in the sexual way.

“He came over,” she says. “I cooked him dinner and fixed us drinks. We were sitting on the couch watching a movie and one thing led to another, and when we were finished. He was like, ‘I’ve got something to tell you. I lied on my profile. I’m not 32. I’m 41, and my name is not Dexter.”

“Oh hell no,” Carmen says. “I would have busted him dead in his eye, and put his trifling self out of my house without even letting him get dressed first. I know you were upset…”

“Yeah, well, I was at first, but I could see where he was coming from,” says Michelle. Carmen and I exchange a glance. Michelle tries to explain. He’s a news reporter for a local TV station and is worried that if he uses his real name, his employer may take issue with it.

She tells us who he is, and I know him. I’m not sure what surprises me more – the fact that she actually hooked up with him or that he lied about his occupation. He always picking up girls by telling them he’s on TV.

“I kind of thought he looked familiar,” says Michelle. “I just couldn’t figure out where I knew him from. I think it kind of hurt his feelings that I didn’t recognize him.”

Michelle says that while they are sitting on the couch, his phone starts ringing like crazy, and he won’t answer. He sends it to voicemail, and whoever it is keeps calling back. Finally, Michelle gets upset and asks him to turn it off, which he does.

WTF is going on?

“About ten minutes later, it started beeping,” she says. “It was the craziest thing. It just kept beeping and beeping, but the phone was off.”

Apparently, his ex-girlfriend had programmed his new iPhone and downloaded some application that she was now using to track it. She also hacks his contacts to get Michelle’s number. When he doesn’t answer his phone, she starts calling Michelle.

“She was like ‘I know he’s in there, just tell him to come outside and give me my key,’” says Michelle.

Apparently, Mr. News Reporter not only lied about his name and his age, but he also lied about his relationship status. He said he and his girlfriend of six years broke up three weeks ago, but she tells Michelle they only had an argument three days ago.

Now the ex was outside of Michelle’s house honking her car horn like crazy as Michelle prepares for battle. She greases up, puts on some sweats, pulls her hair back and puts on sneakers.

“I know she didn’t just pull up in front of my house and disrespect me like this,” Michelle says to the dude. “You better handle this or I will.”

He goes outside to handle it, and never comes back.

Dude, where’s your hair?

Carmen says she also had a bad experience hooking up with a guy online.

“When I first moved to Charlotte, I was having a hard time meeting people so I signed up for one of those free dating sites,” she says. “I met this guy and we chatted online and emailed back and forth for a few weeks. He seemed really nice so we exchanged numbers.”

Carmen says she thought she was doing a good thing by taking it slow. She talked to the guy on the phone for nearly three months before agreeing to meet up with him in person.

“Everything about him seemed so perfect,” she says. “He was everything I wanted. He made me laugh. He was cute. He had a nice body and his profile said he was 5’7’’, which is a little on the short side, but I was going to give him a pass because he was so cool.

“But I should’ve known it wouldn’t work when we decided to meet up for coffee and he suggested we meet at Dunkin’ Donuts. You know I’m a Starbucks girl.”

She agreed to meet him at the Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner of 5th and Graham. She beat him there, which was strike two. She took a seat at one of the tables, and then felt someone tap her on the shoulder.

“I turned around, and I be damned if this Negro and I were at eye level,” she says. “Mind you I’m sitting. This fool was a midget. You’d think that is something you’d tell a person before meeting them. I tried my best to get over it, but just looking at his little bodied, big-headed self was making me sick.”

She ended the date, and he walked her out to her car. It was raining outside.

“When I got to my car, I noticed he had all this black stuff on his shirt,” says Carmen. “I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. It wasn’t there when we were inside. Then I noticed half of his hairline was missing. Apparently this Negro was lying about his hair too and had filled in his balding spots with Black Out, which was now running down his face in the rain and ruining his shirt. I could only shake my head and drive away.”