She Tossed His Roses Onto Her Truck Seat
Jorge and Angela
Never married at forty-seven, Jorge Miller was rebounding from a four-year relationship when he met a single woman through his workout buddy.
He was skeptical. “I like feminine women,” he says, “and this woman was kind of grrr.”
Still, he gave her a chance–until he learned she was bi-sexual and her family “was full of felons, and that she was angry and bitter about her failed marriage.” On New Year’s Eve, Jorge felt as if he was in the presence of the “Black Beverly Hillbillies.” They were shooting guns in the air around the ritsy Geist area. “It was a hot mess,” he says.
That relationship barely lasted two months.
Jorge took a six-month sabbatical from dating. He thought about his upbringing in Chicago–a city he describes as segregated–and how moving to Indianapolis broadened his thought processing.
“I said, You know what? What I’m doing isn’t working. So I’m going to expand my horizons, try online dating, and date outside my race.”
He thought he needed to break out of his comfort zone because he had only dated one Caucasian woman.
“So many African American women have been conditioned by single-parent homes,” Jorge says. “They’re angry, and they’re bitter. Then an individual like me, never married, without children, comes along and finds himself in situations where he takes on another person’s pain.”
Jorge remembers what one of his mentors–a young Caucasian therapist in Dallas–told him in 2007. She said, “Jorge, you’re such a rare Black man. You know what? With your likes and dislikes, I think someday, you’re going to end up with a Caucasian wife.”
Jorge was “going through some stuff” during his sabbatical and decided to get fit and better his mind. One day, at the end of his sabbatical, while on Facebook, the site’s dating app appeared. “I’m like, Oh wow, all kinds of weirdos. Am I that desperate? I was skeptical of how society would view me. Finally, something told me to try it. I did, and I met some interesting women–both Black and Caucasian.” He narrowed his list to ten and casually talked with each on the phone. They messaged back and forth like teenagers.
He utilized Marco Polo–an online app where users leave video messages in each other’s mailboxes–to screen potential mates. “Once you video chat with people, you realize how deceptive some can be. Some were not at all like they projected themselves to be.”
Some of the women he met online included:
• A young teacher of Irish descent. She and Jorge had a great conversation, but she preferred darker Black men. Oh, and he was the wrong astrological sign. She was a Sagittarius; he was a Libra. “That’s not a good combination,” she told him. “Mixing the two is a recipe for disaster.”
Jorge said, “Well, dang. Can we at least go out on a date so you can get to know me? There are exceptions to the rule.” The date never happened.
• A young woman who had moved from Detroit. She was pretty in her profile pic, but how she looked in the video chat compared to her profile pic was quite different. “I didn’t get a good vibe from the young woman, but she invited me to her house, and I went. She lived on the rough side of town. As we talked, she kept the room uncomfortably dark.” They never went out again.
• A woman who formerly lived in Chicago. He found her intelligent and ambitious. She had met another guy who was in and out of her life. In trying to court her, Jorge discovered this man was living with her. She explained, “Well, he knows we can’t be together but needs a place to stay.”
“I’m like, Well, that’s crazy.”
• Jorge thought a young lady might become Mrs. Miller because they had such a strong connection. She was a nice girl, but she had an ex–the father of four of her five children–hovering.
“He was crazy,” Jorge says of her ex-boyfriend. “The night we went on our first date, we were having a beer at a tavern. He was blowing her phone up. I asked her, ‘Hey, what’s the story with that guy?’ She told me that she had been away from Indy for a couple of years and that this guy had been locked up for abusing her and another woman. She confessed he was out of jail now and back to abusing her.”
Jorge found that connection challenging to break. “After our date, I took her home, and she invited me in. I’m like, Are you sure? She’s like, Yes, I’m sure. Come on in. As I’m sitting there with her kids, I hear somebody with a key open her front door. It was her ex. That was a scary moment because I’m like, OK, is this guy a nut? Is he going to have a gun? I immediately jumped up and said, ‘Hey, let me introduce myself.’ I wanted to see if he had a gun in his back pocket.” He did not.
The two shook hands. The guy then took Jorge’s date to another room to talk. “I think that’s something you should tell someone when you first meet them online. Hey, I have a baby daddy with a key to my apartment. He comes and goes. It’s just for our children.”
She said, “Well, if I’m at work, he’ll come by the house and check on the kids.”
Jorge said, “Well if you know this man gets high on crack and alcohol and becomes abusive, why are you still putting your kids at risk?"
She apologized, and her ex became a stalker. He called Jorge one day and told him that he would kill Jorge if he saw him again. Jorge left the relationship.
• A woman who told Jorge that she and her ex shared the same bed. “I’m like, Are you serious? Nine times out of ten, you’re going to come across someone who’s had some psychological abuse from a prior relationship.”
Jorge dated plenty following his sabbatical. Out of the ten online women that captured his interest, he introduced three to his family to see how they fit in.
A woman named Angela stood out the most. Yet, their courtship was far from ideal. “It was like being initiated into a fraternity.”
On the phone, they connected, often with music as the centerpiece of their discussions. She was amazed that his music background was so deep. Angela thought, Wow, you listen to this and this? It was as if they had known each other for years.
The first date.
Jorge and Angela met at a little Mexican restaurant on the city’s north side. He brought a dozen fresh, long-stem, red roses.
“It was so cool. We both arrived simultaneously, but she didn’t know she was parked directly behind me. I was skeptical, observing the scene. She called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m here.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m here, too.’ I got out of the car with the roses and greeted her. She took them, said, ‘Oh, thanks,’ and tossed them into her truck.”
Strike one. They then went inside and ordered food. Jorge attempted to make small talk, but he felt she was brushing him off.
“I was frustrated. I knew she liked to walk, and I was into hiking, so we walked around Sahm Park after the meal.”
Then, abruptly, Angela said, “I need to get home.”
“I was like, OK. Well, let me walk you back to your truck.”
At her truck, Jorge tried to open her door. Instead, she told him, “I don’t need you to open my door. I’m not handicapped.”
Strike two. “I was like, Whoa. This is not a good thing. So, on the way home, I called my best friend, my go-to person for good, sound advice. He said, ‘Jorge, trust God. Give it a chance.’”
But Jorge was turned off. He had told Angela that if she didn’t call him back, “it was a wrap.”
His best friend said, “Jorge, something’s telling me she’s the one.” Jorge didn’t expect to hear from her again. That evening, when Angela got home, she called. Jorge said, “Oh wow. You gave me a call, huh?”
She said, “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
Jorge said, “Well, by how you acted, I interpreted that as if you weren’t interested.”
Angela said, “Well, by how you acted, I interpreted that as if you weren’t interested.”
Both Jorge and Angela blamed the misconnection on being shy.
Angela told Jorge, “I wondered what had happened to that man who serenaded me with classic rock.”
Jorge responded, “Well, I wondered what happened to that sweet, charismatic woman who appreciated classic rock.”
During their initial courtship, Jorge and Angela were still seeing other people. Angela had met a guy online whom Jorge describes as “a nut from California.”
Jorge’s mother is an impeccable judge of people’s character. She and Jorge’s niece can look at a profile picture or meet a woman and say, Well, this young woman, she’s this and that. When Jorge’s family met Angela, they thought she had a shell around her and was hiding something. “I’m old school. This news made me kind of skeptical. I sensed she was still seeing this nut from California.”
Angela went on a Southern Baptist Gospel cruise. Jorge was pleased that his future wife shared his faith in God–that they were “equally yoked.” The connection they experienced on the phone before their first date returned strong during her absence.
Calling from the ship, Angela said, “Sweetheart, when I finish this cruise, I’m not going to do this again without you. I can’t risk being away from you like this.”
Jorge felt the same. While Angela was away, the high point of his day was arriving home and hearing about her adventures.
By the time Angela arrived home, Jorge had purchased a ring.
“I knew. I said this woman has got to be my wife. I met her at the Indianapolis International Airport to drive her home. As we got in the car, I said, ‘I want to commit to you.’ I proposed. She accepted. It was late, but I still took her to say hello to my mother to announce the good news.”
Following Jorge’s proposal, Angela told him she feared for his safety. “Once we committed to each other, this nut from California said nobody would if he couldn’t have her. So we involved the police to get this guy to leave us alone.”
During the COVID-19 scare, on October 24th, 2020, they got married with a hundred guests in attendance.
Today Jorge is the Coordinator of Community Integration at an Indianapolis organization that runs a day program for individuals who typically get kicked to the curb, offering them job preparedness and community integration. Angela is a traveling nurse.
“It’s incredible how something like online dating, especially on Facebook, with all those fraudulent individuals out there, could bless me to meet my soulmate.”
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