In which I play tennis with a smelly liar for 28 minutes

At the tennis club and the local university near where my parents live, there are large whiteboards where lonely tennis players can meet other lonely tennis players. You post your name, rating, preferred location, and phone number (or in my case, anonymous e-mail account), and then you hope/wait for someone to call/e-mail you. I go through this process and, after posting, I doubt anyone will actually contact me. I decide the best way to confirm that is to check my e-mail every 15 seconds until someone does.

Enter J, or rather, J's e-mail, after my 49th e-mail check. J (whose name is undeniably male) states that he is "a former hs champ" who has "just started playing again." He is about my level, "maybe a little higher lol" [More on this below.] At this point, I am glad that J has told me his name because otherwise I would have assumed he was a 15-year-old girl given that he punctuates his sentences only with "lol" or elipses. And, while J does not know how to use the shift key when he starts a sentence, he is able to end every third word with the letter "z," so it's safe to say he probably has at least one pinky finger. I decide I can overlook these flaws since J will not be a friend but a tennis rival.

I also decide that I will keep things close to the vest because J's freak potential remains high. I reply to J's e-mail in the following manner:

"Hi, I like to play at (court name) courts. How about 8:30 tomorrow? I have 11am plans."

J replies/accepts. We exchange 2 - 3 more e-mails, in which I inform him what I will be wearing and in which he uses even more Zs. J divulges no information about himself or his appearance . I decide that he's either ugly or a killer or both, but I need a tennis partner so I pack my bag for the morning.

As I pull into the court, I get a call that J will be 5 minutes late. I take this as a good sign that J is serious about coming. J shows up. He is wearing the following: forty extra pounds, a shirt that smells like cheap rum, black shorts with crayon-orange flames (my guess: clearance at Big Lots or maybe where they sell basketball gear for bikers), and black sneakers. J comments that it's cool that I have a "real" tennis bag. It's seems I have been misled about J's ability.

Instead of the normal 10 - 15 minute warm-up, J is ready. From this, I infer he would like to continue to hit balls into the net but just to have them count now. We begin, and even taking it easy on him, I win the first 13 points and he wins what looks like a minor heart attack. Downhill, quickly.

The set concludes (6-0), and J makes small talk about how he admires my slice. He states that he has always had a hard time gauging/hitting/getting to slice shots. Apparently this problem extends to all other types of shots as well, even some of the granny shots I give him just out of boredom.

A few games into the second set, I notice some parents of a friend playing on a nearby court and decide that I would get more exercise out of walking there and talking to them so I run out the last 16 or so points and mutter something about calling J and how he can keep the balls, and I leave at a slight jog.

Now I'm waiting to see if J will e-mail me again. Speaking of which, it's been 14 seconds.