His mysterious lover “Ari” only wanted to go on dates in “secluded” spots. Now Teal Akerson knows why. In an interview with the Austin American-Statesman, Akerson said he went on a few dates with Kaitlin Armstrong, the Texas yoga teacher on the run for killing a love rival in Austin, after meeting outside a tattoo shop in Costa Rica. She struck up a conversation andthey exchanged numbers, Akerson said, then linked up for “a bunch of dates.” He said “Ari” told him she’d recently gone through a “real traumatizing” breakup—putting it mildly, to say the least. “I didn’t put any of it together, you wouldn’t imagine it,” he said. “After it all happened, and I hear what she was really doing and running from, it made sense why she didn’t want to be seen—why she wanted to go to secluded places.” Akerson said what Armstrong allegedly did was “really not cool.”