Category Archives: Dating

The Why of Dating

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On my last post, I got a comment that asked:

Why do you want to date? It seems like, after such a difficult experience, starting another relationship would be quite an ugly prospect.

I started typing a reply to her, but it started to get ridiculously long, and I thought, oh what the hell, I’ll just make a new blog post about it. (Thank you for inspiring me, Jane! For real. This blog needed to get the cobwebs blown off of it.)

So, I guess there’s 2 major parts to this answer.

1. Dating does not necessarily equal a relationship. When I first started dating (over a month ago), it was really just because I wanted to get out of the house sometimes, and I wanted to flirt and feel pretty. I felt like such a frumpy, boring, 30-something mom, and I was in dire need of some kind of charge to my self-image. And it turns out? Having a lot of different guys find you attractive is a pretty damn huge ego boost.

Really, when I started doing this, actually getting serious about anyone wasn’t on my agenda.
Positive reinforcement to my self-esteem? Absolutely.
A social life? Sure.
Sex? Hmmm… possibly.
But, a boyfriend? Nope, no way, uh-uh, not gonna happen.

Of course, my thinking on that is a little more fuzzy now. There’s a guy I’ve been seeing and I’ll admit that I do have a pretty big crush on him at this point. I still go out on dates with other guys here and there, just to make sure I’m not getting too hung up on him. I need to try to keep a little distance, even if it’s just an illusion for my own emotional well-being. But we talk on the phone every day, and I smile every time I see his name show up on my text messages. So… yeah. I wouldn’t call him my boyfriend, but he’s getting close to being in Boyfriend-ish Territory.

FOR THE RECORD. (Because I know some people are going to read that last paragraph and fuh-reak that I’m jumping the gun.) I am not losing my head over this guy. I like him, yes, but I do still have common sense. He hasn’t met the girls, and he won’t for a long, looooong time, if ever. He knows this, and is fine with it. He’s in the same place I am, separation/divorce-wise, and feels the same way about the idea of me meeting his kids. (Because honestly, the fact that we both have kids is a huge “Proceed with Caution” flag to both of us.)

2. As for why someone would want to have a relationship after a divorce? Well, you know, you might get food poisoning, but it doesn’t mean you stop eating forever. Companionship is a pretty basic human need.

The fact is, this is how the majority of my life has looked since last August:
* Morning – Wake up, scramble to get the kids & myself dressed, and ship them off to daycare.
* Daytime – Work work work.
* Evening – Pick the kids up, feed them dinner, give them baths, get them to bed. Clean the kitchen, wash/make baby bottles, maybe watch TV for a little bit, then go to bed.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sometimes we do fun stuff on the weekends, but more often than not, I feel like I’m just struggling to catch up. I spend my weekends doing the grocery shopping and laundry and all of the other stuff that doesn’t happen during the week.

And let me tell you, that right there is a pretty bleak existence. I basically spend my entire life either in Mommy Mode, or Working Mode. There’s no time to just be… me. I miss me.

I kind of skate by in survival mode a lot of times, but there’s this weird thing that happens after the kids are in bed and the house is totally quiet. That’s when it all sinks in, and I get horribly lonely. I feel completely isolated, and it’s awful. I hate nighttime.

But that’s shifted in the last couple of weeks. Now, most nights, I talk to my “friend” on the phone after the kids are asleep, which makes it feel infinitely less lonely. And sometimes I’ll have a date scheduled (with him or someone else) that I can look forward to, and it keeps me from sitting around moping about how alone I feel.

So, I hope that sort of helps to explain why I would want to date again. And you know, I’m not usually the English Lit type, but here’s where I’m going to throw out one of my favorite quotes that sums up my feelings about divorce & new relationships better than I could ever say it.

“Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.” — Samuel Beckett

Thursday Brain Dump

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So. The fish died. All three of them. I’m a very efficient fish killer. The key appears to be forgetting to pre-treat the water. You’re welcome. (Also, whoops.)

Catie handled it so-so. There were a lot of tears, but then she got excited when I told her we could go to the pet store to pick out new fish. So, you know. We cope, we move on. Such is life.

Rest in peace, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi.

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I don’t usually go this long between blog posts, and I think that staying in my own head this much is probably not good for me. The issue is that I’m not sure what to share, how much is too much. I’m having trouble deciding exactly where my boundaries are.

At the same time, writing things out usually makes me feel much better. So I should probably be doing more of that.

Where to start…

My mom is insisting that I need to see a therapist. She’s concerned about the dating thing. She thinks that I was so starved for affection in my marriage, that I’m greedy for it now.

[Side note: I know some people in Dave’s family still read this blog, and that previous sentence might upset them. All I can say to that is that the only two people who knows what goes on in a marriage are the two people in it. We each have our perceptions of what things were like, and that perception colors our reality. I’m not going to say anything negative about Dave himself, because I don’t need to. But I’m allowed to talk about my own personal experience. Also – if you don’t like the fact that I’m not going to be all happy & joyous about my failed marriage, perhaps you shouldn’t be reading my blog anymore. And yes, I see when you visit here on my stat counter.]

So, yeah. Apparently I’m greedy for affection, attention, positive reinforcement, etc., from men. Maybe that’s true. I don’t necessarily see the harm. If I want to flirt and have guys tell me that I’m cute, how is that such a bad thing?

I guess I could see it possibly being negative if the kids were being exposed to any of it. But the only difference is that occasionally they have a baby-sitter in the evenings, which is usually a big fun event for them. They aren’t being introduced to some revolving door of men or anything even remotely like that.

My awesome stylist fixed my stupid self-inflicted bangs haircut.
There’s really no reason for this picture to be here, except that I’m talking about myself, and good lord, I do love my hairstylist.

The therapy issue is kind of a weird topic for me. I was in therapy for a while last year during most of the really horrible stuff (both before and after the separation). And I’ve been in therapy a couple of other times in my life. In theory, I know it’s a positive thing, I know it helps people. But for me, personally? I’ve never gotten anything out of therapy. I think I have a fair amount of self-awareness already, and I typically leave therapy sessions feeling exactly the same as I did when I walked in the door. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, right?

(And don’t tell me to go to a support group for single/divorced parents, because I’ve heard that suggestion too, and OMG I would rather bash my own forehead into a hard, bumpy surface than endure that.)

I suppose you could make the argument that if it doesn’t work for me, I need a different therapist. And that might be an entirely valid point.

There’s a lot more I’d like to say about the issue of dating, but that’s at least 5 more blog posts right there, and this is probably long enough.

The upshot here is that I probably will give therapy one more shot, mainly to make my mom happy, so she can know that at least I tried. Maybe I’ll even learn something this time around. Who knows.

Odds and Ends

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Random update of stuff that’s been going on lately:

I went out of town about two weeks ago, and the girls stayed with my parents. It was the first time I’d ever spent the night away from Lucy, and it was stressful for me, but I don’t think she even noticed I was gone. It probably doesn’t seem like a big milestone to most people, but it felt like one to me.

Catie also did great while I was gone.

These two. I swear.

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Other Catie stuff:

On my way back from my trip, I had a layover in Chicago. It occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten souvenirs for my girls while I was out of town, and I noticed a plush toy T. Rex while I was at O’Hare. (It’s based on Sue from the Field Museum of Natural History.) I figured I could use this to my advantage. So, when I came back, I told her that I had a present for her, but I couldn’t give it to her unless she made me a promise: in exchange for the dinosaur, she has to stay in her own bed all night.

(Wait, have I mentioned that Catie has been getting in bed with me every night for months? I forget if I’ve mentioned that or not.)

Anyway, of course my little dino-nut went bonkers over her new T. Rex toy, and she agreed to the terms of my deal. She’s been sleeping soundly in her own bed ever since. Praise the baby Jesus and Hallelujah.

Also, I found out what kindergarten Catie will be going to in a few months, which is freaking me out completely. I’m going to leave that topic for another time.

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Other Lucy stuff:

She’s cruising around the furniture, and letting go/standing on her own for a few seconds at a time. I’m pretty sure she’s going to start walking any minute now.

It’s funny just to discover the things that she knows. Like, she has this little toy bell at my parents’ house, and if you ask her, “Lucy, where’s your bell?” She’ll find it, pick it up, and start waving it around to ring it.

She’s also starting to dance, which I need to get a video of, because it’s impossible to describe, and completely hilarious.

She hasn't napped on me in ages. I missed it.

See also: eyelashes. I melt.

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Other me stuff:

Work is good. I’m still working on a diet and hitting a lot of plateaus, but I’m doing my best and figuring that I’ll get there eventually.

I’m also… um… dating. Which is weird, and I don’t really know how much I want to talk about it on the blog.

I will say this: When I first mentioned this to my mom, she freaked out about it (in a bad way). But she’s chilled out significantly, after I explained my motives. The thing is, I work full-time, and I have the kids full-time, so I’m not out looking for a full-time boyfriend. Quite frankly, I don’t have the time. But you know what? It’s really nice to sometimes put on a shirt that doesn’t have a smear of baby snot on it, and to do my hair and make-up, and to feel cute, and… you know, FLIRT.

It’s fun. And there’s been a serious fun shortage in my life for the past year or so.

Ladies room self-portrait from last night.
See? No baby snot anywhere. Also: HAPPY.

The other thing I told my mom: the girls will not be introduced to anyone that I date. They’ve been through enough instability and upheaval, and I’m not about to add to that.

If/when something starts to get serious (and I don’t expect that to happen aaaaanytime soon), they will be introduced to that person as my friend, just like they’ve met female friends of mine. And there will be no public displays of affection in front of the kids, because it’s inappropriate. Just like there wouldn’t be PDA in front of my parents – again, because it’s inappropriate.

I don’t know why I feel like I need to be defensive on that subject. Maybe it’s because I’m not officially divorced yet, that it all feels kind of unseemly. But I also don’t see how this is doing any harm, and it’s been a pretty big ego boost to find out that there are guys out there who think I’m cute. So I think it’s a good thing.

finding my flirt

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So.

Ok.

This is kind of a weird topic for me to bring up, but I use my blog as a place to kind of vent whatever is on my mind, and this seems to be taking up an awful lot of my brainspace lately, so I thought maybe writing through it might help me figure some things out.

(Also, Dad? If by chance you’re looking at my blog today, stop reading now. Really. I don’t want to hear it.)

So, lately I’ve been doing a little… um… flirting.

This all started innocently enough. I have a guy friend from college who I always had a crush on, but for one reason or another, we never dated. We’ve stayed in touch off and on through the years, but in the last month or so, our texts have suddenly taken a turn for the steamy. (As in, “Damn, you text your mama with those fingers?”) Funny, considering I’ve never even kissed the guy outside of a peck on New Year’s Eve.

But, you know, he lives in another state, so it’s not like anything is ever going to happen.

Then there was another guy who I dated (very) briefly, who dropped me an email just to say he heard I was getting divorced, he’s divorced too, he’s been thinking about me… which, ok. It was a random, but totally G-rated exchange. Still, the “I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately” was flattering and nice, and it didn’t come off as creepy, which I appreciate.

Then, there’s Guy #3, who, man, where do I start? We were never really a couple. I knew him when I lived in Wisconsin. I hung out with a bunch of girls there and we all had a crush on this one guy at some point. He was gorgeous, and had absolutely no clue how cute he was. (Which, seriously, is an awesome trait to have if you’re a good-looking guy. Guys who know they’re hot? Tend to be a bit on the douche-y side.)

There is no possible way to explain this and sound like anything less than a total slut, but basically: we never dated, we just fooled around a lot. Like, I don’t think we ever had dinner or saw a movie together or anything. It was just casual and fun.

What can I say? I enjoyed my 20s.

So, Guy #3 (as I’ll call him because I probably shouldn’t be posting his name on the Internet) found me on Facebook a couple of weeks ago and messaged me. Turns out he’s also in the middle of a divorce. We had some friendly “what have you been up to for the past decade?” emails. Then he started emailing me with stuff like, “Hey, remember the time we [fill in the blank with something completely X-rated that I am not about to write here]?” And the emails are… well, they’re pretty hot, I have to say.

The thing is, none of these three guys even live in the same time zone as me, nor are any of them really suitable long-term matches for me. And besides that, I absolutely do not want a relationship right now at all. I have way too much on my plate to deal with. It wouldn’t be fair to drag some innocent bystander into the chaos vortex that is my life at the moment. And it would be absolutely unfair to my girls.

Oh, and let’s not forget that thanks to ridiculously stupid North Carolina divorce laws, I can’t even file for divorce until August, so I’m still technically married for the time being.

So, nothing is gonna happen. I mean, outside of harmless flirting with guys who are all at least 1,000 miles away in one direction or another.

But, what’s interesting (to me) about all of this, is that fairly recently, I would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that I never wanted to have sex again. And something about these exchanges lately has reignited some little spark in me that I didn’t think I had anymore.

Obviously, I’m not going to act on anything anytime soon, but it’s got me thinking about the idea of “Someday.” I’ve been so caught up in trying to get through my day-to-day life, that I hadn’t really thought about the future at all. And I don’t just mean sex (although yes, that would be lovely, please and thank you). I mean the whole relationship thing. The idea that I might be willing to give men another chance is a pretty new concept for me.

So, yeah. That’s kind of weird, huh?

freaks I've dated

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About six years ago, I lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. I’ve already written about how awful my apartment was in that town. But I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this guy that I dated while I lived there. “Dated” is actually kind of a loose term. It was during a time when I was very lonely and depressed, so I was drinking a lot more than normal. He was just the guy who happened to be around for a few drunk make-out sessions. For the record, I never slept with him, because apparently even when I’m sh*t-faced, I still have some shred of good judgment.

His name was Michael, although he told me that everyone called him Leroy. I don’t know why. I refused to call him that, and it pissed him off that I insisted on calling him Michael. Of course, now he has the nickname PsychoMike. I honestly don’t remember what PsychoMike did for a living, I think it had something to do with stereo equipment. We hung out/dated for a couple of months. When one of my co-workers had a Christmas party at her house, I brought him as my date, which turned out to be a huge mistake. He followed me into the bathroom when I went to go re-apply my lipstick and tried to have sex with me in there. My boss and my boss’s boss were less than 20 feet away from the bathroom door, so I was having none of that. We got into an argument about it later, and I’m pretty sure that’s the night we kinda-sorta “broke up” (since technically he was never a boyfriend in the first place, there was nothing to officially break up, but whatever).

For the next few weeks, everytime I saw him out around town, I would ignore him, and then he would call me at 3 a.m. and scream into my answering machine, calling me a bitch and the c-word and all kinds of other lovely language. Yeah, he was a winner. Oh, also, one of my friend’s boyfriends pointed out that he sort of looked like the mad scientist’s little sidekick on South Park, and honestly? Even when I was dating him, I could sort of see the resemblance. Short, bald, bug-eyed, bad clothes, the whole thing. I have no excuses, just that all of this happened during a particularly low point in my life.

Over the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve gotten the occasional email from him. The last one was well over two years ago, and it honestly scared the bejeezus out of me, so I never answered him. I thought that was the end of it. Then last week, I got this in my inbox:

hey there cindy…… long long time no speak…… anyway, was searching through my VERY old address book and spotted your e-mail and thought i’d say what’s up!!!…. just to refresh your memory it’s mike from lovely worcester….. refresh your memory a little more…… remember you/ myself went to holiday party few years back …… like i said found your e-mail and thought i would say hello…..

Um, ok. Like the only thing I’d remember about him was that Christmas party, not the fact that we dated for two months prior to that. Right. I started to write him back with a very pleasant chit-chatty email about what I’ve been up to lately, and it included things like, “oh hey, remember my friend Melissa? She got married and had a baby boy last year.” (Which is true, yay for Melissa.)

Then I remembered the last email he sent to me (back in 2003-2004 timeframe), and I decided that the best way to deal with The Crazy is to confront The Crazy head-on. So I scrapped the email I had originally written and went with this instead:

Hi Mike,

Yes, of course I remember you. I think the last time you emailed me, you told me you were in love with me and you wanted me to send you some of my panties or something like that. Honestly, you kinda freaked me out. Hope there isn’t any of that business going on anymore.

By the way, I got married about a year ago. His name is Dave, he’s British, he’s a computer geek like I am, and he makes me laugh like no one I’ve ever met in my life. So I’m very happy these days.

Hope you’re doing well.

Cindy

I know it was sort of bitchy and snide, but I really hoped that would be the end of it. Of course, The Crazy always has to respond:

HEY THERE CINDY… FIRST AND FOREMOST CONGRATS! LASTLY…. VERY SORRY I “FREAKED YOU OUT” CRETAINLY, WAS NOT MY INTENTION… ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE NICE… IT’S ALL ABOUT SPENDING TIME W/ SOMEONE WHO MAKES YA LAUGH…. I’M DOING WELL THANKS

And that was that. (Btw, all of the above emails are completely copied and pasted. I don’t know why he writes in all caps sometimes and not others. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.) I didn’t reply because I honestly don’t want to keep the communication lines open with this guy. Oh, and that bit about him being in love with me and wanting me to mail him my panties? That actually happened. Swear to God.

The whole thing just reminded me of why I’m so grateful to have Dave, because dude, I seriously traded up. (Aside to Dave: Love you, babe.)

a quandary

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To follow up on the issue in my last post, when I was wondering when I’d see Dave again, I got my answer. He called me yesterday and we ended up spending the afternoon & evening together. We went to the Folklife Festival, which was nice although it drizzled on us part of the time that we were there. It’s still not my scene, but the people-watching was fascinating. And oooh-whee, the potheads were out in full force. Seemed that every time we passed one of the fields where people were sitting, we’d catch a whiff of incense that was only vaguely masking the smell of weed. Cops were all over the place, I don’t know how no one got caught. (Or maybe they did & we just didn’t see them get caught, who knows.) We passed a stage where some woman was doing a spoken word bit about menopause. I sped my pace to double time to get out of earshot from that one as quickly as possible. Call me kooky, I just don’t feel the need to strike up conversations about menstrual cycles on a 3rd date. Oh, and I found out this morning that we were there at the same time as all this monorail commotion was going on, but we were at the other end of the Seattle Center so we didn’t know it at the time. As we were leaving, I saw people moving the entrance signposts to let a fire/rescue truck go through, but I figured maybe someone had fainted or something, I didn’t really think anything of it. I didn’t pay attention to all of the other sirens either, I just thought that it was a drizzly day so there were probably lots of car accidents in the area. Oh well, good thing no one was seriously hurt.

So, after Folklife, Dave & I got Thai take-out from Racha’s (yum) and came back to my place and watched an Eddie Izzard DVD that he had brought over, which I had never seen before. It was really funny, in that random British stream-of-consciousness way that he has. I also learned that even though the term bollocks is another word for bullshit, the expression “the dog’s bollocks” (literally: the dog’s testicles) means that something is really good. Sort of like “the bee’s knees”, I suppose. I asked Dave if that was seriously an expression that people use, and he said that he wouldn’t say it over here because no one would know what he was talking about, but yes, it is something that people say in the UK. I love that. I’m going to try to start using it in my everyday vernacular.

Anyway, this brings me to an interesting dilemma, and I don’t really know how to deal with it, so I thought I’d get the general public consensus. Things are getting pretty heated between Dave & I – three dates in one week is more intense than I’ve been with anyone in a long time – and I really like him a lot. However, there are a couple of guys from the online dating sites who have asked me out, and I don’t really know what to say. On the one hand I think that maybe I should go out with them because I’m scared of pinnning all of my hopes on this Dave thing. I mean, it’s so early in the relationship, who knows what could happen. It could all blow up in my face tomorrow. At the same time, I know how my brain works, and I know that these guys don’t stand a chance of impressing me when I have such an enormous crush on someone else. And I don’t like going out with somebody after I’ve kissed someone else because it makes me feel gross and dishonest. So what do you guys think? Go on the dates that will most likely go nowhere, or be honest & tell them that I’ve met someone else?

the weekend

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Friday: Scott mercifully offered to take me to see one of my favorite comedians, Mitch Hedberg, to distract me from the fact that my date with Dave was postponed. The show was supposed to start at 10:30, so we got there at 10:00 & figured we’d be early. Not so much, as it turns out, because the line was already to the end of the block. At 11:30, an hour & a half of standing in line later, we learned that the show was cancelled due to the fact that Mitch had passed out drunk. This thorougly pissed me off. I realize that comedians have the kind of job that might lend itself to excessive alcohol consumption, but come on, if I showed up at work too drunk to perform my job, I’d get fired. That’s just f*cked. So Mitch Hedberg is now off my list of favorite comedians.

Saturday: The date with Dave the Brit. Mmmmm… Nice, nice, nice. Delicious dinner, followed by drinks, followed by enjoying the view of downtown from the roof of my building. He’s just so easy to talk to, we never seem to hit an awkward silence or run out of things to say. It’s so… nice. Everything flows. And it’s kind of crazy – as soon as we part, I find myself wondering when I’ll see him again, and hoping that it’s soon.

Sunday: I was going to help Chris G. move, but he apparently took care of all of that before I even woke up. So instead, I met up with him & a couple of his friends at the Folklife Festival in the afternoon. That was interesting, but not really my scene. Lots of hippies & their offspring dancing with wild arm gesticulations to African tribal drums and things of that nature. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. So, Chris’s friends took off, he went back to his new apartment to take a nap, and I went to Best Buy to get a DVD player. I was in the store for less than a minute when I saw an ex-boyfriend that I haven’t seen or spoken to in over a year. This is someone who really hurt me when he broke up with me, so I was happy with the fact that I hadn’t run into him since then. I don’t know if he spotted me or not, but as soon as I saw him, my stomach knotted up and I bolted. I went to the DVD player section and I hid there for a good 15-20 minutes, until I was sure he was gone. It seems stupid, I should’ve been the bigger person and walked over and said hi, but for some reason I couldn’t. I just panicked. I don’t know why it upset me as much as it did – it’s not like I’m still hung up on this person or wish that I was still with him at all. Hell, I even have a new crush that should make it easier to blow off the ex’es who hurt me. Maybe if the cute Brit had been with me, I could’ve pulled it off a little more gracefully. Or maybe I still wouldn’t have been able to say hi, but my stomach wouldn’t have knotted up quite so much upon seeing him. I don’t know. In any case, it was strangely upsetting, and pretty much spoiled my entire Best Buy shopping experience. I didn’t stop shaking until I was back on the freeway & almost home.

So, after I got the DVD player hooked up, Chris G. came over & we went to rent my very first DVD from Blockbuster. We got “Love Actually” because Chris said he couldn’t deal with anything too heavy. I liked it.

And tomorrow, I get to sleep late. Again. Hooray for holiday weekends!