Taking the Leap

About a week and a half ago, feeling a bit down on my luck, I reposted my profile on match.com.  In that short time I received about 40 emails from “potential matches”.  Since I did not subscribe I couldn’t actually read any of the emails.  I was hoping to do what I always do and just sign up for another 3 day trial.  I know it’s not the most proactive way of using match because you have to contact people very quickly and hope they will email you to your other email account and not through match.  Many guys didn’t mind but I also didn’t meet too many guys either. 

Tuesday, I was chatting with a friend of mine who owns a local boutique.  I stop in at least once a week to see that bird.  While I was in there a really fun, cute woman stopped in.  She’s also a regular to the store as many of Birdie’s shoppers are.  She was shopping for a date night outfit.  After the woman bought her outfits and left, Birdie said to me.  “She moved here several months ago and is finally seeing a really nice guy.  I’m so happy for her.” 

I looked at Birdie.  “Where do you meet “nice guys?  Seriously.  Because I can’t seem to find them.” 

Birdie knows most of my dating juice as well.  She’s the one person who I can tell it all to and expect a very level headed interpretation because she only knows the store from my side and can interpret in my voice what deep down I know.  In many ways it’s like dishing all the dirt to one of my sisters except that I would never dish it all to one of them like I do her.

Birdie thought about it.  She thought quickly through any of the men she knows.  In the past she had mentioned one of her only single guy friends to me as a potential only to find out I knew him from college.  This time she gave me a great new angle to use.

 

Where Can I Go?

I’ve started breaking the news to my friends and family that I am not happy with the direction my life is going in the city I am in.  I told them I am thinking of moving.  I know moving to a new city isn’t going to fix my problems but I’m bored here.  I wanted to move 3 years ago but found a job here so I stayed but why am I limiting myself to being stuck near my home town.  29 years and I live only 20 minutes from where I took my first step.  I sure haven’t made it very far.  Sure I’ve lived in a few other cities but nothing further than 6 hours by car.  I want to go somewhere new.  I want to experience something different.

This morning JGT, LMP, and  I went out to a late brunch. **It was 1 but the restaurant served brunch until 5 so YES, it was brunch.**  The girls and I got to talking about relationships and how difficult it is to find someone worth keeping around.  Then JGT piped up with an interesting study she saw.  She told us our city was one of the worst cities to find a mate.  This surprised me because I remembered reading, only a few months ago, a study from Forbes.com on the Best Cities for Singles and our city ranking right up there. When I finally had a chance to search the Internet for a study on the worst cities to find a mate I found one from Men’s Health on the Best Cities to Find a Mate and our city was given a D+. The difference in studies didn’t surprise me since the study on Forbes looked at it as a great place to be single, not a great place to find someone else who’s single. Forbes looked at nightlife, culture, job growth, number of other singles, cost of living alone, on-line dating, and coolness. Men’s Health, however, analyzed the cities ratio of single men to women, percentage of divorced men, the physical shape of the suitors, the percentage of men who open their wallets wide to charity, the percentage of guys who’ve graduated from college, and finally, the availability of chemistry-building activities. **They have great reasons behind looking at these attributes of the men in the cities. Read the article to know why.**

 

Discombobulation

If you’ve been reading my blog you are aware that I am completely torn with where I want my life to be and how or if I will ever get to that point. 

When I was in San Diego having a little heart-to-heart with my dad, my relationship(s) came up.  He asked how that front looked and I told him that I was confused, too many too deal with.  He told me to just pick one.  I can’t just pick one.  C’mon.  Honestly, I’ve waited this long.  I’m not going to risk just picking one if I don’t feel he’s the right one.  The more I think about it, though, the more I wonder. 

 

The Saga (Part 4 - The ‘REAL’ talk)

Missed the beginning? That’s ok. You can go there now and read it.
The Saga (Part 1)
The Saga (Part 2 - Monday at work)
The Saga (Part 3 - …and away we go)

I made it to work on Tuesday.  I got situated at my desk when the emails started from the Old Man.  They started simple.  Thanks for coming, good to see you…yadda, yadda, yadda.  Then the big one.

OM: OK…So to continue our discussion…maybe share some of your thoughts as a starting point for dialog (?).

1.  How does the distance thing work?  What are you looking for in a committed relationship as far as time commitment per week?  You mentioned you are pretty independent and enjoy your time to do what you want, see friends, etc.  What does that mean exactly?

2.  How serious are you about having a baby?  What kind of timing are you thinking?  This is the one thing I don’t know if I could accommodate…just been there done that.  Children are super great, but after being limited as to what/where I can live etc for the last 12 years I’m not sure I can embrace that again.  I can be flexible on a lot of things but not sure if this is one of them.  I thought about that since we talked last night…just being honest.

3.  How serious are you about marriage?  What kind of timing are you thinking?

4.  You talked about the short-term fix of having some immediate project work near my city, but where do you ultimately want to live?

4.  You were apparently still getting text messages and phone calls from “the boy” last night so I expect you two have been seeing a lot of each other.  You mentioned it’s not xxx but hmmmmm….i wonder.

5.  I was looking at your myspace page and noticed in all of your writings, etc include friends, family, etc. but no mention of me even as a friend.  Now be honest here…are you a little embarrassed about my age?  ;) 6.  And then of course there was your date in California…naughty!  How would we change the dynamic we’ve created as a working basis of our friendship (previous FWB)…distance might preclude feeling comfortable that either/both would be adhering to the new dynamic (committed LTR). 

Just some thoughts…curious what you think.  I have been thinking a lot more lately about where my life is going and really want to start making some choices about that.  I’ve been divorced now for 4 years…too old to be a playboy forever.

 

The Saga (Part 2 - Monday at Work)

Start at the beginning, The Saga (Part 1) .

I arrived at work on Monday and went through all my current email before I wrote the Old Man.  He asked me some questions about how to set up a MySpace page. Apparently his 12 y/o wants one so he wants to beat her to it and figure it all out first.  I think it’s funny that this 43 y/o man wants to create a MySpace page for himself but then again, I did meet him through Match.com.  After a little banter about nothing, I straight up asked him, “Didn’t you say you wanted to talk to me?  When were you thinking?”

He was surprised.  Apparently he figured that I wasn’t interested in discussing a future with him.  I decided it would be best to just get it over with and figure this stuff out before I had the next 50 years of my life figured out in my head.  I told him I would meet him at his house that night.  I told him, “The thought of all of this has been plaguing me for a week.  I’d rather just talk sooner than later.  This was part of the reason I had trouble sleeping last night.  I don’t think it will get any better until I know what’s going on.”

He assured me that it wasn’t meant to be unpleasant and stressful.  “Just a talk…things I’d like to discuss include maybe your thoughts on distance, kids (existing and ?), time together (how and how much), etc…All the fun little things a distance relationship would have to offer.  We’ve emailed thoughts before but never really talked about it.  Case-in-point…this little coordination effort here.  How does that sit with you?  Just some things to think about/talk about…”

I quickly emailed a few of my close girl friends to give them the update. 

I decided to look through some of my emails between the Old Man and me over the past year.  I came across one that I found rather amusing/confusing given the current situation from mid-March ‘06.