Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts

Monday, February 21, 2022

Bumbling Through Life and Love

Greetings and salutations, everyone. With all my chores and play done for the weekend and a bonus day (thanks, Presidents), I thought it would be a good time to get another blog written. Definitely not time to do any fun outdoor activities as Chicago has seemed to be locked into a rather arctic weather pattern, snow, cold, wind....and repeat. 

Dear Jon...the breakup blog

I have to tell you it took every ounce of maturity in me to not name this blog "Dear Jon: the Breakup Blog." I mean, come on. Is there a more compelling, click bait of a title?? But I'm not about to write an entire blog about our breakup as it wasn't super dramatic. We honestly never once had a fight before this incident occurred. While I won't go into all the details, I will say it was ultimately his obsession with Aspen, which you'll remember from this blog, that did us in. 

He thought it would be a great idea to cosign on a 1M+ house with his bestie (who happens to be a girl with whom he was once romantically involved) in Colorado, 30 miles from Aspen. I was equally sure that it was NOT a good idea, but I didn't hear about it until it was a done deal. 

I know many of you, especially the women, are saying, "ah, hells to the no!" I mean when you are in a committed relationship with someone, can you have a best friend who is the opposite sex who you have slept with? I was actually ok with the relationship but buying a house with her was a bridge too far. And, on account of feeling a little homicidal towards him, we both thought it was best if we parted ways.

Perhaps because it wasn't a super emotional breakup, I did the only thing I know to do: carry on. Therapy? Nah. While I know for many it's truly a blessing, I just jumped back into the dating world with reckless abandon. And guess what? When you tell men right off that you are just out of relationship and don't want anything serious, the pool of potentials becomes very deep.

Swindling the Tinder Swindler

So did anyone watch the Tinder Swindler on Netflix? If not, you should, especially if you are living in the world of online dating. It's all about this guy who basically had a pyramid scheme in which he stole ridiculous amounts of money from very naive, yet well-intended women. 

Sadly these dating apps and sites are literally snake pits, often chock-full of shady people trying to take advantage of others, many of whom are looking for legit relationships. I won't say men because from what I understand, there are just as many gals with nefarious intentions out there trying to separate men from their money. 

Perhaps it's my years of experience with online dating, but I can spot these guys from a mile away. Things to look for:  all their pics are professionally staged; their profiles make you want to vomit because they are so ridiculous, perhaps pulled directly from some sappy romance novel, and they somehow do something with their profile so you can't see where they actually live. Broken English is another red flag.  

So for shits and giggles, I've decided to try out-catfish them! I want to swindle the swindler. My goal? To ask for money from them before they have the chance to ask me.

Didn't take long to find my target. Meet Sammy. He's a textbook example: seemingly wealthy, attractive, and attended a college that doesn't exist. I do wonder if that's right next door to the School of Hard Knocks I keep hearing about but I digress! 


So immediately, Sammy matched with me! Normally I can be a bit caustic, but I played it cool with Sammy because I didn't want to alert him or scare him off. He pored on the charm, saying things like: "I can't wait to meet you and I'll tell you how beautiful you are. I hope you wouldn't get tired of me telling you how beautiful you are." Fortunately, I had not just eaten because I definitely would have hurled at this point. But no!!! I came back immediately with a "I promise to never tire of hearing you tell me that." I hope none of you are reading this on a full stomach. Thought about tossing in some broken English but decided against it. 

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of messaging, Sammy just disappeared. Perhaps the prison guard took his phone away? I guess I'll never know for sure, but don't worry. I'm sure there will be more Sammys and my mission remains the same: to scam the scammer. Not all heroes wear capes. For anyone out here online dating: proceed with an abundance of caution and have a sense of humor about it. Also read my last blog on the topic, Online Dating in Your 50s. 

Years ago, I was matched with this guy, super hot. He was somewhere in Africa with the military. Do we even have troops there? No idea but again, it became a game. Eventually he told me he was coming back to the states but he had acquired what he referred to as some "spoils of war" and he just needed a bank account to deposit a large sum of money. But honestly it wasn't until he asked me to pick him up from the airport that I "ghosted" him. I mean come on; we all have that line we can't cross. What am I? A fucking Uber? 

Anyway, yes, back up to my dating shenanigans so buckle up, everyone. Probably going to be an exciting ride. 

Hope this blogs finds you all happy and well. Let's hope that 2022 is not the shit show that the last  two years have been. Gotta get better! 

Until next time...

Barb

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Monday, May 24, 2021

Don't Call Me a Couger

Oh yes, that's right. It's that blog; the one I have been promising some of you for a very long time. The one about my rather infamous May-September relationship with...we'll call him Will. I won't use his real name, although I will say absolutely nothing but good things about him. 

I met Will the summer after my divorce. Right after my marriage ended I dated a guy named Dan, who was perfect. That is perfectly ill-suited for me, which was ideal because I was not in the head space to open myself up to any level of a real relationship. He was super hot, fun and dumb as a stone. Like I said, perfect. Sex was great and as long as we steered away from discussing topics that might provoke his stupidity, we were good. Lasted about a year.

One day I was talking about my concerns around the supreme court (my bad!!) and  said something like "Ginsburg can't live forever," to which he replied, "no, he can't." Oh no. Well, that pretty much killed the vibe for me and no level of hotness could repair the damage. 

Six-pack Will

At the tail end of that relationship, I was invited to my next door neighbor and friend's son's birthday party. There I officially "met" Will, her nephew. In reality, I had known of Will for years, probably since he was in college. He was a neighborhood favorite, at least among the women. He would come over to mow or watch her kids, sometimes sans shirt, God bless him. 

He had a full 6-pack, truly the most perfect body on a boy..I mean man I had ever seen. When he was there, I would go full Desperate Housewives and leer at him from my window. I wasn't selfish though; I would inform other neighbor girls and they would promptly throw kids in strollers and bikes to come down the cul de sac for a peek at "six-pack" Will. 



Anyway, back the story. I officially meet Will at this party and we start talking about music, which we are both really into, and learned we both liked the same genre and loved the same bands. He was a guitarist and had been in a band for years, since high school. He had just moved back from L.A. and was working for an accounting firm in town. 

We started to go to concerts and hanging out together with my friends, a motley crew of largely of artists and writers. One night we joined some of my friends for a midnight showing of the Big Lebowski. 

During the intermission I went to the bathroom with my girlfriend Kelly. Once inside, she said to me, "Please tell me you are knocking boots with that man." Considering her side gig was erotic fiction writing, I thought it an odd phrase, but said absolutely not; he was way too young for me. 

I will never forget her reply: "The gods have placed this beautiful gift in your hands and you aren't even going to open it to see what's inside? That's just not right. You are crazy. He's clearly smitten with you."

At some point during the evening, she got in his ear as well on the topic and when he drove me home that night, he did indeed kiss me so apparently I was the only one who wasn't picking up the signal. We dated for several years, and honestly  it was just what the doctor ordered. He was kind, intelligent, caring, considerate, passionate, fun, and did I mention super hot? 

Now dating someone nearly 20 years my junior does come with baggage, although it wasn't typically ours. My parents chose to largely ignore the relationship, while his parents were shockingly warm and welcoming to me. My parents had nothing against Will; there wasn't much to not like to be honest. However, they also didn't see how this relationship had any potential for a future. And, to be honest neither did I, but I also did not care in the least.

I was sitting in a lawn chair drinking Sav Blanc.

After we had been dating a couple of years, my parents came into town for a visit and I invited Will over for dinner. I thought everything went well; he told them about the house he had just bought and his job, moving from LA, etc. That night my parents were upstairs getting ready for bed and I heard my mom howling with laughter, literally gasping for breathe. 

Apparently my mom was telling my dad that Will really did seem like a nice guy; it was just a shame that he was too young. My dad gave her a confused look, stopped brushing his teeth, and said, "You mean too old for her." 

Yes, apparently the entire evening he thought that Will was my 17-year old daughter Laura's boyfriend. 

Later that year, Laura insisted that he come to her high school graduation. They had gotten quite close and she absolutely wanted him there. Afterwards, her dad texted her and said that he thought her boyfriend was really cute. She did not have a boyfriend at the time. Ok, I must say I did enjoy that (insert evil laugh here). 

Will helped me pack and move her into her dorm her freshman year, and not once but twice, people asked which dorm room was his. Don't get me started on him attending Laura's sorority's Fathers Day Weekend. 

He truly could not believe I'd never seen a single episode of Saved By the Bell. He didn't know The Cars. Yes, we had a wide gap of social references, but he was a great boyfriend. The age thing affected those around us more than it affected us. I could go on all day with hilarious stories about that. But he truly had an old soul, and was, at heart, a pretty nerdy-but-hot auditor who often was the sensible one, talking me out of various stupid things. 

We traveled, saw a ton of concerts, music festivals, art shows, etc. My only complaint ever was that he ate like a 13-year old female anorexic. He was an avid runner and daily ate extremely cleanly. I'm surprised his digestive system survived years of eating out with me. He would have a green smoothie and maybe a few yams, lean protein for dinner. Not exactly how I ate, but I forgave him on account of the aforementioned 6-pack. Oh, and by the way I now have green smoothies for lunch daily and am doing yoga, two things he really tried to get me into. 


We continued to date for a while after I moved, but eventually we both started dating other people. I told him from the very beginning that this would be fun but would not last. My plan was to move away once the kids graduated from high school. I knew I would eventually have to release him back into the wild where he could mate with someone his own age, which I'm happy to say he has. But the few years that we spent together were amazing and not something I will ever regret. I mean, for one, I get to write this blog. 

The Rude Awakening Cometh

When I moved to Chicago and started dating men around my own age, it was a bit of struggle. My sister had warned it was going to be a rude awakening, and she was not wrong. I basically spent the next two years dating a string of attractive but douchy dudes. 

I'm not saying all men over 50 with flat stomachs are dicks, but the majority I encountered were.  One of them was Drew, the narcissist golfer from last summer. Remember him? Catch up on "Golf, the Cruel Mistress of Summer" here. Or there was crazy Dave. He had washboard abs AND narcissistic personality disorder. Bonus! Catch up on crazy Dave here. There were plenty of others, I assure you. Online dating at this age is no cake walk, as you will know from this blog, "Online Dating in Your 50s." 

New beau Jon does not have a six-pack. He has what I would call an athletic dad bod, and while he is super sporty and athletic, he also loves beer and great food, and as a result has a small beer belly that he carries around like a fucking trophy. To say it doesn't affect his self confidence would be the understatement of the century. And, he can make it roll so it doubles as a party trick. Bottom line: He's adorable and he knows it, and I love him, every inch, and he knows that too. 

It's been a long and winding road for my love life but I must say I'm happy to have experienced everything, the highs and lows. Each relationship, good and bad, and every bad date I suffered through, taught me something about myself. And, I'm quite happy it's all led me to where I am today. 

This is getting long so I'll close here. I hope everyone is feeling good, having this damn virus almost in the rear view. Let's make this a summer to remember!

Ciao for now,

Barb


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