Social media flirtation...

It doesn't matter what age you are. The very second you become single, no matter what the circumstances are, you become a magnet. Not just any magnet. A "singles" magnet. (To the point that, and this might have just happened to me, my fiancé had a family member that couldn't keep his hands off me... at the funeral!!!) I am 45 years old as I write this, and I am divorced after a 10 year marriage. I also consider myself a widow. I lost my fiancé in July 2024 to cancer. Now, I get judged about the time period in which I waited to start this dating thing again, but mind your own business. There is far more to that story, but that's for another entry. Quick dating history, because it's pretty simple. I was with my high school sweetheart Alex until I was about 25/26. We have a son together, and sadly Alex passed away in 2013. I met my ex-husband Joe in 2005. At this point I had a fast situationship with the father of my middle son. Not a full relationship. More than friends with benefits though. Now my ex husband takes on me my 9 year old son, and a baby since my middle son was about 2/3 months old if that. We were together for a total of about 11 years. Infidelities' on both of our parts led to the divorce, but I was already pursuing another relationship before my marriage was fully ended. Which leads to the relationship with my fiancé. We were together for a bit over 7 years. And now, here we are back in the cesspool of dating and if you thought it was rough "back in the day"... I have news for you, this new shit, ain't for the weak of heart!!

After a lot of encouragement and a lot of thinking then more thinking and then of course even more thinking about this dating stuff, I initially signed up for a couple different dating sites, but never put too much information on them and hardly ever used a photo. After I would get a few "likes" or "matches" I would just delete my profile all together because it was far too obvious my responses were fake so so so fake! More and more time went on and I was searching for some thing that I could be sure would give me valid response that were actually close by and not full of fraudsters. I signed up for Bumble, OKCupid, and something called Woo Plus (which was for more full figured ladies). In fact, I am sure that the Woo app was the first one I got what I thought was a legitimate response. I started talking with a guy and we moved the conversation to Snapchat. Probably should have been my first red flag. We hit it off though, and initially he seemed great. Decided to meet in person and that's when I found out he lied about his age. Not such a big deal you would think.. except, damn it Alexander, it was a 10 year lie. So rather that being a 36 year old man, he was only a 26 year old man. Now, this is odd for me all the way around because I have a son that is older than that. However, I had multiple conversations with friends, and family even and everyone said I should give it a shot. So, I did. It lasted about 2 weeks. Now you could say that his age wasn't the exact issue, more-so the maturity level. No way of communicating unless it's through Snapchat, no car, no actual job (which was another lie), and he lived with his dad and step-mom so there was no chance of going to his place. That ended the first of my welcome back to dating experiences. Now, since that went so well, I deleted that app. I actually deleted that one, and Bumble because if you don't pay there is truly no point in bothering with that one. Then, after talking with my friends, it was suggested trying Facebook dating. However, it's not available to everyone so I wasn't able to and I opted for a couple of local pages where you could connect with people close by. Since they were Facebook related I somewhat assumed they would be a safer option. I allowed my DM's to be open so I could explore. Enter, David. We hit it off. Or I thought we did. We chatted every single day. Multiple times a day. Our love of music, different venues, all the shows we've seen. We talked through text, we spoke on the phone, and it finally got to the point that we picked a time and place and the meeting was going to be official. Now David was older than me. I believe he is 55. He retired from Ford, has his own apartment, and seemed to have life in order or how you'd expect it to be for a man his age. We met at a bar close to him, had some appetizers and drinks and then we went back to his place and smoked weed (just another thing we had in common) had a few more drinks and then we slept together. We had initially planned on me staying because I always always always drive sober. I refuse to drink even one beer and drive, but something about this night... I don't know I just got this instant thought.. one I am such a whore. Just met this guy and already fucked him? Slut! No it wasn't him. He didn't make me feel uncomfortable at all. It was the thought of society. The thought of being shamed. Because no matter what anyone says, someone is ALWAYS judging you. So, back to David. Once I left his place, I drove straight home. I had hoped he would reach out and at least ask if I made it home ok, but, I got radio silence. After two days, I finally reached out and asked all the obvious things. Did I not match my picture? Did I smell? Was it my breath? Turns out, he had some personal things happen and wasn't really available. Alright, let's pump a few brakes here. I have a few problems with this, and here's why; prior to us sleeping together, we chatted every day. I mean at the very very least, we shared probably dozens and dozens of texts regularly. So, all of the sudden, we are at zero communication at all. I explained to him that he made me feel like a common whore, and that as close as we had gotten and as much as we talked regularly it was really off-putting to just stop communication. He profusely apologized, and I agreed to hang out with him again. Knowing he had a financial situation going on, I was happy to set up a date at his place to drink wine, watch some sports, and smoke. Which we did, and we fooled around. We did not sleep together this time, and that was ok too. But, then communication began to dwindle again. So, I gave myself a break. I mean I was the last one to reach out to him, and then two days later I got a text from him saying he felt I was being "too quiet". That felt like the end. I still get texts from him now and again, but I don't think we are in the same place anymore. And that was another stinger.

So after taking a break, I ventured back to my inbox to see what had progressed. Which a couple things did, but nothing that stuck at the time. One guy was mad that I had my family living with me still and he didn't feel as though I could give him enough of my time. One guy took me on a date and was everything he said. However, I made an anonymous post during a game in one of my Facebook dating pages only to find out this guy was a full on scam artist. I mean shown on the local news station for ripping off people on plumbing jobs that he never followed through on. Now, that happened in 2020 and at that point I thought well, 4 years have passed, and maybe, just maybe he has paid them back and made amends. I want to give him a chance to redeem himself. Everybody has a past right??? We had texted, and he asked me if things were ok, so I opened the door and said that I was sick of the online stuff because not everyone is being honest, and I despise being lied to. All he said was that he agreed and couldn't stand it either. Another strike-out!

Then (inserted the big sigh, and eye roll) there was Andy. We matched on OkCupid. We shared our Snapchats, and then our phone numbers. I sent him a text, and he responded that he had an ex that liked to change phone numbers and stalk him so he wanted to be sure it wasn't her. Within 3 days, he invited me out for drinks. We met at a bar closer to his place. We had a couple drinks. He kissed me on the patio. I, stupidly, really felt something. I am nowhere near saying fireworks or sparks. Just something about the way he kissed me, the way he looked at me across the table.... I haven't been looked at like that I honestly don't think ever. I mean, honestly I felt like he was looking at me like I was the most beautiful woman he ever laid eyes on. His eyes on me, and the way he smiled when he would stare. So, fast forward and we have seen each other a few times now. Never a dull moment. Then the phone call came in. One of my super toxic exes called my phone. Hindsight says, I should have blocked him, but I left his number in my phone as a reminder of what he did, and that I wouldn't open that door again. That caused an issue with Andy. Although we never discussed labels or if we were exclusive. So we went our separate ways for a bit. I had come home after the fight and written him a letter kind of explaining myself, and after about 2 weeks, he texted me. We started talking again, and I was happy about that, because something told me I was missing out on getting to know someone that could be long term. So for more than 3 months, we hung out nearly every weekend, a few nights during the week, and I actually got myself super excited about being with him for New Years Eve. Why wouldn't I? I was looking forward to that midnight kiss. Got my kiss, and about 2 more weeks of his time. Then on a Saturday, he invites me over, cooks dinner and we have some drinks. Something was off, and I knew it. My body knew it. I got sick. It was awful. It was embarrassing. However the worst of it was that not one time did Andy check on me. Not once. No knock on the door, no text, and obviously no barging in to be the hero I needed. Needless to say, I finally felt ok and his roommates girlfriend actually helped me to the couch where I slept for a couple hours. Once I got up, I collected my stuff and came straight home for my bed.. this was Sunday. I had gotten one text on Monday that said, " I hope you are feeling better." and that was it. So when Tuesday came around and I hadn't gotten the daily "Good morning babe." text which was odd since I have literally gotten one EVERY day over the last 2 months. I decided maybe I should reach out considering I'm the idiot that got sick. So I sent a text. "So, I don't know if there's even a chance that you'd even want to hang out again... if that's the case, I totally understand. I just figured I'd ask. I don't wanna bother you, so if you're just not interested in me that's ok too, just please let me know." In my opinion I never should have even had to send this. If he wasn't interested, I would have thought that at his age and after all the things he said, that he could be man enough to say something to me sooner. I was sure I was just being paranoid and over thinking. Until the response came in. "I don't think it's a good idea. I like hanging out with ya but I don't see a future with you and I do not want to hurt you either." Interesting that you'd pretend to care about hurting me now. After 3 months. After daily texts calling me babe. Even a text that he sent before we hung out that Saturday where he referred to me as babe. I asked him why he waited to say something instead of being honest from the beginning and his response was "IDK". Yes you read that right. Three letters. Couldn't even be bothered to spell out the damn words. I did text him a few other things, but never got any reply at all. I sat here and wrote him another letter basically outlining what a coward he was for leading me on, and that I hoped with my entire heart that his daughter and granddaughter never have to experience the pain of what he put me through. I hope they never have to cry themselves to sleep wondering what they did wrong because some fuckboy didn't have big enough balls to be honest. This one hurt. I mean really hurt. I had finally started to smile again, and get excited to hang out with someone that didn't live in my house.

So, it's been since Tuesday that he texted me, and on Thursday I went and grabbed a few things I left over there. No words were really exchanged other than me telling him, when I handed him the letter, that I don't need a response the letter was just a goodbye. Today is Sunday. No words. Nothing.

I should note that Thursday night I decided to give a chance to a guy that had been pursuing me and I was attracted to him, but blew him off because of Andy. Because of the stupid belief that what he was saying was true, and that I could actually believe that he would behave like a grown man rather than a childish little boy in the body of a 49n year old man.

Thursday night, was the night I finally met up with Justin in person after chatting through a Facebook dating page. It was fun. We had some drinks in his man-cave of a garage. I met a few of his friends. I spent the night. We giggled and cuddled. It was nice. He had to work on Friday morning so we went separate ways for the day after a nice goodbye hug and kiss. I texted him later thanking him for a good time. Well, again, today is Sunday and I have barely heard a thing from him. What's a girl to do? Back to the drawing board. I suppose stick around to see if I actually find my happiness dating over 40 in this age of technological bullshit.