Judging by the volume of mail I’ve been seeing lately, I have hit a nerve with my recent columns on online dating. For those of you playing catch-up, the (former) Lovely Mrs. Taylor moved out a while back, leaving me single for the first time in nearly 15 years.
Since then, I’ve gone through the “five steps” typical of someone in my situation: 1) disbelief, 2) hurt, 3) anger, 4) acceptance, and 5) dating. (Just for the record, I don’t know if those five steps are typical or not; they’re the steps I went through.)
For a long time, I thought step number two was the toughest. I mean, nobody wants to feel pain, right? Step one wasn’t so bad, because early on it just didn’t seem real, so it was hard to feel anything. Step three was OK, because being angry felt so much better than feeling hurt. And step four, acceptance, sort of fell into place by itself. I woke one morning and there it was. To be honest, I welcomed acceptance; I realized it was good to simply have the whole thing behind me.
That left step five – dating.
At first I resisted dating. Despite having completed the first four steps of my five-step program, the idea of going out with another woman still felt like cheating, like I was going out on my wife, who by this time had moved to another city, leased an apartment, and changed her name to Naomi Slimchacha, for all I know.
It was my daughter who finally pushed me into it. While I was visiting her in
I didn’t really expect much to come of it, but apparently – owing to the fact that I have a job, all my teeth, and bathe regularly – I’m considered a “catch.” Who knew?
It wasn’t long until I was emailing back in forth with several single, divorced, and widowed women from across
Having had my ego recently crushed into a lifeless, shapeless, quivering blob of semi-digested protoplasm by the former Mrs. T, this was exactly the sort of thing I needed.
If I had left things as they were, with all my little romances existing solely in the digital realm, everything would have been fine. But no; these girls wanted to meet in person. They wanted to go out on real dates to real places; places that cost real money!
Now, since Mrs. T’s departure, I have been living on a diet of Ramen noodles and acorns from the tree out back in an effort to make ends meet. Four-star cuisine at a fancy restaurant was not in my budget.
But I’m a man. And a man will do some really stupid things for love, or even the promise of love. A man will date.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been out on at least a dozen dates, some fun, some that make Stephen King’s scariest novel seem like a Dr. Seuss bedtime story. I’ll tell you all about it next week.
* Dear Readers; I have received dozens of letters and emails asking for the name of the dating service I’ve been using, so I’m guessing I’m not the only cowboy (or cowgirl) riding in this here rodeo. The one I’m using is free, easy to navigate, and the largest of its kind anywhere (or so their Website claims). Feel free to email me for the Web address at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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