At least it's a real account

 

Of course I changed nothing on my profile between the time we started talking and the time we stopped talking. He either mistook me for someone else or it was just wishful thinking. What a douche. This is what is on offer in the wonderful world of online dating - fake accounts and assholes.

Friends and lovers

This is hard. It's hard to find friends who I really connect with and feel like I can be myself with. And it's impossible to meet anyone to date. Like impossible. I'm feeling very discouraged about the prospects of both. I know I need to be patient. I know. But damn.

"Plus One"

For the first time in 30 years I got an invitation addressed like this and it was triggering, tbh. 

Seeing the card addressed that way was a bit of a shock to my heart, like, damn, okay, this shit is real. 

I mean, I spent most of my adult life in a partnership and now that's over. Clearly for the other member of that partnership, it was easy come, easy go, but that is not at all how I feel. He walked away without a backward glance, but the relationship reverberates with me. 

Even if I didn't find my marrige satisfying, it was still something that was important to me. I'm always joking about how I stick with people - "you can't get rid of me," I say. And I guess that's true even with this relationship, which has been such a source of disappointment and frustration.

 

Encouragement

My friend Suzanne was helping me tweak my dating profile and this is what she wrote. It's so amazing to think that she thinks of me this way!

Another dead end

 

I'm 100% sure this is a fake account to get feedback on the site. I realize now it's the same opening as the one I posted on July 30, but this guy was better at it (he actually answered the questions I asked instead of ignoring them) and the profile was more plausible, so I stayed in the conversation longer. I thought these questions were leading to a scam, but I realize now that it's marketing research. So disappointing to be used this way...

Some days, it's all worthwhile

 From my daughter:

Summary of last year

I wrote this for my friend Sharon who is not on social media and I had to bring her up-to-date on the situation. I thought this was a pretty good summary:

Larry left one night last fall after Alana confronted him about going to bars without a mask (he had become quite the bar fly in the last few years). He said he would get a covid test to put everyone's mind at ease. Then I didn't hear from him and he wouldn't answer the phone when I called. It turns out he had immediately moved in with his girlfriend, who he had been seeing for many months. I found out about that when they posted a photo on Facebook. Yes, that really happened after 26 years of marriage. After 2 weeks of no communication, I called a lawyer. Larry came to get his clothes and motorcycle from the house and otherwise moved on without a backward glance. I cleared out the house we bought together, and lived in for 15 years, without any help from him. We negotiated our "uncontested" (no fault) divorce via emails with the lawyer. We never had a conversation and he has never offered an explanation of any kind, let alone an apology. Our divorce was final in April. I'm still sort of reeling. He has barely spoken to the kids, including Matt, and hasn't seen any of them. Alana graduated from HS and Cal turned 21 this year - they each got a text from him. He doesn't even talk to his mother anymore. He and I had been running along different paths for quite some time, so I had been wondering if we would separate when Alana graduated from HS in June 2021. I did not expect him to just set himself up with a new life without once suggesting that he wanted our marriage to end. It was positively surreal. I bought another (much smaller) house in Syracuse before I was offered the job in ND and Alana is living there now. Caleb is continuing to work at the Texas Roadhouse in Syracuse, but he never sees Larry, whose restaurant is in Watertown (where Larry lives now). Honestly, I am happy to be done with Larry. He hasn't made me happy, nor attempted to, for a very long time. He spent no time with me or the kids, and hadn't really been involved in our family life for many years. I guess I was just holding out hope that things would get better at some point. When we got married, I never, ever imagined he would turn into the selfish, careless person he is now. I had to tell everyone myself - our friends, his family, everyone, and of course they were all stunned.