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At the
beginning of this story I would like to make a few points. I am sure there will
be some readers who have had long marriages or relationships that may find some
of my experiences with women I’ve known to be jaded or possibly even abhorrent.
I make no apologies to them nor am I interested in what their “moral standards”
are. We all have choices in life and I made mine. I’m totally content with my
“values”.
I’ve never
really been the “manipulator” type but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t aware of
what my own best interests were when it came to “relationships”. Of course
there are a variety of differences between men and women but then again there
are a lot of differences between men and other men. I certainly never wanted to
dominate any woman. In fact I’ve never wanted to dominate anyone. It’s not my
style.
The chances
of some gal I met along the way reading this story is fairly slim. One would have
to be a detective to figure out their identities.
So why did I
decide to write this story? Mostly because I thought a lot of people would find
it interesting. I’ve read lots of stories over the years about peoples’
experiences in the dating world. Most of them have been from a woman’s point of
view.
Basically
it’s all old news now. I haven’t dated in over a dozen years.
The Breaking Up Of A Marriage
A few things
on my marriage, how we broke up, and how I found myself single again at the age
of 48. We got married in the summer of 1981, the same weekend that Chuck and Di
wed. We met at a Vancouver company where we were both in sales. I was 34 and my
wife was 29 when we walked down the aisle at a Catholic church in the small
town of Gull Lake, Saskatchewan where she was from. That was a pretty big deal
for me considering that I am an atheist. My mother, who was at the wedding, sat
right next to the priest. She too was a life-long atheist. There were well over
150 people at the wedding.
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| Gull lake, Saskatchewan |
At the
beginning of the marriage we lived in a waterfront house on Bowen Island, not
far from the ferry terminal in West Vancouver. After that we lived in 3
different apartments over several years in Vancouver proper. In 1986 I started
my own business. My wife settled in working as a sales rep for a tile company.
She became pregnant in 1988 and we soon found out that we were going to have
twins. We bought a townhouse in Richmond, BC in preparation of our starting a
family.
My wife took
6 months off work and the babies were born in March of 1989. The dynamics of
our relationship started to change. I’m not sure if she had postpartum depression.
Understandably, she was quite overwhelmed at having 2 babies at one time.
Almost instantly there was an expressed strong resentment on her part that I
was not helping out enough. I would confess that I wasn’t great about getting
up in the middle of the night if one or both of the babies were unsettled. I
was a pretty heavy sleeper and I did have a business to run during the day. I
also wasn’t capable of breast feeding. I found my wife’s resentment of me to be
quite unfair. I did a lot of the cooking and household chores. On several
occasions I packed the twins in the back seat of my car and drove them around
until they fell asleep. I was home every night and not out socializing.
We went to “counseling”
but it had little effect. I agreed to have a vasectomy. We went on a couple of
getaways including a week at a Club Med in Mexico but whatever sparks there
once were could not be rekindled. Married life became kind of like fulfilling a
contract, at least to me. I became numb.
Being a
parent was very important to me. I was very cognizant of not repeating my own father’s
ineptitude in that role. My wife was very good at organizing things for the
kids like finding a pre-school and getting them into activities. Before going
back to work she found a nanny who would be a part of the kids’ lives for about
the next 12 years.
We were
living in the “burbs”. I kind of adapted to it but was a bit uncomfortable at
times. From time to time we would go to house parties. A lot of that stuff I
found completely boring but there were a few occasions that I shared a joint
out on the back porch with a few likeminded souls.
I was rarely
consulted about decisions made about our kids. Usually I would find out about
those decisions after the fact. I wasn’t involved in the hiring of a nanny. My
wife also made some financial decisions independently like buying RRSPs through
an investment guy she met through a friend. It wasn’t as if I was against the
idea, it was more that I was left out of any meetings.
Our marriage
had evolved into a kind of staleness. I was living in routines. These weren’t
happy times by and large. In June of 1995 I spent about a week hiking with 7
others along the West Coast Trail on the western side of Vancouver Island. Not
something my wife was interested in doing. It was an exhilarating experience. I
loved being out of my element. My wife had planned on going home to
Saskatchewan for 2 weeks with the kids in July. I enjoyed spending time with
her family but by this point I had been to Saskatchewan several times. She was
going to fly there with the kids. I decided to spend 3-4 days golfing and
fishing on Vancouver Island with one of the guys I had hiked with (he died
several years ago) before driving to Saskatchewan.
After
arriving in Saskatchewan I felt a kind of iciness from my wife’s family. I
couldn’t quite put my finger on why. Not long after my wife and the kids
arrived back in Vancouver she asked the kids to go upstairs because she wanted
to discuss something with me privately. She told me she wanted a divorce. I was
stunned. I hadn’t expected that at all. I asked her if she was sure that this
was what she wanted to do and she said yes. I remember getting on my mountain
bike and riding down to the dike area in Richmond. It was like my world was
passing by me on both sides as I pedaled at a rapid pace.
I learned
that there was a reason for her family’s iciness towards me back in Saskatchewan.
They all knew that she was going to ask for a divorce.
My biggest
concern was what was going to happen to our children. I loved them dearly and
didn’t want to be out of their lives. I also didn’t want to see them leveraged
between my wife and me.
My first step
was to find somewhere else to live. It was going to be a bit complicated. The
cost of paying child support, renting a house, and renting office space was
fairly expensive. I slept on the couch for a few months before I moved out. I
bought out my office lease for several thousand dollars and my secretary found
me a house that had room for an office.
I signed a
separation agreement. I would pay a healthy amount in child support, my wife
would keep all the investments, we would split the house, and I would keep my
business. I would be active in the kids’ lives and they would stay at my house
once a week for 2 days. I agreed with everything she asked for but that isn’t
to say that I thought it all was fair. I had no problem with the child support
amount stuff. It didn’t seem balanced that she would keep all of our
investments. I had contributed to them and both our names were on the
documents. Keeping my business wasn’t exactly a break for me as it was how I
made my living. Splitting the house was something that could only happen much
later when she could afford to buy me out and I wasn’t about to force her to
find a new home. The 50/50 split of the house wasn’t equal because I paid for
the down payment on the house with money I had inherited.
She finally
bought me out 12 years into the 20 year house mortgage. I never received
anything close to my 50%. The main reason I agreed to everything she asked for
was because I didn’t want to rock the boat. She was the mother of our children
and her being upset wasn’t going to make the transition run any smoother.
There was a
lingering bitterness on my wife’s part for several months. As the primary care
giver to our children she kind of had the hammer. When our first Christmas
apart was coming up she informed me that she was taking the kids to
Saskatchewan for the entire Christmas holidays meaning that I wouldn’t see the
kids at all during that time. For
some reason she changed her mind on those plans and taking the kids out of town
for the holidays never came up again.
The
relationship between my ex improved after about 6 months and we became cordial.
Somebody published an article in a magazine about how well we had coped with
co-parenting. We attended all of the kids’ events at school and other
activities like dance classes and sports together. When the nanny’s car died I
paid for the repairs. For a number of years I hung up the outdoor Christmas
lights at my ex’s house and brought the Christmas tree back to her place in my
vehicle.
I did the
major part of driving the kids to their activities. I got involved in my son’s
sports and coached him in soccer and baseball for a few years. My ex and I would sometimes go for lunch
together and sometimes I would have dinner at her place.
I never had
second thoughts about our splitting up. Never once did I think about reconciliation.
It was over for very good reasons. We weren’t at all alike. One day when her mom was visiting, her mom
suggested that we might get back together again. I told her that that was never
going to happen.
For the
record, I never cheated during my marriage. In the 15 years we were together,
including living together for close to a year, I may have gotten drunk 2-3
times in total.
The above, of
course, is my version of events. As they say, it takes 2 to tango, so it would
be a safe say that my ex would not be in total agreement with me in my
conclusions.
Single At 48
I had to
figure a lot of things out about being single. Considering that I didn’t get
married until I was 34 I had had a lot of experience with the single life in my
younger years. This was going to be very different. I was now a middle aged
man. I made a few rules for myself, the first being that I wasn’t going to let
my social life interfere with my responsibilities to my children. They would always
come first. I also knew that I wasn’t going to be messing around with any
married women and to the best of my knowledge I never did. I’m not trying to
sound noble here but I’ve never had any admiration for people who cheat. They
are basically all liars. How a person can climb into bed with their spouse
after getting some on the side is beyond me.
So where was
a 48 year old man going to find single women at this stage in life? Meeting
them in bars seemed like the simplest option. I never wanted to be the creepy
old guy at the end of the bar in a joint that was mostly full of younger people
in their twenties and thirties. Jazz and blues clubs seemed to be my best bet.
My initial “targets” were women in their late thirties to mid forties.
I went out on
some weekend nights while still sleeping on the couch at my ex’s. One night I
was standing at a bar and got into a conversation with a divorced couple. They
both made it very clear to me that they were no longer romantically involved.
Eventually, I asked the gal in the couple if she would like to dance. This was
a big mistake. Shortly after we came off of the dance floor the guy in the
couple punched me in the stomach leaving me winded. Welcome to middle aged
single life!
Not long
after the above I met an Italian gal in a Vancouver blues bar called The Yale.
I would spend many nights over the years in this nightclub. The Italian gal
wasn’t hard to notice. The top she was wearing revealed some pretty large
breasts. I confess that I’ve always been a breast man. Not long after our first
meeting I invited her over to my new house. It was bit strange at first to have
relations with someone completely new, but I got over that fairly quickly. We
hung out together for a few weeks and then I cut things off. It was far too
soon for me to jump into another long term relationship. This was kind of my
pattern over the next 10 years. Oddly enough, I went out on a date with a
friend of the Italian gal’s several months later not knowing initially that
they knew one another and worked at the same place. The friend turned out to be
a complete pain in the ass.
One day I was
reading a free left wing Vancouver newspaper called The Georgia Straight and
noticed on the back page a dating service that was being offered. It was a
phone kind of deal where men pay a per minute phone charge when they contact a
woman using the service. Both men and women created a voice message describing
who they thought they were. It was, and is, a really stupid way of trying meet
someone, particularly because there was no way of knowing what the person on the
other end of the phone looked like.
I only
remember meeting one gal through this service. It was at a Starbucks in Maple
Ridge, BC, a fairly long drive from where I lived. I had a back-up plan. If the
date didn’t work out I would visit a good friend who lived in the area whose
house I had never been to. I knew from the first moment I saw the gal that she
wasn’t somebody I was attracted to. She also had a lumpy bandage around one of
her lower legs that looked gross. I sat with her for about an hour listening to
her blabber away non-stop.
We parted
company and I had a beer at my friend’s place before heading home. When I got
back to my house there was a phone message from the gal with the bandage. Her
message was quite analytical and she said she felt that I didn’t ask her any
questions about herself. I messaged her back that the reason I didn’t ask more
questions was because I had absolutely no interest in her. We just had fucking
coffee together! No big deal.
My next
venture into middle aged single life was joining a club called TGIF. I can’t
recall how I discovered the club. It cost something like $150.00 to join and
they had some kind of event most nights of the week including dining at
restaurants, dances, excursions and some sporting things like bowling. I went
up to Whistler one weekend with a group of them. The guy who owned the club was
making a bit of a killing. He wasn’t only pocketing the initiation fees he was
getting a kick back from the restaurants and other venues that were visited.
Some of the women
in the club were the kind that looked like a deer in the headlights, totally
out of their element in mid life and back on the market, a place they never
expected to be. One night as I was leaving a dance 3 women from the group
stopped me and one of them told me that this club wasn’t for me and that I
could do a lot better on my own than stooping to this situation. I took it as a
compliment. I did go out with a couple of women from the club. I went for a
bike ride with one and rollerblading with another. I couldn’t see any chemistry
with either of them.
The final
straw for me with TGIF was one night when the club went to a restaurant above
The Shark Club in Vancouver. Freshly sliced roast beef cut by a chef was the
specialty that night. I was thrown off a bit when an older woman at the table I
was sitting at introduced herself. I had known her slightly about a dozen years
earlier. I had worked in sales with her husband at one time. I also went to his
funeral.
Somehow a
piece of roast beef became lodged in my throat and I couldn’t breathe. Someone
at the table did the Heimlich maneuver on me. It was like a neon light flashing
at me. TGIF obviously wasn’t for me. It was time to move on.
I decided
that my best bet was to mix things up a bit as far as my social life went. I
hung out at jazz and blues clubs that tended to draw older singles like me,
Rossini’s and The Fairview Pub for jazz and The Yale for blues music. I also
went to a number of singles dances that catered to folks over the age of 40.
I met a
really nice gal at a big dance at the Bayshore Hotel (where Howard Hughes once
lived); got her phone number and a week later we went out on a date. She chose
the venue which was at a big Baptist church in Burnaby and the entertainment
was a gospel group called The Blind Boys Of Alabama. I was totally blown
away. It was one of the best dates I’ve ever been on.
Gospel music
can be very overwhelming. To me it is almost a physical thing like being lifted
up. Kind of strange in a way too considering that I am an atheist. That night
kind of reminded me of the Blues Brothers movie where someone is doing
somersaults in the air.
I enjoyed our
date. Before going out with her we had discussed on the phone that I have never
been big on hand holding and prefer a woman I’m with tucking her arm around
mine. Sure enough that’s how we walked to and from the church that night.
We later went
and grabbed a bite to eat somewhere. As I looked across the table at her I
realized that she had wrinkle marks at the top of her cheeks. I wasn’t sure how
old she was but my guess was that she was a few years older than me. I liked
her a lot but felt that we had no future together. Some might think that that
was pretty shallow on my part. I guess we could have just been friends but I’ve
never really known how that works. I was looking for something a bit more than
“company”.
I went to a
few singles dances at a place called Fantasy Gardens. It was on a property in
Richmond, BC that was developed by BC’s former premier Bill Vander Zalm. It was
kind of a tourist trap with a big windmill and fake facades of stores that were
made to look over 100 years old. It also had a mini train that was quite
popular at Christmas time.
In the middle
of all this was a fair sized ballroom with a large balcony from which the North
Shore Mountains could be seen in the distance. One night I was out on the
balcony having a smoke and got into a conversation with some guy. After telling
him that I had climbed the distant Grouse Mountain that day I asked him if we
had talked before. He looked familiar. It turned out that we had. He said “You’re
the guy that thinks drunk driving is OK.” I think what I might have said was
that I got away with drinking and driving when I was younger.
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| Fantasy Gardens, Richmond, BC |
In fact I was
very careful about drinking and driving. The most I would ever drink when I was
out and about was 3 beers. This would be followed with a few cups of coffee
over the next hour. Sometimes I would have a nap in the back of my van before
driving home. Back then I was pulled over several times and had to do the
breathalyzer thing. I passed each time.
I had a month
long fling with a gal who was a first responder and ambulance driver that I met
at Fantasy Gardens. She had Fibromyalgia that she seemed to manage quite well.
She lived with her teen aged daughter and had a pet monkey. Monkeys gross me
out. I never met the daughter or the monkey.
Something
else that I remember from those singles dances were the men who had clearly
taken ballroom dancing lessons. Most of them looked kind of creepy. A number of
them were bald and not in a good way. Others were very short like 5’4”. No
matter how good a guy that size can dance, they still look very peculiar
dancing with a woman several inches taller.
The Dawn Of Internet Dating
Looking back,
internet dating didn’t become a big thing until the early 2000s. Older people
like me can remember dial-up in the 90s. Facebook didn’t come into being until
2004. The movie You’ve Got Mail came out in 1998 and kind of opened up the
possibilities of meeting someone on the net. If it worked for Tom Hanks and Meg
Ryan’s characters why not give it a shot?
The first
dating site I joined was one called Lavalife in the late 1990s. Back then you
could buy a deal where for a fixed fee you could contact something like 6
different women from the site. It was kind of like buying booze beads at a Club
Med. Once you ran though those 6 contacts you had to pay again or you couldn’t
participate. I believe they later changed their format to a monthly flat fee.
You could
post a photo of yourself (a few didn’t) and write and post a brief description
of what your likes and dislikes were. There was also a section that stated what
your religious beliefs were, if you smoked or not, and some other things like
occupation. I was kind of surprised at how many women wrote “spiritual” when it
came to religion.
I was a
smoker and an atheist so I probably was eliminated by 60% of the age
appropriate woman on the site. I countered those limitations by being creative
in my profile. A little bit of funny, a pinch of off the wall, a short list of
some of things I liked to do. One of my opening lines was “What’s in your yurt?”
Nothing I ever wrote was a lie.
There were
definitely a number of turn-offs for me in reading women’s profiles. At the top
of the list were demanding women, women who appeared to be high maintenance,
women without any apparent sense of humour, and woman who had inflated opinions
about themselves. On dating sites it is quite common for men and women to
misrepresent who they really are. Sometimes these things might not be discovered
until going out on a date.
I remember
sitting out on patio deck at a place called Bridges on Granville Island with a
date. She had used her college graduation photo on her Lavalife profile and
didn’t look anything at all like her photo. She was German, kind of stocky, and
had a kind of gruff demeanor. Images of a WW2 German prison guard flashed in my
mind. I couldn’t get away quick enough but stuck it out for an
hour.
 |
| Bridges Restaurant, Vancouver |
There should
be no shame in being “average” looking. Most of us are and more so the older we
get. Most people have something going for them in their physical appearance.
Hair, eyes, smile, skin, body shape, how one carries themselves. A great laugh
doesn’t hurt nor does a pleasant voice. Being confident and comfortable with
who they are also goes a long way.
I never had
unreasonable expectations about dating on the net. It truly is a numbers game.
I never had long range plans, I was simply looking for someone who I was mostly
simpatico with and then we could go from there. This was easier said than done.
Over a period
of about 8 years I went out with hundreds of women I met on the net. There were
times when I went out on more than 1 date during a week. Usually I met them at
a coffee shop like Starbucks or at a pub. These days sometimes when I’m waiting
for my coffee at Starbucks I can spot a couple out on a first date. For some
reason they are almost always seated outside. Maybe it’s the lighting or the
ability of making a quick escape? Realistically being in public is a safe place
for women to meet a complete stranger.
In all the
years I dated on the net I never had a “no show” nor did I ever have a gal walk
out on me. I never walked out on anyone either.
So here’s the
basic routine when it comes to internet dating. You send someone a “smile” or a
short note whose profile has got your attention. If they respond affirmatively
you start a conversation. If this goes well you ask for her phone number. If
that goes well you both agree to meet one another.
One of the
first things both men and women think about when first meeting a stranger on a
date is whether or not they could possibly sleep with that person. From what I
understand there are a lot of men who cut right to the chase. I imagine that
that works sometimes but it turns a lot of women off. Using double entendres
are also a creepy way of communicating.
Pretty well
almost everyone over the age of 40 has been in a long term relationship. Most
have been married and most also have children. A gal with 2 teenagers at home
isn’t as flexible with her time as gal living alone.
Everyone has
war stories about their previous relationship(s). Some of those stories can be
very uncomfortable to listen to. Quite frequently the women telling their
stories revealed things about their own character that weren’t flattering.
Alcohol abuse and cheating were the most common reasons for their marriage
breakdowns. I never offered up much about my own previous marriage unless I was
asked and when I did I basically said that we were 2 people who didn’t have a
lot in common who had drifted apart. I never said anything bad about my ex.
What
Did I have To Sell?
Just what did
I have going for me? I was reasonably good looking but not a stud. For the most
part I was also pragmatic. Possibly because of my background in sales, I was
comfortable talking to almost anyone even if I didn’t always agree with them. As
an aside, I can’t recall ever sucking up to anyone in my life. I was pretty
confident and didn’t have doubts about who I was. My bullshit detector was
pretty accurate so it was unlikely that some gal would be able to snow me. I
didn’t have a messy background from previous relationships. I was also a
relaxed kind of person who liked to laugh and was open to new experiences. I
had a decent income. Rejection wasn’t something I feared. If whatever I was
looking for wasn’t going to happen, I would just move on just like I would in
my sales career. Also I never ever lied to anyone.
Just what was
I looking for? Love at first site was not something I expected. Physical
attraction was at the top of my list but that didn’t matter without some kind
of chemistry. I liked women who approached life positively, had some sense of
adventure, and enjoyed a good laugh.
Let’s stop
here for a bit. The reality is that internet dating sites aren’t crawling with grade
“A” material, whatever that is. Very attractive mature women weren’t that
common on the net and the ones that were very attractive often had personality
flaws. I’ve never been a big fan of lining up for anything so I generally
avoided these women unless they contacted me.
Trying To Remember All Those Internet
Dates
 |
| The Time Machine movie. |
I can hardly
recall any of their names, even the ones I spent extended time with. My best
reference point is where I was living at the time. I rented 2 houses in
Richmond, BC fairly close to my ex and kids, I lived in a home I owned in Fanny
Bay, BC for 2 years, and Victoria, BC for a short while. The gals I met were
from all over the BC lower mainland and Vancouver Island.
First House
My first date
on Lavalife didn’t work out very well. She lived fairly close to me and we went
for a walk along the beach at night. I invited her back to my place for a drink
but it soon became obvious that there was no chemistry. She insisted that she
bring her dog along to my place. After she left I found dog poop in 3 different
rooms. Not exactly a great start.
While living
at this house I went out on what turned out to be one of the weirdest dates in
my life. It was with a blonde gal in her mid forties. We
decided to drive down to Washington State for the day and stopped for lunch at
a place called The Oyster Creek Inn on Chuckanut Drive not far from the city of
Bellingham. I am pretty sure that it was during lunch that the gal told me that
she was a part time pastor. The thought of any action with her happening later
was quickly dulled. What are the chances of a pastor and an atheist hooking up?
We
decided to head on to the riverside town of La Conner after lunch and found
ourselves on a 4 lane highway. We were a hundred yards or so behind a big black
SUV. All of a sudden a car came onto the highway from a side road and clipped
the SUV in front of us. The SUV rolled over on its roof with the tires still
spinning. I stopped our car and pulled 6 people out of the vehicle, two small
kids, their parents, and two grandparents. Nobody was seriously hurt but they
certainly were stunned. The grandfather had a bit of a cut on his forehead. I
turned the ignition off and gave them a hand getting their luggage out of the
truck. I learned that the grandfather was driving the parents and their kids to
the airport and that they were going to be flying to Europe where they planned
to live for several years.
While waiting for the
cops to turn up the grandfather took me aside and gave me his phone number. He
said to give him a call the next time we were coming down that way and he would
take us out on a big boat that he owned. I stuck the piece of paper in my
pocket. We just did what anyone should do when people are in difficulty.
 |
| La Conner, Washington |
We drove on to La Conner
and both of us agreed that a good stiff drink was in order. We found a bar
where the locals hung out and ordered drinks. The pastor gal started to make
plans about us coming back to La Conner and going out on the old guy’s boat.
This could be awkward I thought because I didn’t plan on seeing her a second
time and I also didn’t want a reward for being a Good Samaritan. I can still
remember the shock on her face when I took the phone number note out of my
pocket and ripped it up.
I was kind of thinking
that we should probably head back to Canada but then we got into drinking
shooters. After 3 or 4 of those we were pretty drunk. I got it into my head
that I wanted to go the fishing port of Anacortes that wasn’t too far away. Out
in the parking lot I bought a joint from a stranger who was toking up. In no
time the pastor gal and I were totally wasted. Somehow I managed to drive us to
Anacortes and we found a small nightclub with a live band. The place was
rocking. The clientele seemed to be a mix of young adults who had escaped from
their parents’ summer cottages and street people. It turned out that the pastor
gal was a lot more liberal than I would have imagined. At one point she moved
her hand up the shorts I was wearing.
It was going to be a
long drive back to Canada and it was now about 2:00 a.m. I think it was about
3:00 a.m. when we rolled into the border town of Blaine. We were starving and
went to an all-night Denny’s. As luck would have it the cook hadn’t turned up
and the hostess was trying her best to do his job in the kitchen. By the time we
finished eating it was about 5:00 a.m.
We still had to get
across the border and my head was spinning. As I drove up to the crossing the
place looked abandoned. In the distance I could see one border guy sitting on a
chair outside. (Times have changed since 9/11.)
He asked the usual questions and gave us the green light to go. Whew!! A
few minutes later I noticed that there was a roach in my coffee holder by the
dash. Man, were we lucky!
I only saw the pastor
gal once more after that. She phoned me and said she was in the neighbourhood
and asked if it was OK to drop by. The last image that stands out about her was
her sitting on a lawn chair at a small kitchen table and after her standing up
me seeing lawn chair dents in her bare bum.
I went out with a
special needs school teacher for 2 or 3 weeks. Our first date was spending a
Friday afternoon visiting antique stores in Fort Langley and taking her big
black dog for a walk. At the time she had been off work for several days with the
flu. She didn’t look sick to me. I learned that she had been married 3 times
which meant to me that this deal had no long term potential. I also found out
that she was religious, which was also a no go for me.
 |
| Fort Langley, BC |
The following Monday she
went out of town to a teachers’ conference. When she got back she told me that
a number of the other teachers were pissed off at her for spending so much time
away from her special needs kids. “Fuck them” she said.
She kind of hummed a
hawed about my lack of religious beliefs. She was really stacked and I was
determined to see what was in her shirt. One night we were making out in my car
and she told me how she could see us both reading the newspaper in bed on
Sunday mornings. The next time I talked to her she told me the religious thing
was still an issue. Maybe I should have told her I had seen the light just to
get some but I didn’t. What a waste of time! Never saw her again.
I went out on dates with
a few school teachers. I found them all to be pretty anal. It was as if they
didn’t seem to know the difference between talking to children and adults. I
remembered from years before working as a waiter and serving teachers. 20 of
them would come into the restaurant and all of them wanted separate bills. Most
didn’t tip at all. Mostly I found them to be bland with pretty dull lives. I
decided not to go out with any teacher at all.
I went out with a nurse
who worked in palliative care at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. St. Paul’s
was where a lot of AIDS patients were looked after. It didn’t take me long to
figure out that this nurse had alcohol problems and consumed a lot of wine. She
was nice enough but I would never get involved with an alcoholic. She did offer
up some really interesting info that I’ve never forgotten. She told me that
most people’s severe health problems have a lot to do with heredity,
particularly when they get older. I believe that. Lucky genes are nothing to
sneeze at. I’ve known other nurses in the past and the most screwed up ones seem
to be those who work in Emergency where deaths, wounds, and lots of blood are
somewhat common. It takes a lot of character to not take the work home with
them.
Not all contacts or
phone calls ended up in dates. I wasn’t interested in dating Asian ladies or
Latinos. I’ve known some men who have done that who have found themselves
wrapped up the gal’s family and their kids. I’m not the Red Cross! Women with husky
voices or bad grammar always turned me off, scary stories from their pasts too.
I remember going over to
a gal’s house one night knowing that getting laid was a sure thing. For some
reason we used her roommate’s, who was out at the time, brass bed. I didn’t stay
the night and the next day I was back on Lavalife. She noticed I was back on
the site and was more than a bit ticked off. I pointed out to her that pretty
well everything she wrote on her profile was a lie. I didn’t feel sorry for her
at all.
A typical coffee date
lasted for an hour or two. I never had a prepared plan. I just winged it. A
number of times there was no physical attraction but I stuck it out. Depending
on the situation, sometimes I would say that we weren’t a match and other times
I would end the conversation by saying “It was nice meeting you” even when it
wasn’t. I guess you could call that a small lie. There were other times where
we mutually agreed that we weren’t a match with no hard feelings.
I went out with an
attractive blonde and we had a nice time. We both smoked which made things more
comfortable. I think she worked in retail. She also did a lot of drawing in her
spare time. For some reason I never asked her out on a second date. About a
month later I got an e-mail from her along with images of some of her
paintings. She told me that she had picked up a permanent socially transmitted
decease from a guy she had met before me. My first thought was that I had
dodged a bullet. I thanked her for her honesty and wished her the best.
2nd
House
I rented the 2nd
house for about 5 years. It was a big place, about 3,000 square feet, and had a
swimming pool. It was also minutes away from the high school my kids went to.
About 2 years into the rental I bought a vacation/retirement house at a place
called Fanny Bay on Vancouver Island.
Mostly I went out on
dates in Vancouver but I also started going out on dates with gals who lived on
Vancouver Island too once in a while.
Over the years I met
several women who were in deep financial trouble. Of course they never
mentioned that on their profiles or in phone conversations. One gal I met was
49 years old and had just joined the navy. It didn’t make any sense to me. The
Canadian government was investing in someone who might give the government 5-10
years of service? She was so broke I could see the desperation on her face. I
bought her a bag of groceries.
I made arrangements to
meet up with a gal in Victoria on a Super Bowl weekend. She told me in advance
that if things worked out well I could stay at her house that weekend. We went
for dinner at a pub in Oak Bay. The dinner worked out well enough that we made
out a bit in the restaurant. She didn’t eat much and asked the waitress for a
doggy bag.
We then drove over to
her rented house in Oak Bay. It turned out that she had a couple of teenaged
kids living with her. There was no way I was going to have sex with her with
kids in the house. I simply couldn’t do that. She gave the doggy bag to the
kids like she had lucked out and the food was devoured in moments. I noticed
that there was hardly any furniture in the house and wondered if she had sold
some of it off to buy groceries. She didn’t have a job.
Her son had a job
working at one of the bigger Victoria hotels and I drove him to work for his
late shift. She had a car but no money for gas. When we got back to her house I
told her that I would find somewhere else to sleep and see her the following
day. She agreed. I wanted to see the Super Bowl and possibly get laid. She put
me off when I called the next morning and I realized that I had been totally
wasting my time. I ended up watching the Super Bowl in a pub in Sidney, BC. The
story doesn’t end here.
The crazy broad looked
up my phone number in Vancouver. I think she suspected that I was actually married.
When my ex and I split up years earlier my ex never bothered taking my name off
the phone billing. I wasn’t aware that this was the case because I had a
business number and a cell phone number.
Long story short, the
crazy broad phoned my ex and asked if I was still married. My ex told her to
screw off and to not call again.
I went out with at least
3 other women who were broke. None of them actually asked me for financial
assistance probably because they knew that I wasn’t capable of being that big
of a sucker. There’s a distinct sense of desperation when a woman doesn’t have
a job and they don’t know where they will be living at the end of the month.
As I said before, every
contact on a dating site didn’t end up in a date. There were a number of times
that it was agreed that we didn’t have much in common or I alone was of that
opinion. Sometimes things just drifted into oblivion.
I had a fairly long
correspondence with a gal who at one time had a column in one of the Vancouver
newspapers. Her husband, who had died, was also once a Vancouver columnist. We
wrote some pretty long letters. I was intrigued because she was a writer and I
wanted to be one. She once told me that I reminded her of her dead husband, in
a good way. We never talked on the phone. She complimented me a number of times
on my writing style.
It was interesting for a
while but I was starting to find her to be pompous. She sounded like an elitist
to me. I remember her talking about seeing Arabian horse races as a child
somewhere in the Middle East and she came across as someone who thought of
herself as a hob nobber with aristocrats. It was far too classist for me and I
told her so. This really pissed her off and her last comment to me was “Piss
off you sot!”. Priceless!
I spent a weekend with a
gal who came up to Vancouver for the weekend from the Interior. She wore far
too much make-up and didn’t tell me that she walked with a limp. We went up to
Whistler and stayed overnight. She insisted on driving her sports car with a
cracked windshield. She had a pretty high opinion of herself and at one point
told me that I was lucky that she was spending time with me. I almost threw up
in my mouth. Dumpy, badly dyed blonde hair, awful complexion, lousy
personality, and a distinct limp when she walked, lucky me? I thought to myself
that there must be a real shortage of women in the Interior. What a
mess!
Another lady came over
from Victoria for the weekend. She brought along a huge bag of pot for some
reason. A few joints would have sufficed. She told me that she worked in drug rehab.
I lost interest in her
after the first night and couldn’t wait for her to go home. Shallow perhaps on
my part but I’m just being honest.
I remember spending a
night with another gal from Victoria. It turned out that she was in Vancouver
because of a cancer scare and found out that she was cancer free. I got pretty
drunk (she wanted to celebrate) with her but never saw her again.
And then there was the
gal that threw me out of her apartment. She was quite attractive and we met for
drinks at a pub in Port Moody where she was living. We got along well and at
the end of the night we made out for a while. The next day she invited me for
dinner at her apartment. She worked out of town during the warmer weather at a
fishing lodge in northern BC where she made some pretty decent money. She lived
on that money in the Vancouver area when the weather turned cold.
My mistake was that I
wasn’t just interested in getting laid. I thought there might be a possibility
of some kind of relationship happening. I guess I got mixed signals. She wasn’t
into anything serious other than getting laid. I could have played that part
but I made the wrong assumption that most women like to be romanced a bit. She
literally shoved me out of the door. As they say, live and learn.
Another gal I met and I
spent a few hours taking my dog for a walk out near the Vancouver airport. As
the evening approached she told me she wanted to go dancing somewhere. We went
to a local disco in Richmond called Matches. About 80% of the people in the
place were of Asian backgrounds. I couldn’t see any chemistry happening and was
writing the date off in my mind as just another meeting that was going nowhere.
We drove back to my
place. I thought the date was over and it was just a matter of her picking up
her car and our saying our goodbyes. I was kind of shocked when she said that
she would like to spend the night. She also said something about sex not going
to be happening. She asked me if she could borrow a shirt to sleep in. The sex
not happening wasn’t true.
I saw this gal for about
a month. She had a nice townhouse in Surrey. I think the term for this
relationship is called a “booty call”. She’d phone me up and ask me over about
twice a week. I was OK with it all. We weren’t in love or anything like that.
One night she showed me
some photos of one of her two daughters. The daughter had a baseball
scholarship at a US college and the gal told me that her daughter could throw a
base runner out at second base from her knees. Her daughter was kind of stocky
and had spiked blonde hair. As politely as I could I asked if her daughter was
a lesbian. She told me no.
About a week later I was
over at this gal’s place and she told me that she had a story to tell me.
Apparently a few days before the 2 daughters were visiting and the 3 of them
were having a chat on the gal’s bed. During their chat the baseball player
daughter “came out” as a lesbian. It may sound a bit strange to some reading
this but for some reason I’ve always been pretty good with “gaydar”.
I don’t think this gal
had much interest in me other than the sex. One night after doing the deed I
decided to get out of bed and end this deal. It was fun while it lasted. I
grabbed the car keys but when I got to my car I realized I had her keys, not
mine. I had to go back and ring the doorbell. We exchanged keys and I never saw
her again.
One thing I always
stayed away from was any gal who said that their best friend was a gay guy.
First of all, I had no interest in spending any extended time with any gay
people. I’ve always been for their rights and had no problem having conversations
with them but I have nothing in common with their lifestyles. On top of that I
had no wish to be scrutinized by a gay best friend and I was damned sure that
would happen if I went down that path.
I got involved with a
British gal for few months. She lived in Ladysmith just south of Nanaimo. I had
just bought a vacation place at Fanny Bay, about an hour’s drive north of
Nanaimo. She worked in purchasing at a pulp mill south of Ladysmith. She had a
really nice house that was kind of 1940s Art Deco.
We kind of had a
routine. I would go over to my place in Fanny Bay every second weekend. She
would meet me up there. On Sunday afternoons she would drive home so she had a
bit of time and space to herself. I would stay at her place on Sunday nights
and get up in time to catch the 5:15 a.m. ferry back to Vancouver. She even had
the coffee maker timed for 4 a.m.
She was a bit on the
skinny side which wasn’t my normal choice in women’s shapes. On the other hand
she was very liberal sexually. What really wore me out was her British accent.
“And that would be you.” and other phrases. Eventually I just put an end to the
deal even though she owned a classic red Jaguar convertible. We were from
different worlds.
Something that I found
amusing from time to time was the opinion some women had of who they thought I
was. Several seemed to think that I was fairly well off because I owned a
business. I was comfortable but I certainly wasn’t rich. Some others told me
that they thought I had been brought up in a wealthy environment and life had
been pretty easy for me. The reality was that life had not always been easy for
me.
Falling
In Love?
It would be safe to say
that when it came to internet dating that I was a cynic. Almost every gal I met
seemed to be damaged goods in one way or another. I never expected to fall in
love on the internet.
I went out on a date
with gorgeous blonde gal a few years younger than me. We met at a pub in
Richmond, BC and hit it off right away. She had been married to an older guy
and had two adult sons who didn’t live with her. She was the receptionist at
one of Vancouver’s biggest advertising agencies. Her ex had retired to the
Sunshine Coast in BC and I think they split up partly because she didn’t want
to live in an area that remote and have to quit her job. According to her she got nothing in the
divorce settlement and her ex kept the house.
She had a great
personality, a great smile, and was well put together. She kind of reminded me
of Dinah Shore. Our kiss goodnight on the first date was pretty passionate. We
made arrangements to get together on the weekend. I took her up to Lynn Canyon
on the North Shore to do some hiking. (Wish I could still bounce down hills
like I could back then.) As we were bouncing down the mountain for some reason
the conversation turned to should women shave their private parts or not. It
wasn’t me that brought it up.
After the hike she
suggested that we pick up a bottle of wine and go back to her place. We stopped
at a wine store and I parked in the loading zone. She was worried that I was
going to get a ticket. If parking in a loading zone made me the bad boy type I
was OK with that.
She had a 1 bedroom
apartment on Vancouver’s west side. Our clothes were off within 5 minutes. She
had a sort of shrine thing going on in a small area of the living room. I
wasn’t sure what that was all about. We talked on the phone every day and she
blew me away. I remember her phoning me during work hours while I was at one of
my suppliers. My knees were a little weak and I was feeling euphoric as I stood
out in the parking lot. I told her I was falling in love with her. I hadn’t had
that feeling in years and didn’t know before this time if I was still capable
of having those feelings.
She had just bought a
new Volkswagen convertible and was over the moon about her acquisition. She
seemed to be trying to work out things in her life that would put her in a more
contented position. She did volunteer work for the Vancouver Aquarium but quit
because she couldn’t cope with the idea that whales were living in captivity in
pools at the aquarium. She also joined a choir.
Apparently she didn’t
have a lot of luck on dating sites. She had a group of gal pals who liked
sipping wine on some of the best restaurant patios in Vancouver. She told me
that her friends and she had discussed going out with shorter men because the
pickings were getting rather lean other than the guys that disappeared after a
few sexual romps.
I remember us smoking a
joint and “getting busy” and later walking over to a nearby deli and loading up
on take-out. Things were going well it seemed.
I had a plan to go over
to Vancouver Island to my place at Fanny Bay on an upcoming weekend and invited
her. She wasn’t interested and later I think I figured out why. Her ex lived in
an out of the way place and she had escaped that environment. She much
preferred the busy life of the big city.
I checked my e-mails
when I got back from Fanny Bay and there was one from her. It was a “Dear John”
letter. I can’t recall what it said exactly. I felt a bit blindsided. The whole
deal had gone up in smoke. I had kind of put my feelings out there. Fortunately
for me I wasn’t emotionally destroyed. Life sometimes works in mysterious ways
and I have been shocked a number of times over the years about a number of
things apart from falling in love. I’m good at rolling with the punches.
About 2 weeks later I
got a call from her asking me if I would like to go for a drink with her. We
went to a hotel bar in Richmond, BC (near where I lived). We basically talked
about life and she got me up on the dance floor. She had an interesting story
to tell me. It seems that after she dumped me she went out with a younger guy
who was an executive. He humped and dumped her and then he wouldn’t take her
calls at work. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t want to see her again. She
got into a bit of twisted logic. She had been dumped. I had been dumped. The difference
was I wasn’t chasing after her as she was him.
I saw her several times
after that. I’d bump into her on the loading dock in the building she worked
in. I had a few customers in the building and several times during the day she
would go down to the loading dock for a smoke. I had purchased a golden
retriever puppy and sometimes he came in the car with me. I brought the dog out
of the car on a leash to show him to her one day when she was having a smoke.
The dog frightened her. Who doesn’t like golden retrievers?
A few years ago I sent
her an e-mail. I was curious as to how her life had worked out. My guess is she
is close to 70 years of age now. It turned out that she had never found the
ideal relationship she had been looking for and basically had given up.
The last gal I spent
some extended time with in Vancouver was quite tall (taller than me) and was a
court reporter. She lived in a co-op on the west side of Vancouver. She didn’t
own a car and was quite frugal. She told me that her job wasn’t something she
could always count on and for that reason she had a freezer in her kitchen
stocked with food. I think she also made some of her own clothes and there were
stacks of patterns in her apartment. Her politics were certainly to the left
and to me she came across as a seasoned hippy without the weed.
I stayed at her place
overnight several times including after I moved over to Vancouver Island. The
co-op didn’t allow smoking or dogs in the building. I would leave my dog in my
van when I stayed at her place. One morning I got up in the dark and drove over
to Kits Beach to let the dog go for a run. He jumped some guy in a suit and the
guy spilled coffee on his shirt. He wanted to punch the crap out of me but
someone else stepped in and prevented that from happening. It wasn’t the first
or last time that dog got me into trouble.
We really didn’t have a
lot in common but she seemed to want a serious relationship. We went for brunch
one Sunday morning at a place called O’Doul’s. I thought I should be honest with
her and told her that I couldn’t see myself falling in love with her. We could
go on with the status quo but love wasn’t going to be happening, at least on my
part. She pretty well blew a gasket and tried to convince me that I wasn’t
right about the way I felt.
The last time I talked
to her was when she called me at my place at Fanny Bay. I told her I was
somewhat unsettled about suddenly moving away from Vancouver. She suggested
that I see a psychiatrist. I think this was her pay-back time and she did some
needling. I hung up on her and she phoned back again. I also hung up on that
call. I was glad to see the last of her.
Fanny
Bay
I spent two years living
on my own in Fanny Bay with my golden retriever Cooper. I would go back to
Vancouver once a month and stayed at my ex’s house for 3 or 4 days and helped
out with the driving of my son and daughter to activities they were involved in.
My kids, twins, were in their last years of high school. They were at the age
where they much preferred spending time with their friends than with their
parents.
 |
| My place at Fanny Bay, BC |
I changed my dating
habits to exclusively seeing women who lived on Vancouver Island. One gal
invited me to a big party that included a giant bonfire. Her on-line photo
showed her as being in some tropical paradise. It turned out that the photo was
taken at a Vancouver Island attraction called Butterfly Gardens. I really found
her unattractive and she didn’t have much of a personality. All evening long
she intimated that we were going to be having sex later on. The thought made me
feel ill. I think I said something like “I gotta go” when I dropped her off.
I did the “booty call”
thing for a couple of weeks with a gal who lived in Parksville, BC. She gave me
cat salt and pepper shakers which I threw out. I’m not a cat person.
I spent a weekend at a
gal’s house in Victoria. She was a big heavy metal fan. Why I hung around for 2
days is beyond me. There was no chemistry at all. On top of that it rained the
entire 2 days I was there. I must have brought take-out back to her place about
6 times that weekend. She never chipped in a dime. She wouldn’t let me channel
surf on her TV either.
She had an older
Doberman pincher who was on his last legs. My dog tore into the other dog’s
toys and they were spread all over the place. I found it amusing. I remember
standing outside having a smoke and looking at the living room window. My dog
was up on the couch, where he wasn’t supposed to be, staring out the window and
wondering where I had gone. I found this too to be amusing. This was indeed a
“lost weekend”.
I went out on another
date with a gal who lived in Victoria. She worked at a golf course. We hung out
for a few hours at a pub but nothing much was happening. A few days later she
phoned me and told me she would like to drive up to Fanny Bay to see me. Pretty
well anytime a gal invites herself to a guy’s place a fair distance away that
will involve sleeping over some “action” is going to happen.
It was pretty cold out
but she was determined to play some golf. We went to an executive course about
an hour away from where I lived. We had layers of clothes on. It was by far the
coldest temperature I have ever played golf. She was fairly decent at golf but
I outdrove her a lot. Our situation was a “one and done”.
I vaguely remember 2
other “one and dones” at my place at Fanny Bay.
A gal sent me a message
from Alberta and told me that she was moving to Courtenay, BC about a ½ hour
drive away. It turned out that she had a really nasty personality. She also
drove a car that somebody had thrown a can of paint on. Apparently I wasn’t the
only person she pissed off.
I really wasn’t having a
lot of luck with internet dating on Vancouver Island. I wasn’t meeting anyone I
was interested in.
I started talking to a
gal in Victoria who had a Danish background. She lived in Sidney, BC, not far
from Victoria, along with her two teen aged daughters who were rowers. We made
plans for me to come down to Victoria. We were going to take my dog for a walk
around Elk Lake.
 |
| Elk Lake, Victoria, BC |
We met up in the parking
lot at the lake. She was very attractive. She asked me if I had got her phone
message and I told her no. Apparently she had had second thoughts about our
date and had phoned to cancel. At that point it was kind of like “Well you’re
here so let’s go on the walk anyway”. The walk lasted about 3 hours and she
started to warm up. I asked her if she would like to go for dinner and she was
into it. She chose an Italian restaurant that she been to before. We sat at an
outdoor table.
Our conversation over
dinner got a bit deeper and at one point she asked me to hold her hand. In the
back of my mind I thought that this date had progressed from possibly being
cancelled to her getting intimate.
I drove her back to the
lake where her car was parked. I also had my dog in the car. She asked me if I
had a blanket, which I did, and we made out on the blanket next to the lake. I
probably should have rented a motel room. I knew that there was no way we were
going back to her place because her children lived with her.
One thing led to another
of course. We put my dog in her car and we both climbed into the back of my
van. (It wasn’t a panel van or anything like that. It was a windowed GMC
Safari.) Our clothes came off and we were just about to do the deed. All of a
sudden there was a knocking sound on one of the van windows. It turned out to
be a security guard who told us the parking lot was being closed for the night.
Ours were the only 2 vehicles in the lot. There was a bit of a panic as we scrambled
to get our clothes back on. I remember her jeans were inside out.
She was quite
embarrassed about the whole deal and probably pissed off that I hadn’t just
taken her to a motel. She was also restricted by time and although she never
mentioned it there was no way she could stay out all night which would have
been a bad example to her teenaged kids.
I later discovered that
she had left her jacket in the van. I didn’t know where she lived so I couldn’t
drop it off to her. We e-mailed back and forth a few times when I got back to
Fanny Bay and I mailed her jacket to her. I think she was a bit confused about
letting her inner passion get the best of her. She had gone from being
disinterested to becoming horny. More than anything I think she was in desperate
need of male companionship and some intimacy. We never saw one another again.
Victoria,
BC
I think it was around
2006 that I sold my house in Fanny Bay. The main reason was I was too far away
from everything and most of my neighbours seemed to be paranoid retirees. I
wasn’t ready to pack it all in and live out my final years there.
I made some good bucks
on the sale of my Fanny Bay place. Sold it for close to 2-1/2 times what I paid
for it. I do have good memories of living there.
I ended up moving to
Victoria and renting a house in an area called Gordon Head where the University
of Victoria is located. I decided to join another dating website called Plenty
of Fish. Change things up a bit. Over the years I sometimes was a member of
more than 1 dating site. Woman quite commonly joined several dating sites to
increase their odds. The nice thing about Plenty of Fish was, at the time, it
was free.
It was now the autumn
and it was starting to get cold outside. I only dated a few times in Victoria. One
of those dates was with another unemployed gal with an uncertain future. We had
drinks in the Bengal Room at the Empress Hotel and then went looking for a
sushi place for dinner. I wasn’t fussy about her personality, she was a bit
sarcastic. She also had a pretty wide ass that I didn’t find appealing. It was
one of those one and done dates.
A few weeks later I got
a message from her saying that she would like to go out on another date. I have
to confess that I took a little delight in telling her that I had found someone
that I was interested in having a relationship with.
Linda
I spotted a photo of
Linda on Plenty of Fish. She was standing on a beach with rugged rocks in the
background. Her arms were up in the air expressing what looked like exuberance.
I later found out that the photo was taken in Ireland. She looked pretty cute
and had a nice smile.
She lived in Nanaimo and
worked at a group home for adults with mental illness. We e-mailed back and
forth and did the twenty questions stuff and then talked on the phone. No
warning signs blinked for me. One night we had a long conversation while a snow
storm raged outside. Nanaimo and Victoria often have similar weather.
We decided to meet on a
Saturday afternoon in Nanaimo at a local Starbucks. Oddly enough I had met
several women over the years at the same Starbucks. I was impressed immediately
on meeting Linda. She was in good shape and she was pretty. Not a bad start,
for me at least. We got along right away and no red flags went up for either of
us.
 |
| The Starbucks in Nanaimo where we met. |
I didn’t have any
definite plans as to what we were going to do with the rest of the day. It was
Linda’s home turf. She suggested that we go to a place called the Dingy Dock
Pub. Apparently it is Canada’s only floating pub. To get there we had to take a
small ferry to Newcastle Island not far from downtown Nanaimo.
 |
| The Dingy Dock Pub |
We were about the only
people in the pub when we arrived but the place started to fill up fairly
quickly. I’m not sure if it was a duo or a trio who were the entertainment.
They had a guitar or two. Within an hour the joint was packed. It took us a
while to figure something out that we weren’t aware of at first. Everyone else,
other than us, was at the pub for an office Christmas party. That was kind of
weird.
By this time it was
quite evident that we liked each other. We kissed a few times. It was a 2 hour
drive back to Victoria and somehow I convinced Linda to let me sleep on her
couch for the night. There was no way sex was going to happen on the first
date. I can’t remember what we did the next day. Linda also made it very clear
to me that if we were going to have sex at some point that I would have to see
a doctor to get checked out as to whether I had contacted any social deceases
over the years. I did that and passed with flying colours.
For the best part of the
following year we took turns with me driving up to Nanaimo for the weekend or
Linda driving down to Victoria for the weekend. She adopted my golden retriever
Cooper right away and they became good pals. I thought it was quite ironic that
I had moved down to Victoria at the southern point of Vancouver Island only to
find someone in the direction I had moved away from.
I went to Linda’s
Christmas office party that year. A few months later we took our first trip to
Mexico together. I had been there several times before. I introduced Linda to
my ex and they got along really well. We sometimes stayed at my ex’s place when
we were over in Vancouver. Linda hosted a surprise 60th birthday
party for me in May of 2007. We did a lot of hiking and exploring around
Vancouver Island that first year. I showed Linda around Seattle. We played a
bit of golf.
 |
| Linda and I at Long Beach 2008. |
I moved in with Linda in
2008. We’ve been together now for close to 12 years. We had to do a bit of
adapting to each other but nothing earth shattering. Life has been good....for
both of us.
Was
All Of That Internet Dating Worth It?
On one hand there was a
futility at times. I wondered several times over the years why it was so hard
to find someone I considered “normal”. I thought about just packing it in several
times and just hanging out with my dog.
On the other hand, there
was a sense of adventure in the chase. I’m not anti-social but any stretch of
the imagination but throughout my life I’ve liked being a stranger and not part
of a group. There’s a kind of mysteriousness about it all.
There are some other
analogies I could use like gold panning for years and being patient enough to
wait for the big payoff. I’m pretty good at waiting things out. I can fish for
hours and not catch anything and still hold out hope. Maybe no fish
today.....but there is always tomorrow.
There are other dating
stories I could have written about here but I tried to write about the more
interesting ones. Here’s a short version of one more story.
A year or two before I
met Linda, I met a gal in the same Starbucks in Nanaimo. About 15 minutes into
the conversation she told me that her boyfriend had died on top of her from a
stroke while they were having sex. This event supposedly happened a month or 2
earlier. I wasn’t sure if she was just a total moron to tell that story or if
she was just trying to scare me away. She didn’t seem to have mourned much.
As they say, it takes
all kinds.
