You Can't Make This Stuff Up: Chapter 44: ...And With Flying Colors

The Truth is Stranger Than Fiction - An Introduction

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction - An Introduction

My first foray into the Social Networking world was some years ago, in 2005 I believe, with Yahoo. They had a site called Yahoo 360° that was their own attempt at MySpace, which, at the time, was all the rage. I hadn't been bitten by the MySpace bug yet, but I was already an active member of Yahoo, so to get my feet wet, I set up a Yahoo 360° profile.

Blogging was an extremely attractive prospect to me. I love to write, I love to give myself that type of "outlet" to my problems, fears, joys, and experiences. I've kept diaries and journals off and on over the years and they've always been therapeutic when I took the time to keep them up. But this... a public diary? How do I approach such a thing? How much do I divulge? And what, praytel, do I write about that would actually entice people to read it?

Browsing thru existing blogs, one thing was an absolute MUST: I could not, would not, write about mundane things that no one but myself would care about. I needed an angle-- Something that I could write passionately about. Something that people, in general, have an interest in. Something that would grab the attention of the public. And something that had a "theme." I found that, to me personally, a blog that jumped around all over the place was difficult to read. A theme would keep me in check, and allow me to focus, rather than a stream of conscious that I was sure would bore to death anyone who came across my page.

The idea came to me fairly quickly. I was newly divorced and discovering the delights and annoyances of being single and dating in my 30's. It was perfect! Love, sex, relationships, dating... The overall general interaction between men and women has always been a fascination and a sure-fire hit to our society, if not our entire species! I had my topic, I was ready to roll...

Yahoo has since shut down their 360° forum, and the experience I had there was both rewarding and therapeutic. So I am going to retell my adventures in a retro-active tale here, and see if I can gather the same, if not bigger, audience I did there. Maybe I can even get inspired enough to bring the whole thing up to date and wrap it all up into a happy ending? We shall see...

So, here we go! Hello, my name is Jennifer. I am 37 years old and I've been divorced just over 6 years now. Fasten your seat belts, boys and girls, it's gonna be one hell of a ride!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Chapter 44: ...And With Flying Colors

The next morning, I had an email waiting for me before I even got to work. "Tarzan" thanked me for a fantastic date, told me I was a "phenomenal" kisser, and wanted to go out again as soon as I had time. He was chasing, and he was courting, and I liked it. This is how it was supposed to be. I had the perfect opportunity to do it right this time. Of course, the big question was, "Could I?"

We planned a date for Friday night, and then continued talking via Instant Messenger and phone for the rest of the week. Okay, the accent was still annoying, but it was getting easier and easier to get past it to see the person he was underneath. And the more I learned, the more I liked. He was intelligent, knew how to be serious, knew how to be funny, financially stable, and he had this way of getting slightly giddy when he talked about us together, almost in the same way he got giddy when he talked about his girls. It was just enough to tell me that these were subjects that made him happy, and that was a very comforting and flattering feeling.

We met at Pappa Deux for dinner that Friday night. It started out slow, like our previous date, but then we both started to loosen up a little, sharing a bit about our day and the like. Maybe he was trying to impress me, or maybe he just liked wine, but I was really surprised when he suggested that we order a bottle of wine with dinner. I'd had a glass or two of wine when I'd been out before, but I couldn't recall ever being asked to pick out an entire bottle before! And he wanted MY opinion as to which wine we should get.

Another surprise, "Tarzan" liked Merlot. Again I was reminded of the stereotype I had attached to him because of his accent. Most rednecks wouldn't consider Merlot with their dinner, now would they? I chose a bottle of Clos du Bois, a brand that I'd been wanting to try, and I was delighted that, not only was it as good as I'd hoped it would be, but he enjoyed it too! I would have felt like crap if he'd just spent $40 on a bottle of wine and then hated it.

A delicious dinner and a bottle of Clos du Bois Merlot later, and we ended up back at my house. Yeah, I was doing the mental debating again. Should I, or shouldn't I? With "Tarzan," things felt different. He really was smitten with me, and I was certainly getting there. He had made absolutely no moves or comments that insinuated that he was just after a one night stand, and it was hard for me to picture that he could be that type of man. Maybe I was deluding myself, maybe I wasn't. Either way, I took him upstairs, (will I never learn?) and it was wonderful! He seemed even more smitten with me after. There wasn't a shred of nervousness or regret floating around inside me. I felt completely comfortable. I didn't even ponder whether or not I would get the "day after" phone call from "Tarzan." When he left, I had every confidence that I would.