You Can't Make This Stuff Up: Chapter 47: Speed Bump

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!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Chapter 47: Speed Bump

Every year in October, my next door neighbor and I would have a joint party to celebrate our birthdays, which are relatively close together. Both of us, and all of our friends, eagerly anticipate this party, as it has become a bit of a tradition. We routinely would have between 30-40 people who attend, and it was always a success. After "Tarzan" and I celebrated the twins' birthday, it was time to start putting together *my* party, and I couldn't wait.

For the first time, since my ex-husband left, I was in a committed relationship, and here was the perfect opportunity to show off my new boyfriend to all my friends at one time. It was perfect. I was happy, I was in love, and I wanted to show it off to everyone!

Over the previous two months that "Tarzan" and I had been together, we had done very little socially. We went out to dinner a lot, spent time with his girls, and maybe, on occasion, with a friend or two of mine. "Tarzan" had no close friends. He never really had. I won't pretend that this didn't concern me. Who could possibly live for 36 years and not accumulate a friend or two? I was only 32, and I had DOZENS! Maybe even hundreds!

So I was concerned about "Tarzan" and how he would conduct himself at my valued social event of the year. I knew that he was uncomfortable around crowds, but I convinced myself that he would understand how important this was to me. I felt that he might understand that everyone in attendance was someone that was important to me, or to my neighbor, or to both of us, and he would put aside his own instincts and stand by my side, like any man would do for his woman when she really needed him.

Needless to say, I was wrong. There was no question about it: I was a social butterfly, ping-ponging around to every person who was there, and "Tarzan" was a hermit, standing in the corner, silently sipping on a beer. He only spoke when spoken to, and refused to mingle. I tried to include him and pull him around with me, but his feet were rooted exactly where he stood. Occasionally people would approach him and start idle chit-chat. He was always polite and courteous, but by no means was he interested in sustaining a lengthy conversation with anyone, and his body language just radiated outwards, "Leave me alone!"

By 11:00, he was ready to go home. I was wired, I was a little drunk, and I didn't want him to. We hadn't even brought out the cake yet! I begged and pleaded with him to stay. He was having none of it. I was highly disappointed, and felt highly abandoned, but I let him go. I wasn't exactly gracious about it, though. I let him know with extremely disapproving looks how disappointed I was that he was leaving so early. I didn't want to fight, I didn't want anything to turn into a yelling match, but I wanted to make sure he knew how I was feeling. Being a "little" drunk after he left just wasn't going to cut it... I went back in and got VERY drunk.