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!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Chapter 23: Too Committed?

So "Shrek" and I had been talking online for probably about six weeks at this point. I had purposely kept this one at arm's length for a couple of reasons. One, between what happened with "Tramp" and then my recent stint with "Goofy", I was on enough of an emotional roller coaster that I didn't think I could handle another one. Two, I had been juggling enough of these boys, that I just didn't want to add any more drama to the mix. And three, "Shrek" had made it plainly clear, over and over, that he did not fool around with love. He was a hopeless romantic, one-woman man, and that's the way it was. It wasn't fair to me or him to even attempt to be anything more than friends with him until I was ready.

However, now I was thinking about it. I came to look forward to our talks online, and I offered to talk on the phone one night. I asked him why he had never asked for my phone number, and he said that it was because I told him I'd wanted to talk online for a while. Okay, not bad, he was going to let me call the shots. Allow me to progress at whatever pace I saw fit.

He wanted to take me to see "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith". Normally, I shy away from someone who suggests taking me to see a movie on a first date. After all, purposely planning a date that includes a lengthy activity where you can't talk to or see each other does not scream out to me, "Yes, I want to get to know you!" But considering we'd been talking for quite some time, it was okay.

We went out to dinner, and had a few drinks. He was unhappy about his job and had suspicions that he was about to get laid off, so that was the primary topic of conversation. I understood, though. After all, work-drama can tend to take its toll on one's mental health! Afterward, we had some time to kill before the movie started, so we walked around the shopping center a while. He asked if he could hold my hand, and I thought that was sweet. I couldn't remember the last time I'd walked around anywhere just holding hands.

He held my hand all through the movie, and then drove me home. I invited him in and we just sat and talked for a while. I asked him if he wanted the "grand tour" of my house, and he gave me this little hesitant laugh and said "I don't think so." This threw me off. Did he actually think that I was inviting him to bed just because I offered to show him the upstairs? Whatever, I let it slide. When I walked him out to his car, he asked if he could kiss me. That was a little much... Asking permission? Sort of takes all the spontaneity and romance out of it, doesn't it? I know he said he doesn't fool around with love, but a little spontaneity never hurt anyone, did it? Or, maybe this was just his way of being a gentleman? S'alright, we were just getting to know each other after all, right? We shared a few kisses, and he didn't even let his hands wander.

Okay, what was happening here? Was this what it was SUPPOSED to be? All proper and cautious? Or had I just been dicked around so much that being treated properly caused me to get paranoid? That's cool, let's see where this takes me.