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 5, 2011

Chapter 42: *Sigh*

By now, I was starting to roll my eyes at almost every contact I got. Make no mistake about it, I was still receiving daily "winks" or emails, but I was getting jaded. I kept looking back over the last six months and wondering what in hell I was thinking!?!?!

Who was that girl that met a man at a Valentine's Day party and ended up on the balcony of a room in the W Hotel with a stranger under her skirt? Who was that girl that got so clingy and desperate to hang on to "Tramp", when he made it so obviously clear that he didn't want me? Who was that over-reactive psycho that kept insisting on some sort of explanation from "Goofy" when he refused to talk? And WHO IN HELL was that slut that slept with every man who crossed her path over the last month? Certainly that couldn't have been me? A good, long, hard look in the mirror reminded me that it was.

I needed to be more picky. And, more importantly, I needed to be less available to these men. But I didn't want to be TOO picky, and I didn't want to be "un"available, either. There was certainly no shortage of men out there, contrary to what most women seem to say. I no longer felt I needed to give every bonehead that crossed my path a chance for fear that I "might be passing up a good one." They needed to impress me, dammit. Anything less than that was just a waste of my time. And theirs. So what was the big picture? What did I really want? Defining this question to myself seemed even more important than I how I should begin conducting myself around my suitors. So what DID I really want?

I wanted companionship. I was lonely. And the more casual interludes I had, the lonelier I felt. Sure, it was fun for a few hours, but who was there to say, "Good morning," who was there to send me random emails throughout the day, and, most importantly, who was there to stand by my side if there were some drama in my life that I might need a hug for? I wanted to believe that I was over the casual sex phase, but I wasn't exactly looking to get married tomorrow either. I just wanted to spend time with someone who wanted to spend time with me. No games, no cageyness, no standoffishness, no disrespect, just enjoying being in someone else's company. Was this really too much to ask for?