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, June 23, 2011

Chapter 29: Well, that was easy...

"Aladdin" called the next day. Points for "Aladdin"! (Remember that "day after" phone call, guys. You don't realize how much that says to us, about you, your character, morales, upbringing, and more!) We both knew that we met at a rather inconvenient time, as he was going to be traveling for work for the next several weeks and I was going on two trips over the next two weekends. But we vowed to keep in touch and hopefully be able to sync up our schedules some time within the next three weeks or so. I liked that; that we had established that up front. Now I could go the next three weeks and not hear a word from him, and I wouldn't think twice about it! No obsessive internet-stalking sessions wondering if he's home, will he call, why is he signing onto Match but not saying anything to me? (Internet-stalking is one of my favorite pasttimes, by the way...) No, I could relax. "Aladdin" said it would be three weeks, and I figure I'd give my brain a good month before I started obsessing over it.

And when I got home that night, I called "Shrek" to check in on how he was feeling. He was doing better, although not quite ready to go back to work. Again, I asked him if he needed anything, or wanted me to come over. Again, he said he just wanted to be alone. So I jokingly asked him if he was going to miss me since I'd be away for the next two weekends in a row.

Considering I was attempting to stay light and breezy with him, this elicited a response that got him very serious very quick. He began stuttering and hesitating, trying to find the words to say. Finally he expressed that he was concerned - concerned that I was more "into" this relationship than he was. Apparently I had attempted to be too close to him by offering to care for him while he was laid up. And the fact that I asked him if he was going to "miss" me while I was away. And my aggressiveness that night that I had tried to be intimate with him.

I'll admit, I was a little dumbfounded while "Shrek" was going on about this. Was he serious? My attempts to be caring and nurturing with him led him to believe that I was falling for him? Part of me wanted to shoot back at him the fact that if I was so "into" him, then why did I have sex with another man last night? But I didn't. I let him fumble his way through his break-up speech, and at the end, he asked me what I thought.

I said, "Actually, I've been wrestling with the very same thoughts, because I thought YOU were more into ME."

"Oh," he said, "Well, then - I guess I was wrong." I could hear the dismay in his voice, a strange combination of surprise, bewilderment, and relief all at the same time. We agreed that we'd be better off friends, promised that we'd still talk from time to time, and wished each other luck in finding love.

This break-up thing might be getting easier with time, you think?

Lesson Number Fifteen: It doesn't have to be a drama-filled struggle! You CAN walk away calm cool and collected, without hurt, rage, and dignity still intact.

Status: WANT to learn immediately!!!

1 comment:

  1. Shrek seems confused or he's just a weirdo. From reading your entries it seems he was "just not into you" and the whole "too close to him" thing ehhh, I don't know about that. But at least you guys ended it drama free and better late than never!

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