Mr. Right...Wing

How many of you have had an old boyfriend - from 28 years ago specifically - call you on the phone, out of the blue and tell you he’s never stopped thinking about you?  Well that happened to me.  I got a phone call early one morning, and hear a Texas twangy voice on the phone asking if he may speak to Dita.  

When he said who he was my immediate reaction was to yell in the phone, “Holy motherfucker!”  It just kind of slipped out of my potty mouth.  We talked a bit, caught up on each other’s lives in about 10 minutes.  He lived in Texas with his wife.  Yup, the guy is married.  And he has six kids.  Count them, six kids - his and hers - a real live Brady Bunch family. 

He said he quit smoking pot and found Jesus...and me on the internet.  Isn’t that the way it is?  Anyway, this was a guy, who when I was twenty one years old, broke my heart into a million pieces.  He told me he always felt that breaking up with me was the biggest mistake of his life.  Uh, yeah.

Way back then I was head over heels in love with this guy. We had so much fun together.  My mom hated his guts, which made me love him even more.  He had long blond hair and lived up in the mountains in a little cabin. I thought he was so cool.

Being so young and having such typical primal urges, he cheated on me with a sleazy bimbo.  He later married this trollop and had two kids with her.  I had heard that they moved to Texas, but I lost track of them and frankly never gave him another thought once I got married. 

Back to the phone call.  It felt like he was in some sort of a 12 step program for bad relationships and wanted to make amends.  It was nice catching up and told him that if he was ever in town to give me a call.  I gave him my cell phone number and he asked for my email address too.  He then gave me his number which I actually never wrote down.  I figured I’d never hear from him again.

But, of course I did hear from him again.  He sent me a text within a couple of weeks telling me that he was going to be in town.  He wanted to meet for a drink.  He said he had to see me.  I told him I was a big fat ogre and didn’t look like I did when I was 21.  He said he didn’t care and just had to see me. 

I had to think about it a while.  It was all a little too weird.  After all these years he HAD to see me?  Did he turn into some kind of crazy stalker, psycho, panty stealing freak?  OR was he just a middle aged guy going through a bit of a mid-life crisis and needed to see if his winky still worked? 

I’m guessing the latter and I decided meet him, talk to him, flaunt it in front of him and then say goodbye.  I wanted him to see that he walked away from this queen!  We made plans to meet for dinner and drinks.

Seriously, I was curious.  He was a little hottie back in the day and I was convinced that he was now grossly over weight and bald.  Then it occurred to me, what if he’s still hot and he sees me as the chunky middle aged mom that I am?  I have frizzy hair, wear big dorky glasses and am twice the size I used to be.  Crap.  I didn’t think it through long enough.

Well, the hair gods were totally with me the night we met because both Farrah Fawcett and Jennifer Aniston would have been jealous of my gorgeous locks. Of course I wore all black because black is slimming, right?  And then I did something so ridiculous I can’t believe I did it. I borrowed a pair of my daughter’s contact lenses because I didn’t want him to see me in my giant cat eye glasses. We have totally different prescriptions, so I was basically driving to the restaurant blind. 

I made it to the restaurant without getting into an accident.  I sat in my car a while, took a deep breath and walked into the restaurant.  As soon as I walked through the door I swear I saw Daniel Craig sitting there smiling.  I didn’t need my big old glasses to see that this crazy handsome man was my old boyfriend. 

What the hell was I getting myself into?

Oops I did it again...

Ok.  So as I wrote in my last post, I went out with Mr. Tall again.  Why?  Well it had a lot to do with the fact that I wanted to be seen with him.  Yes, he was fun to hang out with. Yes, he was most likely impotent, but I figured it was my mission to help him out!  Yes, he had gotten back together with his old girlfriend, but he broke up with her again as quickly as he gotten back together with her.  Should have been a red flag... 

Being completely honest with myself, I wanted to go out with him because I wanted it to get back to my old boyfriend that I was out dating and not at home crying over him.  Not exactly a great reason to go out with this guy again. 

A couple of weeks after my ex and I broke up, I was at a local brew pub with my friend.  Turns out my ex was there too, with a woman.  I watched him walk her to her car and then give her a very long kiss.  At that moment I realized that he most likely was seeing this woman while we were still together. 

Back to Mr. Tall.  So he started messaging me on Facebook and texting.  He was just so hilariously funny.  He said that he decided to leave his girlfriend because she was so mean.  He said I was sweet.  I threw caution to the wind and went out to hear some music with him.  I made sure we went to a place where I knew my ex’s friends would be.  It was a fun night, great conversation, nothing physical happened, just a good time. 

Fast forward to a week later when my friend Bella and I went to a blues concert.  I had asked Mr. Tall if he was going to the show and if he’d like to go with us.  No response.  I have to be honest, I was feeling it that night.  Sometimes the planets align in a way that makes every hair fall into place just perfectly.  Had the way-too-high heels on and tight jeans.  Mmmm hmmm!

Bella and I walked into the venue and felt the power of the push up bras!  We.  Looked. Fabulous.  We found seats with some other friends right near the stage.  Bella went outside to smoke a cigarette before the show and when she came back she said Mr. Tall was in line.  I texted him and told him we had an extra seat.  I kept looking for him and finally saw him come in, with his ex-girlfriend.  Wow. 

I just wanted to get back to my seat and somehow ended up right behind him and his “ex” girlfriend.   They stopped to go in a different direction and there we stood, all face to face.  He said an awkward hi.  I quietly said hi and then looked at this woman he kept going back to.  Really?  Her?  I can’t believe I am going to say this, but she was kind of an old hag. Mousy blonde, stringy hair, dressed in beige, flat boots.  WTF?

He sent me a text during the show and said, “She had an extra ticket and I was her date. Sorry.”  I never responded. So that was officially that. I was done. He was too weird. 

Dating someone new is always so fun in the beginning.  You get that giggly rush of someone trying hard to get your attention.  You get so caught up in that feeling that you overlook so many things, like noisy, slobbery, out-of-control-tongues and limp wieners.  Yuck.  Lesson learned.

Next!

Mr. Tall

This guy is really tall.  I’m talking 6’5” tall.  I’m 5’4”.  He’s not what I would call classically handsome, but there is definitely something very appealing about him.  He’s funny, he’s smart, and he’s a musician. 

I met him when I hired his band for an event at work.  He told me I smelled good.  He kept calling me sweet and cute. Really? He paid more compliments to me within a three hour span than I had received from my ex-boyfriend in over two years of our relationship.  It’s hard accepting a compliment when you don’t receive them regularly.  My self esteem was in the toilet.  At the end of the event he gave me a long lingering hug.  I loved it.

We had been friends on Facebook as a result of me hiring the band.  After the event he sent me a message apologizing for his extended hug and he said he was a “Dita fan.”  The flirting began.  He started “poking” me on Facebook.   I sent him a message that said he was the first person I had ever poked back. 

We communicated a bit and ran into each other a few times.  I even saw him out one night and we danced.  He’s a fantastic swing dancer.  He finally asked me out.

He took me out to dinner and he was sweet and awkward.  He’s older by about ten years.  He has those old fashioned manners that I find so appealing - opening the door for me, holding my hand, polite.   I like that a lot.  Conversation was funny and interesting.  After dinner we had a choice to either go dancing or go to his house.  He has a collection of vintage cars so I wanted to see them.  We hung out on his porch and talked and then started to make out.

There was just one little problem.  He was a terrible kisser.  You know those guys who are all tongue? Oh god, I wanted him to stop.  And then there was something else.  He made these funny noises when we kissed, not quite slurpy, not quite moaning, but a combination of the two.  It wasn’t good. 

Despite all the noises, I decided to go out with him again.   He made me laugh.  He had a very quirky sense of humor.  I like that.  I could teach him how to kiss.

So another problem came about when we went out again. This time he invited me to his house to watch a movie.  Turns out the only TV was in his bedroom. I had to make a split second decision.  I opted to watch the movie in his room, on his bed.   

The movie wasn’t exactly a “date” movie.  A Quentin Tarantino flick isn’t what I would call romantic, but we started making out.  I slowed him down on the kissing and well, one thing led to another.  I should say almost lead to another. There was one small problem. How shall I say this?  To be a bit brutal, he had a flat tire.  He was awkwardly fumbling around explaining that he wasn’t exactly a swinger and joked that he needed a “pill” to help him get going.  He didn’t have any of those pills.  I didn’t want him to feel bad and just hung out for a while. I finally left. I felt weird. 

The next day I received a message from him saying that while he liked me, his ex-girlfriend got in touch with him and wanted to get back together.  He said he still loved her.  He said he didn’t want to hurt me and wanted to remain friends.   Poof! That was that.       

What’s funny about this guy, we ended up going out again...

More later!                     

For the first time in my life I’m dating.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not that I’ve never dated. Hell, I was married once.  I’ve just never not been in a committed relationship.  This whole dating thing is new to me and it’s driving me crazy. 

I am a 49 year old woman and I’m feeling confused.  I just don’t know all the “rules” of dating. So in an effort to sort it all out I’ve decided that I need to write it all down.  Maybe then I can make sense of men...and myself. 

A little background

This dating madness began shortly after I broke off a two and a half year relationship.  I was in love with this man, but I can’t say for sure if he was ever in love with me.  He was my first boyfriend since my divorce.  Maybe that was the problem.  It had been so long since I had been out with a man, I was an emotional mess, a giant bowl of jello.  He was emotionally unavailable, I was overly clingy.  Not a good combination for a long lasting union.  I was ready to settle down, he wasn’t.  I had to finally find the strength to move on. 

I cried for weeks thinking I would never date again.  Would anyone notice me?  Would I be spending all my Saturday nights channel surfing and drinking cocktails by myself?  I am friends with gorgeous, exotic, skinny young women who don’t seem to have a problem catching someone’s eye.  I can't compete with that.  I’m well into middle age and well into middle age spread.

Let’s face it, at my age, the pickings are slim. Most men around my age are married, divorced but looking for someone younger, or their plumbing doesn't work.  Cruel, yes, I know, but oh so true. 

So here it goes.  My dating life.