Then, the unexpected happened. I found a guy who wasn't ridiculous or bizarre. We had an instant mutual attraction and neither of us wasted a second dancing around our feelings towards one another. He seemed to be nearly perfect by my definition - tall, liked musicals, football, basketball and swing dancing - a rare combination. He often seemed to read my mind - mentioning his desire to go to massage school, for example - I had told my roommate I would love to find a guy who wanted to study massage, I'd pay for his schooling if it meant massages for life. I had some hesitations about him - I mean, I just recently given up on love - and I was worried he might fall harder for me than I for him, and I'd break his heart. But I rationalized that I had hesitated too often before, and the window of opportunity seemed to have passed, and I didn’t want to repeat that mistake. So we dove headfirst into a nearly 10 year relationship.
We had a very long, happy "honeymoon" phase - we rarely fought and we loved doing everything together all the time. We had amazing adventures and were the envy of our friends on facebook. As I met his family, they would always comment that they felt they knew me already from facebook. And the rest is history…
Fast forward to around 2021 - 2022. The relationship had soured. He said some things I could not get passed. I was frustrated with him. We still did fun things, but we were fighting a lot. It felt to me that he had become spoiled by my supporting him financially as he supported me in other ways through a number of geographic moves for my job. While I stand by my decision to do so, I think it changed our dynamic in his mind, and he became a different person. We tried addressing things, and he claimed to be committed to fixing what was broken, but now I see he was already too gone. A few specific incidents made it very apparent that we were not working, and I knew we had to end things.
With such a long time put into our relationship, I felt I owed it to him to end things amicably. That was I tried to do. To my surprise, 10 years of hate and bizarre accusations spewed out of him until I didn't ever want to see his face again. Cheating, really? He thought this was about me seeing someone else. But like Ingrid Andress' song, "I Think You're Seeing Someone Else", actually I was seeing someone else. I was holding onto the instant love and perfect chemistry of years ago. He had become someone different without my realizing it. Not better, like in the song. No, I had become more financially stable and more grounded, he seemed to have diverted and gone backwards. He was blaming me for him not finishing college or having a career, villainizing me with this made up affair he thought I had been having for 10 years, even bringing up my last boyfriend and accusing me of cheating on him, acting like I didn't make every geographic move with his concurrence, and on and on. I didn't know what to make of it at the time. Later, when I found his OnlyFans subscriptions, things started to click that he was projecting his guilt onto me and hoping I was cheating. Then I did what should have been a bad idea - looked through old videos and photos of us when we were happy early on - and it ended up being quite therapeutic because he was unrecognizable in those photos and videos. It made me realize I had not been dating the same guy for the last 9+ years. I was dating a great love, and more recently, I was dating a self-righteous fixed mindset monster. The man I fell in love with had died years ago, I'm not sure when, but he was no longer there.
That was in January, and as you can imagine, it's taken a minute to process all of this. I didn't process it all well, either. Shortly before Valentine's I read about a zoo that would, for a charitable donation, name a cockroach or a rat after your ex- and then feed it to the animals. I splurged for the video package and wrote a script that cut to the core of the idiocy that was the end of our relationship. Hey, it was for charity, right?
That's not to say I've been wallowing in sorrow since January. I've just not sat myself down and done a lot of self-reflecting. Instead, I've kept myself crazy busy. I volunteered at the
Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve as a docent and did regular trail watch to keep people off the poppies and educate them on the different types of flowers and wildlife (which I had to learn about myself). It was a great way to get my butt out of the house and hike many miles. I also volunteered for the Aerospace Robotics Competition as a mentor to a high school team again. I started swing dancing again, practicing at home and going to Pasadena for the dances. I've been doing some home renovation stuff. And traveling - I went to Arizona for the Purple Stride and swing danced out there on my home turf. I cut and donated my hair. And seeking, interviewing for, and securing a new job (still at the same company). Yep, I've kept myself busy, but that’s not all I've been up to…
Dating - so many dates. I wasn't going to do the dating app thing, I was going to find comfort in doing my own thing and allow for the potential for something spontaneous to happen. But one weak moment one lonely evening and I had a full profile, and then the guys started pouring in.
And so, my blog is nearly ready to return to its original glory, talking about all the craziness of dating life. But it's already May!! I have so much to catch up on.
I was first excited about Nick - an Aussie who loved D&D. I wasn't so sure I'd be attracted to him based on his profile pictures, but when I met him, instant attraction. Not to mention we had had great conversation for weeks leading up to the first date. He broke it off a few days after, to my great disappointment. I know it was short and I shouldn’t have been upset, but I really liked him.
Then there was Cole, we talked a ton on the phone and texted a lot and then he ghosted me for a while. We never met but still message from time to time. Weird, right?
Jimmy - the jerk - stood me up. We chatted and then made arrangements for a date and he texted me about it that day, and that he was on his way, and all the way to the point of, "I'm in the parking lot," and then never showed. Why are people so cruel? I ate a disappointing dinner by myself that night.
Francisco works at Virgin Galactic (one of the common themes dating in this area is lots of engineers in my field, gotta be careful, I've found coworkers and stuff already)… He claimed he didn't want a hook up but he ghosted me after our first date so I'm going to go ahead and call him a big fat liar.
Then there was Dani, who used the sweetest words in his texts to me, calling me Queen and the like. The texting made more sense when I met him and realized he was not an native English speaker. We went on a few dates and I learned he was Iranian but trying to make it as an engineer in my field - and struggling because he is unable to give up his Iranian citizenship but that is preventing him from getting certain accesses. One night we had a discussion that felt too much like I was dating one of my (bad) employees and I decided it wasn't for me so I called it off.
Dreamy Jay as I called him seemed very hook-up oriented but he was so good looking in his pictures I was willing to risk it. We talked for weeks and made tentative plans several times that never worked out, and it just sort of drifted off until he created a new profile and came up in my recommendations, but he had changed his name and used different pics so I wasn't sure - I liked him and then he confirmed he was the same guy. Goof.
There was a doctor named Nick who I met once, and without either of us saying anything, we mutually stopped talking after that. The chemistry was just not there.
I met KoiGoi against my better judgment, and was instantly happily surprised by how attracted I was when he walked in, but the conversation was terrible and I ended things after. But because I was attracted to his height, I temporarily started filtering on height to find other tall guys.
My tall filter caught 6'4" Aaron. He was so weirdly bad at communicating, I tried so hard with him and I don’t know why. I guess I was attracted to him and he wasn't in my industry so there's that. We went on a few dates and then he disappeared for several weeks and acted like it wasn't a big deal when he did start responding again. I may have acted out to cause a little drama and he freaked out and ended things, which was a huge overreaction in my opinion but probably good to fail fast in that case.
Then there was 6'5" Brandon, super sweet via text but horribly awkward in person. It was not going to work with him, but I went on a couple dates to try and he disappeared, probably for the better also.
My filter also got me 6'8" Jesse, with whom I've tried to connect in person several times and it keeps not working out. He's a fitness trainer but works like four other jobs and is just too busy probably to date someone like me. But I'd still like to meet him in person, because, I mean, 6'8"!
While seeing those rando's throughout and talking to several others that never really went anywhere, there have been four guys - yes, four - who I've seen more consistently and hopefully. Two of them are named Kevin, just to make things confusing, so I call them Kevin 1 and Kevin 2, and then there's Andrew who also can be confusing as he shares the name of my best local friend, and then there's Justin from Hollywood.
My first date with Kevin 1 was fun and cute - we went to a taco food truck - his idea, and he ordered for us in Spanish which I found weirdly attractive. As we were eating, the spice was obviously getting to him and he looked over to me and asked, "You're pretty good with spice, huh?" And I had to think for a moment to even register that the tacos had a kick to them. Meanwhile he was drenched in sweat and his nose was running. I thought that was funny. My friend Andrew and I were supposed to go to a show at the Griffith Observatory
, and at the last minute he realized he had made plans with a woman he was seeing. I told him I'd see if I could get Kevin 1 to go with me and he agreed. I liked that he was willing to be a little spontaneous and do something completely out of the norm for him. He was the perfect date, we took selfies and fun pictures and he was just sweet and all about me the whole time. I loved how he touched me in public, not too sensual but enough for me to feel like I was his. There was a lot of promise early on, but then he had a lot of drama in his personal life and I didn't get to see him for 6+ weeks, and we got angry with each other. We reconciled a couple weeks later, and have gone out a few times since. Of all the guys I'm seeing right now, he's the one I have the most feelings for and most hope for, but there's that lingering drama that threatens it. We're planning a weekend getaway to Las Vegas in June. I may or may not have bought a $1000 bottle of tequila he wanted. What is wrong with me? 
Dating Kevin 2 is wild. I thought he was pretty innocent and over-achiever, goody-two-shoes type, but once he let down his guard I found a very emo, anti-establishment, anti-everything, party animal. It first came out on St Patrick's Day with Andrew and 
his woman friend, and got really ugly the next day at the zoo when he said all these animals should kill themselves rather than be locked up for people to look at them. I told him that day that I was never going to take him out anywhere again, and he apologized, but I've held true to that. I still spend time with him in private, but I don't really see it going anywhere. He's great to cuddle up for a movie though. 
Andrew just completed his third marathon, has a cute dog and a busted truck. He works for his grandma as an accountant. He's usually down for anything I suggest, but his personal life drama prevents him sometimes. I think early on he was intimidated by my profession and was trying to impress me, and since then he's calmed down and our conversations flow really well.
If anyone accused me of having a type, Justin would break that mold. He's the epitome of Hollywood, but we have a great time when we're together even though we have almost nothing in common. He calls me "boo" and we just really click. The distance makes it hard to see each other regularly, but we make it work from time to time.
So I think that kind of catches us up. I still can't believe it's May already. I start my new job in a couple weeks, although truth be told my new manager is sucking me in as fast as he can. I'm so completely sad to be leaving my team. I wasn't going to accept the job because of them. It was a surprise to me, when I tried to write my decline letter, I talked myself into accepting because the new manager has done so much to make me feel valued, and my current manager and director were so luke warm about losing me. I didn't think being valued mattered that much to me, until it was clear.
Besides my very busy dating life, I've mostly been trying to live up to my four principles for 2023, which I've summed up on my letterboard as: live intentionally, (re-)connect deeply, get outdoors and 'into' space, and create ease. It's been an adjustment to be single again, but I know its for the best - he made it very easy to not have second thoughts - and I'm just figuring out how to find myself again.
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