I spent a day in Timbuktu. That was enough.
Susan
September 20, 2012
[I’ve been dating a bit via match websites. I met Susan for the first time today for lunch. She has lead a very interesting life. She has been to 22 countries—in Africa. Then there are the trips to Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, North Korea, Iran, all five ‘stans, USSR (before and after the collapse), all the ordinary places like Europe, and several trips to Antarctica.
Once I recover some I have to write up something about some of them. I have had nine dates with six women in nine days recently. I have repeat dates with some on this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I think I’m done. Yes. I tend to focus intently on one task at a time.
Wow! There are some strange people out there as well as some nice and ordinary people. And there are the nice but not ordinary. Susan was in the later category. The one self-proclaimed liberal was a walking, talking, caricature that could be used by liberals most vehement critics.—Joe]
The right one will not only tolerate Boomershoot but look forward to being an RO for it!
Things are looking good for something like that. I’ll provide more details as they become available.
Yes, indeed, there are a lot of amazing people out there, and even more strange ones. Glad I found a great one and managed to get married to her, so I don’t have to deal with the dating thing any more. 15 years later, not much to complain about.
Yes, it would be fun to hear some properly anonymized stories sometime.
The one self-proclaimed liberal was a walking, talking, caricature that could be used by liberals most vehement critics.
You go on a date with that one just out of morbid curiousity?
@perlhaqr, My daughter-in-law is a self-proclaimed liberal and except for maybe one or two issues is fairly closely politically aligned with son James and me. This woman described herself as a “peace-monger” and thought that would be incompatible with a gun owner. I said I didn’t see that as being an issue with my politics so we agreed to meet for dinner. We talked for five hours and “shut the place down” at almost midnight. It was surreal. I was viewing an alternate reality of vast right-wing conspiracies, adamant “my feelings know the truth”, and her visions of spirits. Her marching with Occupy Seattle was one of the more ordinary things she believed in and did.
Does Susan work for MSF (Doctors without Borders)?
“I have had nine dates with six women in nine days recently.”
Masochist.
@JD, No. This was all recreational travel on her part.
@Lyle, It wasn’t that bad. The worst part was keeping straight what I had said to each. All were pleasant to talk to, clean, polite, on time, and kept up their end of the conversation.
Joe; I wasn’t referring to the actual dates. It is the whole relationship thing. Dating is fine, but then what? Demands on your time, demands on your way of life, the whole ball & chain phenomenon and everything that goes with it. Demands on your soul. A woman’s job is to grind you down to size, devour you, spit out the bones after you’ve been digested, make trinkets out of your bones and then hang them on her wall as trophies. It takes a saint to grab the reins and drive the relationship in the proper direction, but in that case; why? Why the rush to put yourself through that? Women are attractive for a reason, otherwise we’d never put up with living with one.
If you’re going along, minding your own business and the right woman sees that, and she sees you for what you are rather than what she thinks she can make of you (and it takes one hell of a woman to do that) and she’s willing, not only to accept but to assist you in your endeavors, and if you can keep her dark side from taking control and bringing out your dark side, then maybe you have something.
What are the chances of that? I say zero if you’re actively seeking a relationship, but then probably no one should listen to me.
My former next door neighbor at the business park is currently in federal prison because of one of these dating deals gone the wrong way. But be sure of one thing; he had a LOT of fun at first. I say he’s lucky– the relationship ended after only one year, he’s never going to see her again, and so far as we know no one died
@Lyle, You have a much different view of women than I do. My 36 years of marriage wasn’t always, particularly the last dozen years or so, that great but I see huge differences in the personalities of the women. In the past few months I have a great relationship with two different women that gave me confidence that there are great women out there. Neither were available or interested in the type of relationship I want but just spending the hours talking, doing things with them, and seeing how they “ticked” was enough to see my soon to be ex was really ill. There was no cure and she didn’t think there was anything wrong with her and it was going to get worse and worse. There are sane, rational, smart women out there. I just had to find one that liked or at least tolerated my particular set of hobbies and wanted the same type of relationship I did.
I’ve found someone I really, really click with. She spent 20+ years with a male version of my spouse and we can really relate to each others history. We both spend decades, “Walking on eggshells” and managing to make it mostly work. To be with someone that adapt at getting along with others should make it child’s play to get along with each other. She is very, very successful in her career and although we haven’t discussed actual numbers I’m pretty sure she makes more money than I do. And as you and I have discussed I do okay. We each bring things of value to the relationship and appreciate what the other is offering in return. I don’t see this as being at all one sided.
I’ve discussed some missteps I make during my search for a new partner with my counselor, taken her advice, and read the books she recommends. My person of interest is now about to read the same book I am on. She read the previous book I read on the advice her counselor months ago at about the same time I was reading it. There are some amazing parallels between our lives and we didn’t meet each other until a few days ago.
There is no big hurry and we both still have a fair amount of disentanglement to accomplish with our spouses but I think we are both smart enough to take it slow enough that we can disengage or fix things as needed if something goes wrong along the way and keep the damage to a minimum. I think we are both hypersensitive to “something isn’t right” events and will pay close attention to warning signs.
It will probably be a month or three before I give out potentially identifying information about her. She really needs to get her legal stuff wrapped up before letting the world know she is involved with someone new. But when the time is right I’ll introduce her to my blogosphere friends.
Thanks for your concern.
Good luck Joe. Take care.