I will not describe in chapter and verse the many men who have been in my life, but I will say that none of them has ever been a “casual” thing. I do not know how to casually date. I wear my heart on my sleeve and do everything in my life at 110%. I fall in love hard, I fall in love fast, and usually move from one exclusive relationship to the next one with barely two months in-between. This has left me lying in the ruins of these many relationships, wondering what happened and what I did wrong in simply offering every ounce of myself to these men who most likely did not deserve all the love I was bestowing upon them so freely.
Despite all this, I still hold out hope for something I have yet to experience. I don’t believe in this concept of “The One”, some yet unknown and mysterious man who has been set apart in the cosmos or somewhere in Southwest Minneapolis just for me; I’m far too jaded to buy any of that Nicholas Sparks bullshit. But I do hold out hope that there is a man out there in the world who might think I’m amazing and who happens to be quite amazing himself, and in a similar phase of life – learning to single parent and longing for a companion to think about and text all day. Sure, we’ll disagree about whose turn it is to do the dishes, but we will choose each other over anyone else, over and over again until the end of time, amen, etc. I have zero interest in ever getting married again, as my two previous attempts ended in flames and brokenness. But I am looking for a monogamous, long-term partner with whom to write a modern love story.
It’s been about two months since I got out of my last exclusive relationship with a lovely person who was completely wrong for me and I for him. We spent the last six months of our relationship in a protracted break-up. So, can I say I’ve been broken up with him for eight months then? Is that how relationship readiness and healing math work?
Regardless, I am at capacity for having unsuccessful relationships with men, while also at capacity for doing life without a partner. Being a 40-year old with a mom bod and two 9-year-olds, picking up dudes at the bar is not exactly something I a) want to do, or b) would even be able to do. I guess I could meet a lovely man while volunteering at a food shelf or the humane society, but I do neither of those things. What I spend my time doing is commuting to and from work, cooking for my kids, doing homework with them, making craft cocktails that aren’t gross, playing music at my church, and occasionally going to the co-op or Whole Foods. Where does one in my predicament meet someone to “casually date” who will hopefully turn into a loving and stable partner?
Online.
I did eHarmony 9 years ago which led to my 2nd marriage, which ended in a similar fashion to my first one – me, alone, wondering what the fuck happened. So I have a bad taste in my mouth about that eHarmony guarantee. But I’ve heard good things about Match.com, and some of my friends have found their stable and lovely partners on Match. So, alright. Let’s do this thing.
Within the first few days, there were a lot of “likes” and messages in my inbox. I was frankly blown away. I’m not all that pretty, looking a bit like Big Bird hopped into the gene pool with Kate Winslet, and I’ve got two kids in tow. The boys don’t exactly line up for that, but apparently, because I was the new, fresh meat on Match, a lot of boys did line up. You can write off the ones you don’t want to engage with right away, with messages like “Hey good lookin’”, or “You’re kinda pretty”... these you ignore. But then there are the messages that prove the man actually read your profile and picked up on the fact that you are creative, witty and probably super smart, and not too bad to look at. I struck up conversations with approximately four men of varying styles (“Axe Thrower”, “Suit with Money”, “Philadelphia”, and “Artsy Metropolitan Chicken Farmer”).
Date #1 was with Axe Thrower. This guy was my style in all the perfectly drippy ways – he had a beard, kind eyes, a healthy assortment of flannel shirts, a manly job and a good six inches on me (coming in at 5’10”, a man who towers over me is not easy to find). He was funny, charming, chivalrous, and we both appeared to be in a similar phase of life – going through divorce and separation, learning to single parent, and with healthy amounts of baggage to process together – both of us cynical yet hopeful for love and magic. We laughed a lot and clicked instantly. He walked me home after our date and we hugged. He texted immediately that I was attractive, obviously intelligent and bubbly, and hoped we’d get together again. We arranged to have a morning coffee date within three days.
Meanwhile, I made plans to have lunch with Suit with Money on the same day as the aforementioned coffee date with Axe Thrower.
The coffee date with Axe Thrower came and went, again with magic, wonderful conversations, lots of chemistry, and even swapping muffins halfway through the date. Sharing nibbles of carbs over mugs of black coffee is a sure sign of intimacy. The end of this second date included the highly anticipated first kiss which he initiated, and which lit me up like fireworks. It was at this point that all logic and reason flew out the fucking window. I’ve always been a good girl (or “a lady in the streets” to use the parlance of our times) and can count on one hand plus two fingers the number of sexual partners I have had in my life. I do not kiss casually, and I do not have sex casually. For me, a kiss means we are on some kind of relationship trajectory. Should that kiss lead to a sexual encounter within the next few dates? Some kind of official status has been achieved.
These were my assumptions. And they were wrong.
I left that 2nd date with Axe Thrower high as fuck on the euphoria only an early crush can provide. At this point, I would do my duty to show up for my lunch date with Suit with Money, but I was no longer interested in anyone other than Axe Thrower.
This is the exact opposite of casual dating.
My lunch with Suit with Money was very uncomfortable. He was well-educated but creepy in a similar way to “Buffalo Bill” from Silence of the Lambs. I ended the date after lunch and blocked him from my phone for fear I’d wind up in the bottom of a well with a bucket and some lotion.
Herein begins the chapter of Axe Thrower in which the emotional attachment began. We texted every day. He sent me pictures of him at work, which I found to be the most bizarre and strongest of turn-ons. He sent me pictures of his kids, and him cooking meals with them - Webster's defines this as Single Mom Porn. By our 5th day communicating, having been strangers only a week ago, he was texting me all the naughty things he was going to do to me. I considered the naughty texting par for the course and played along for two reasons: 1) I was completely starved for physical affection and intimacy during my last relationship, and 2) he was also talking to me about his soul, which is really what I wanted to eat alive and keep with me forever and ever, amen, etc. He was saying things to me about how he was scared to fall in love; I was the most emotionally open person he had ever met; he was afraid to get burned by a relationship again; he didn’t want anything “serious”…
Have I mentioned that when he kissed me after our coffee date that all logic and reason flew out the fucking window? So much so that I didn’t even hear the things he was saying to me that, in hindsight, could’ve saved me from needing a prescription for antidepressants.
It was around this time that I stopped sleeping at night. I was imagining all the naughty things this incredibly attractive man was going to do to me, and I to him, and inappropriately fantasizing about us blending our families – not now, Jesus, I’m not that crazy – but a few years down the road, a lovely little unit of 7: mom, dad, his and mine; a quirky and blended modern family. This seemed to be the person I had been looking for, forever and ever, amen, etc.
We had our 3rd date. It was electric and magical from the moment he picked me up. After dinner, he walked down the street next to me, swallowing me whole in his larger than life personality, with his arm intimately draped across my back as if we had known each other for months already. We drove back towards his house under a full moon, taking the long way around the lake, holding hands and talking about everything. We stopped along the way to go sledding (What? You are spontaneous and fun too? I’ve been looking for you for 25 years…). We also stopped to make out in his car like a couple of teenagers (I’ve been looking for you for 25 years…). He took me back to his house, which was lovely, clean and very adult. I found this to be a huge turn-on and, again, all reason and logic were long gone. I gave in to the rest of the night with only a very small question squeaked out in the moment of “I don’t do this casually”, to which he responded “I’m not looking for any conquests…”, which I took to mean “I’m not using you” and/or “You can trust me”.
What I believe he meant, in fact, was “I want to get laid and don’t really care what this does to you emotionally…” Ladies, this is why you have to hang on to your logic and reasoning as long as you can when attempting to casually date. Also, know someone a little bit better than three dates before giving in to your desires. This is what we have vibrators for.
The night ended with him driving me home, still warm and affectionate as your partner should be after he was just inside your body. We kissed goodnight. I went into my house, crawled into bed, and did not sleep the whole rest of the night. I was too amped, too excited, and my spirit was too restless. I was operating on approximately a week of no sleep by now.
I didn’t hear from him until the next afternoon, and at that point it was only a response to a casually cool text I sent along the lines of “Hope you had a good day”. What I really wanted to say was “Why are you leaving me already, and where are you going??!?!!” Our emotional texting-attachment continued for another week, but mostly at my behest. He would respond to me, rarely initiate, yet the work and kid photos continued. We made plans to see each other again on Friday night. You can guess what happened, but I’ll simply say this – you know that scene in The Notebook? That was what happened to me. I have never in my life had an encounter like this, which is sad that I’ve settled for less passion in all my 25 years of relationships. It was a magical night, even though it was preceded by his emotional backtracking for the week leading up to it. More than just sex, we spent the evening wrapped up in each other like two wounded marsupials, talking about everything for hours, snuggled up like the best of friends, laughing hilariously, working out our hopes and fears of commitment and wanting to find love despite it all. Basically, the best parts of every Peter Cetera song. I had made him a batch of homemade blueberry muffins to take home, because I freely offer all of myself to my love interests regardless of whether they deserve it. When I presented him with this labor of like, after our Peter-Cetera-love-song bundling, I could see his entire countenance shift to “Shit. This is a relationship now and I must run.”
The next day, I had coffee with Philadelphia, because despite 14 days of non-stop texting and two sexual encounters, Axe Thrower and I had not had any kind of discussion about exclusivity or status. I figured I’d do my duty to keep casually dating. The coffee date was peaceful and lovely; Philadelphia was very emotionally deep and intelligent. But still. All I wanted to do was crawl into Axe Thrower’s bedroom/kitchen/jeep/life and stay there for the rest of forever and ever, amen, etc.
It was now Saturday, and approximately 14 days since I had slept through the night, fully consumed by some kind of restlessness in my spirit over this budding romance. I started to feel the white hot panic of strangling anxiety crawl up into my neck some time mid-afternoon Saturday, when I could see Axe Thrower was reading my texts and not responding. And I started to cry. A lot. In front of my kids. In the grocery store. In the shower. At dinner. I sobbed the entire night away until 7am Sunday morning came around. I dragged myself out of bed to go to church where I was supposed to lead worship, now fully in a frenzied state of being profoundly eRejected by this man whom I thought I had finally found after 25 years. Praise Jesus, let’s stand in worship.
The next few days were a rapid succession of Axe Thrower’s disappearance from my life. He continued to read my texts and not respond, or respond just enough to keep me on some kind of a line. My restraint in not becoming hysterical via SMS messaging was truly astounding. I kept my texts to mostly casual things like “Hey, check out this song” (aka, “I’m so fun and easy-going, stop running away from me”), or by asking pointed questions in the hopes of receiving an answer. Q: How is your day going? A: Fine.
Fuck.
This is a good time to make a brief stop at the mental health station – I am very, very prone to anxiety, worry, shit-yourself-panic and extreme swings into depression. I’m also very, very prone to elevated levels of excitement and joy. But I swear, I’m a lot of fun! I’ve never been diagnosed as officially bipolar, but I have had therapists and doctors throughout the years recommend that I maybe consider some pharmaceuticals to help level out my extremes. An artist by nature, I’ve always resisted – I would rather feel something than nothing, because feeling everything strongly is what makes me a damn good musician and writer. I have dabbled in therapy and used exercise to manage my depression and anxiety with great success over the past decade. To hell with medicating away my personality. But by Tuesday morning, I was on day 18 of not sleeping. I would endlessly toss and turn, wondering if this was the man I’d been looking for, making any kind of attempts to ask the universe for a confirmation, reading horoscopes (mine and his), re-reading our texts to try and decipher meaning where there perhaps was none, and basically driving myself completely fucking insane.
Note for the future: if your spirit reacts in this way to a budding romance, run away. Something is desperately wrong, and you may not know what is wrong yet, but your intuition and your spirit know. End it with your pride and sanity still intact.
I called my primary clinic nurse line around 4am on Tuesday morning. The details of that phone call are fuzzy, but there was a lot of sobbing and an appointment was made. I knew I needed some medical help at this point. I had to start sleeping and I had to stop crying. Or maybe in reverse order – I had to stop crying and I had to start sleeping.
In the car on the way to the doctor – sob. Park the car – sob. Walk into the clinic – sob. Fill out paperwork about anxiety and depression – sob. Step on the scale – briefly stop sobbing when I see that I’ve somehow lost 10 pounds in the last two weeks. Yes!
I started talking with the doctor and sobbed some more. I did not mention that I needed help because I had sex with someone who didn’t love me or because I had started online dating, but I did mention everything that I’ve been through in the past two years. As I listed off the death of my brother, the divorce, the car accident, and the major lifestyle shift to single parenting and a move to a new home, new school and new neighborhood, this very sweet doctor said “Oh honey, that’s too much…” It started to hit me that this descent into the worst parts of the emotional apocalypse over the past three days really had very little to do with Axe Thrower. Oh, don’t get me wrong. What transpired between us in a brief three weeks hurt a great deal. But this was more about the accumulation of trauma that led to my inability to be strong on my own any longer. Allowing a stranger into my heart without proper vetting didn’t help, but it’s not the sole reason for needing a lot of external support right now – both in the form of pharmaceuticals and the love of my friends and family.
I did eventually get a pseudo-explanation from Axe Thrower, a message to the tune of “You’re fun, but I’m just too busy and have to prioritize my kids/divorce/work”, etc. Cool. Me too dude. I just thought you were my guy. Whatever and ever, amen, etc.
I have another casual date planned with Philadelphia, and am meeting Artsy Metropolitan Chicken Farmer for beers tomorrow. I have a nice blood level going of antidepressants and am finally sleeping through the night thanks to trazadone. Hopefully this round of casual dating will go better, as I intend to only seriously involve myself with my therapist for a while. Wish me luck.
Despite all this, I still hold out hope for something I have yet to experience. I don’t believe in this concept of “The One”, some yet unknown and mysterious man who has been set apart in the cosmos or somewhere in Southwest Minneapolis just for me; I’m far too jaded to buy any of that Nicholas Sparks bullshit. But I do hold out hope that there is a man out there in the world who might think I’m amazing and who happens to be quite amazing himself, and in a similar phase of life – learning to single parent and longing for a companion to think about and text all day. Sure, we’ll disagree about whose turn it is to do the dishes, but we will choose each other over anyone else, over and over again until the end of time, amen, etc. I have zero interest in ever getting married again, as my two previous attempts ended in flames and brokenness. But I am looking for a monogamous, long-term partner with whom to write a modern love story.
It’s been about two months since I got out of my last exclusive relationship with a lovely person who was completely wrong for me and I for him. We spent the last six months of our relationship in a protracted break-up. So, can I say I’ve been broken up with him for eight months then? Is that how relationship readiness and healing math work?
Regardless, I am at capacity for having unsuccessful relationships with men, while also at capacity for doing life without a partner. Being a 40-year old with a mom bod and two 9-year-olds, picking up dudes at the bar is not exactly something I a) want to do, or b) would even be able to do. I guess I could meet a lovely man while volunteering at a food shelf or the humane society, but I do neither of those things. What I spend my time doing is commuting to and from work, cooking for my kids, doing homework with them, making craft cocktails that aren’t gross, playing music at my church, and occasionally going to the co-op or Whole Foods. Where does one in my predicament meet someone to “casually date” who will hopefully turn into a loving and stable partner?
Online.
I did eHarmony 9 years ago which led to my 2nd marriage, which ended in a similar fashion to my first one – me, alone, wondering what the fuck happened. So I have a bad taste in my mouth about that eHarmony guarantee. But I’ve heard good things about Match.com, and some of my friends have found their stable and lovely partners on Match. So, alright. Let’s do this thing.
Within the first few days, there were a lot of “likes” and messages in my inbox. I was frankly blown away. I’m not all that pretty, looking a bit like Big Bird hopped into the gene pool with Kate Winslet, and I’ve got two kids in tow. The boys don’t exactly line up for that, but apparently, because I was the new, fresh meat on Match, a lot of boys did line up. You can write off the ones you don’t want to engage with right away, with messages like “Hey good lookin’”, or “You’re kinda pretty”... these you ignore. But then there are the messages that prove the man actually read your profile and picked up on the fact that you are creative, witty and probably super smart, and not too bad to look at. I struck up conversations with approximately four men of varying styles (“Axe Thrower”, “Suit with Money”, “Philadelphia”, and “Artsy Metropolitan Chicken Farmer”).
Date #1 was with Axe Thrower. This guy was my style in all the perfectly drippy ways – he had a beard, kind eyes, a healthy assortment of flannel shirts, a manly job and a good six inches on me (coming in at 5’10”, a man who towers over me is not easy to find). He was funny, charming, chivalrous, and we both appeared to be in a similar phase of life – going through divorce and separation, learning to single parent, and with healthy amounts of baggage to process together – both of us cynical yet hopeful for love and magic. We laughed a lot and clicked instantly. He walked me home after our date and we hugged. He texted immediately that I was attractive, obviously intelligent and bubbly, and hoped we’d get together again. We arranged to have a morning coffee date within three days.
Meanwhile, I made plans to have lunch with Suit with Money on the same day as the aforementioned coffee date with Axe Thrower.
The coffee date with Axe Thrower came and went, again with magic, wonderful conversations, lots of chemistry, and even swapping muffins halfway through the date. Sharing nibbles of carbs over mugs of black coffee is a sure sign of intimacy. The end of this second date included the highly anticipated first kiss which he initiated, and which lit me up like fireworks. It was at this point that all logic and reason flew out the fucking window. I’ve always been a good girl (or “a lady in the streets” to use the parlance of our times) and can count on one hand plus two fingers the number of sexual partners I have had in my life. I do not kiss casually, and I do not have sex casually. For me, a kiss means we are on some kind of relationship trajectory. Should that kiss lead to a sexual encounter within the next few dates? Some kind of official status has been achieved.
These were my assumptions. And they were wrong.
I left that 2nd date with Axe Thrower high as fuck on the euphoria only an early crush can provide. At this point, I would do my duty to show up for my lunch date with Suit with Money, but I was no longer interested in anyone other than Axe Thrower.
This is the exact opposite of casual dating.
My lunch with Suit with Money was very uncomfortable. He was well-educated but creepy in a similar way to “Buffalo Bill” from Silence of the Lambs. I ended the date after lunch and blocked him from my phone for fear I’d wind up in the bottom of a well with a bucket and some lotion.
Herein begins the chapter of Axe Thrower in which the emotional attachment began. We texted every day. He sent me pictures of him at work, which I found to be the most bizarre and strongest of turn-ons. He sent me pictures of his kids, and him cooking meals with them - Webster's defines this as Single Mom Porn. By our 5th day communicating, having been strangers only a week ago, he was texting me all the naughty things he was going to do to me. I considered the naughty texting par for the course and played along for two reasons: 1) I was completely starved for physical affection and intimacy during my last relationship, and 2) he was also talking to me about his soul, which is really what I wanted to eat alive and keep with me forever and ever, amen, etc. He was saying things to me about how he was scared to fall in love; I was the most emotionally open person he had ever met; he was afraid to get burned by a relationship again; he didn’t want anything “serious”…
Have I mentioned that when he kissed me after our coffee date that all logic and reason flew out the fucking window? So much so that I didn’t even hear the things he was saying to me that, in hindsight, could’ve saved me from needing a prescription for antidepressants.
It was around this time that I stopped sleeping at night. I was imagining all the naughty things this incredibly attractive man was going to do to me, and I to him, and inappropriately fantasizing about us blending our families – not now, Jesus, I’m not that crazy – but a few years down the road, a lovely little unit of 7: mom, dad, his and mine; a quirky and blended modern family. This seemed to be the person I had been looking for, forever and ever, amen, etc.
We had our 3rd date. It was electric and magical from the moment he picked me up. After dinner, he walked down the street next to me, swallowing me whole in his larger than life personality, with his arm intimately draped across my back as if we had known each other for months already. We drove back towards his house under a full moon, taking the long way around the lake, holding hands and talking about everything. We stopped along the way to go sledding (What? You are spontaneous and fun too? I’ve been looking for you for 25 years…). We also stopped to make out in his car like a couple of teenagers (I’ve been looking for you for 25 years…). He took me back to his house, which was lovely, clean and very adult. I found this to be a huge turn-on and, again, all reason and logic were long gone. I gave in to the rest of the night with only a very small question squeaked out in the moment of “I don’t do this casually”, to which he responded “I’m not looking for any conquests…”, which I took to mean “I’m not using you” and/or “You can trust me”.
What I believe he meant, in fact, was “I want to get laid and don’t really care what this does to you emotionally…” Ladies, this is why you have to hang on to your logic and reasoning as long as you can when attempting to casually date. Also, know someone a little bit better than three dates before giving in to your desires. This is what we have vibrators for.
The night ended with him driving me home, still warm and affectionate as your partner should be after he was just inside your body. We kissed goodnight. I went into my house, crawled into bed, and did not sleep the whole rest of the night. I was too amped, too excited, and my spirit was too restless. I was operating on approximately a week of no sleep by now.
I didn’t hear from him until the next afternoon, and at that point it was only a response to a casually cool text I sent along the lines of “Hope you had a good day”. What I really wanted to say was “Why are you leaving me already, and where are you going??!?!!” Our emotional texting-attachment continued for another week, but mostly at my behest. He would respond to me, rarely initiate, yet the work and kid photos continued. We made plans to see each other again on Friday night. You can guess what happened, but I’ll simply say this – you know that scene in The Notebook? That was what happened to me. I have never in my life had an encounter like this, which is sad that I’ve settled for less passion in all my 25 years of relationships. It was a magical night, even though it was preceded by his emotional backtracking for the week leading up to it. More than just sex, we spent the evening wrapped up in each other like two wounded marsupials, talking about everything for hours, snuggled up like the best of friends, laughing hilariously, working out our hopes and fears of commitment and wanting to find love despite it all. Basically, the best parts of every Peter Cetera song. I had made him a batch of homemade blueberry muffins to take home, because I freely offer all of myself to my love interests regardless of whether they deserve it. When I presented him with this labor of like, after our Peter-Cetera-love-song bundling, I could see his entire countenance shift to “Shit. This is a relationship now and I must run.”
The next day, I had coffee with Philadelphia, because despite 14 days of non-stop texting and two sexual encounters, Axe Thrower and I had not had any kind of discussion about exclusivity or status. I figured I’d do my duty to keep casually dating. The coffee date was peaceful and lovely; Philadelphia was very emotionally deep and intelligent. But still. All I wanted to do was crawl into Axe Thrower’s bedroom/kitchen/jeep/life and stay there for the rest of forever and ever, amen, etc.
It was now Saturday, and approximately 14 days since I had slept through the night, fully consumed by some kind of restlessness in my spirit over this budding romance. I started to feel the white hot panic of strangling anxiety crawl up into my neck some time mid-afternoon Saturday, when I could see Axe Thrower was reading my texts and not responding. And I started to cry. A lot. In front of my kids. In the grocery store. In the shower. At dinner. I sobbed the entire night away until 7am Sunday morning came around. I dragged myself out of bed to go to church where I was supposed to lead worship, now fully in a frenzied state of being profoundly eRejected by this man whom I thought I had finally found after 25 years. Praise Jesus, let’s stand in worship.
The next few days were a rapid succession of Axe Thrower’s disappearance from my life. He continued to read my texts and not respond, or respond just enough to keep me on some kind of a line. My restraint in not becoming hysterical via SMS messaging was truly astounding. I kept my texts to mostly casual things like “Hey, check out this song” (aka, “I’m so fun and easy-going, stop running away from me”), or by asking pointed questions in the hopes of receiving an answer. Q: How is your day going? A: Fine.
Fuck.
This is a good time to make a brief stop at the mental health station – I am very, very prone to anxiety, worry, shit-yourself-panic and extreme swings into depression. I’m also very, very prone to elevated levels of excitement and joy. But I swear, I’m a lot of fun! I’ve never been diagnosed as officially bipolar, but I have had therapists and doctors throughout the years recommend that I maybe consider some pharmaceuticals to help level out my extremes. An artist by nature, I’ve always resisted – I would rather feel something than nothing, because feeling everything strongly is what makes me a damn good musician and writer. I have dabbled in therapy and used exercise to manage my depression and anxiety with great success over the past decade. To hell with medicating away my personality. But by Tuesday morning, I was on day 18 of not sleeping. I would endlessly toss and turn, wondering if this was the man I’d been looking for, making any kind of attempts to ask the universe for a confirmation, reading horoscopes (mine and his), re-reading our texts to try and decipher meaning where there perhaps was none, and basically driving myself completely fucking insane.
Note for the future: if your spirit reacts in this way to a budding romance, run away. Something is desperately wrong, and you may not know what is wrong yet, but your intuition and your spirit know. End it with your pride and sanity still intact.
I called my primary clinic nurse line around 4am on Tuesday morning. The details of that phone call are fuzzy, but there was a lot of sobbing and an appointment was made. I knew I needed some medical help at this point. I had to start sleeping and I had to stop crying. Or maybe in reverse order – I had to stop crying and I had to start sleeping.
In the car on the way to the doctor – sob. Park the car – sob. Walk into the clinic – sob. Fill out paperwork about anxiety and depression – sob. Step on the scale – briefly stop sobbing when I see that I’ve somehow lost 10 pounds in the last two weeks. Yes!
I started talking with the doctor and sobbed some more. I did not mention that I needed help because I had sex with someone who didn’t love me or because I had started online dating, but I did mention everything that I’ve been through in the past two years. As I listed off the death of my brother, the divorce, the car accident, and the major lifestyle shift to single parenting and a move to a new home, new school and new neighborhood, this very sweet doctor said “Oh honey, that’s too much…” It started to hit me that this descent into the worst parts of the emotional apocalypse over the past three days really had very little to do with Axe Thrower. Oh, don’t get me wrong. What transpired between us in a brief three weeks hurt a great deal. But this was more about the accumulation of trauma that led to my inability to be strong on my own any longer. Allowing a stranger into my heart without proper vetting didn’t help, but it’s not the sole reason for needing a lot of external support right now – both in the form of pharmaceuticals and the love of my friends and family.
I did eventually get a pseudo-explanation from Axe Thrower, a message to the tune of “You’re fun, but I’m just too busy and have to prioritize my kids/divorce/work”, etc. Cool. Me too dude. I just thought you were my guy. Whatever and ever, amen, etc.
I have another casual date planned with Philadelphia, and am meeting Artsy Metropolitan Chicken Farmer for beers tomorrow. I have a nice blood level going of antidepressants and am finally sleeping through the night thanks to trazadone. Hopefully this round of casual dating will go better, as I intend to only seriously involve myself with my therapist for a while. Wish me luck.
<3 sending you all the luck!
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