Tag Archives: online dating

Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

Posted on July 13, 2018 | Comments Off on Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

It’s been interesting being one of the only single people in my group of friends. So many of my friends who are married or are in serious relationships have loved hearing about my online dating adventures. They live vicariously through me and usually they ask if they can swipe on the apps for me. I limit them to swiping on Bumble because on there the woman has to message the guy first. If I let them swipe on Tinder, that could lead to a creeper message I don’t want to see. I always will get gross and creepy messages, but I like to limit those if possible.

A lot of the time, I complain to those friends that I just want to meet someone so I can get off of the apps. I am having fun dating and it’s so different now compared to other times in my life, but I also am tired of meeting new guys and hoping something will happen. I’m tired of the bad dates and the stress before a first date wondering if it will be good or bad. I do think I’ve been lucky compared to other single people as I have had more good dates (or bad dates with good stories) than truly awful dates. And nothing too horrible has happened to me which is a risk every time I meet someone even though I meet them somewhere public and a friend always knows where I am and when I am home safe.

Whenever I complain, many of my friends in relationships say that being in a relationship isn’t necessarily easier than dating. I’m aware this is true and relationships take work, but it’s a different type of work than dating. Some of them miss being single and having freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. But I know that even though some of them miss their single time, they love their significant other and are glad to have the love and companionship from them.

The grass is always greener no matter what the situation is. I want to be in a relationship and some of my relationship friends want to be single (or at least single for a day so they can do whatever they want). But the grass is also greener for me when I compare myself to my old self.

Prior to about a year and a half ago, I rarely dated. When I did date, I really didn’t care too much about it. I did have some nerves about things, but they were more muted than they are now. I never imagined a future with any of the guys I went out with and I never really cared if I never saw them again after the first date. You’d like having fewer dates would have made me care more about each one, but that wasn’t the case for me.

I am not totally sure why things were the way they were before, but I am curious if it has to do with being on hormonal birth control before. I know that any hormonal birth control can change your mood and how you feel certain emotions. So maybe for me it was muting my feelings about wanting a relationship and companionship. This is just a theory, but it seems to make sense with the timing of things. Either way, before about April of last year I didn’t really care about dating and now I do.

And even though I’m having fun (despite some of the sucky parts of dating I’ve experienced) and it’s nice to feel wanted and enjoy that feeling, I miss not caring. I miss when dating wasn’t something I thought about all the time and didn’t care about. I miss not wondering if a guy who I like likes me back or if he’s going to text me back. I’m trying to not stress about the little things, but I do. I miss feeling neutral about things and not getting my hopes up or feeling heartbroken.

I think even with the annoyance of caring about things, I do still prefer now over how things were before. I do want to get married and have kids and I have to date to do that. I am learning about myself through dating a bit and I’ve become much more confident and self-assured. And I have learned that I don’t have to be as tolerant of people treating me badly like I did before. I can stand up for myself and I’m not scared about being called a bitch for doing so. I guess in some way, learning to care about dating has made me not care about what some people think about me.

While my dating adventures have made for some interesting blog posts, I do hope that these are not going to happen for forever. I am trying to stay optimistic that there is someone out there for me and that we will connect somehow. Chances will be we meet on an app since that’s the only place I’m really meeting guys, but you never know. And I know that even when I meet someone who is right for me that I will still stress out about things. But hopefully that stress will be easier to deal with when it’s about one person and not that I’m stressing about who I’ve met, will be meeting, or wondering if I should be meeting.

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Getting Banned From Tinder (or No Regrets Calling Out A Cheater)

Posted on June 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Getting Banned From Tinder (or No Regrets Calling Out A Cheater)

The twists keep coming in my online dating adventures. But this one was one I never thought about and was shocked when it happened. As the title states, I got banned from Tinder. I still don’t feel like I did anything wrong, but I guess that’s not up to me to decide.

This story has a bit of back story in it. I actually briefly mentioned the guy this involves before. Right in the beginning of my online dating adventures, I matched with a guy and was chatting with him on Bumble. We had even started texting each other and I thought maybe we’d be meeting up soon. Our texts were pretty innocent and silly. We were talking about our jobs and the pets our families had. But the texting ended and I figured he moved on so I deleted his texts and didn’t think much about it.

Then several months later, we matched again on Bumble. By this point I had already dealt with finding several guys who lied about being single and I was much smarter about doing a bit of research on who I’m talking to. When we started chatting again, I did a quick search on him and discovered that he was a newlywed. He had only gotten married about 4 months before the first time we had talked to each other. I was disgusted by him and used his wife’s name in a message to him (I said something like, “does your wife so-and-so know you are on here”). He unmatched with me, but I took screenshots of the messages and sent them to his wife on Facebook.

This was almost a year ago and I really hadn’t thought much about him. On Bumble you can pay to see who swiped on you before you swipe on them, but I’ve never paid for it. Tinder has the same option and I’ve done it on Tinder just because I’ve found it’s easier to weed out who I’d actually want to meet (Bumble seems to have a higher ratio of quality guys). And when I was looking through who swiped on me on Tinder, I noticed this guy again! Clearly he either didn’t remember me or was swiping on every girl just to get a match. I was furious that he was still being a cheater and decided to match with him and message him.

In his bio, it said that he was looking for a hot and sexy girl. So I wrote to him how we had matched on Bumble previously and asked how he was. Then I used his wife’s name again and asked if she knew he was on Tinder looking for a hot and sexy girl. I might have been a bit aggressive by doing that, but I was angry. Within seconds he unmatched with me and then I got logged out of my Tinder account. I couldn’t figure out what happened so I decided to google the error code I was getting. And that’s when I discovered the error code meant my profile got banned.

I emailed their support to find out more, but this is all I got back.

I have looked at all the policies and the only thing I could even remotely think would fit would be that I sent a harassing and threatening message by using his wife’s name. I really don’t know and the support team said they couldn’t tell me what I did wrong and there was no more information that they could give beyond that I got banned.

I was pretty angry that this cheater got me banned, but I’m not mad that I did what I did. He needed to know that people can easily figure out that he’s married and that he should make sure he tells his wife (I did message her again after this, but since my messages are likely being filtered on FB I know she hasn’t seen them). As much as I would like to believe that they have an open marriage and she knows, his behavior would lead me to think otherwise.

Since my profile was banned, there is no way to go back and talk to anyone I matched on there unless we had already started texting. And at first that bugged me, but the more I’ve thought about it it’s probably a good thing. I had a few hundred matches on Tinder but was only really talking to 4 guys on there (2 of whom I’ve texted with so I could always text them if I wanted to talk to them again). There were maybe 100 or so guys I had matched with but never messaged for one reason or another. And over 100 guys that I started conversations with that died off or they never responded to my original message.

I’ve set it as a weekly goal several times that I wanted to do a purge of my current matches on the various apps, but it was tough to let go of a potential date. This forced me to do that and it feels pretty good so far. I did create a new account and started over, but I haven’t really been using it. But it’s there for if I want to. If I catch cheaters on there again, I might send them the message and then unmatched with them quickly before they can report me. But I’m not sure since I still believe I did nothing wrong.

Just like all the other crazy stories that happened in online dating, at least this one will make another interesting story for my book.

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Getting Some Answers (or Allowing Myself To Be A Bit Of A Bitch)

Posted on May 17, 2018 | 1 comment

I wrote last month about how I had some unfortunate situations in online dating.  I had been seeing someone on and off for a little while when I got a Facebook message from a random account telling me he had a girlfriend. I sent the guy a screenshot about it and asked him if he knew what this was about and at the time I wrote my last post I hadn’t heard from him.

It’s been about a month since I messaged him and I finally heard back from him yesterday. I don’t need to go into too many details, but he basically admitted that he did have a girlfriend (although they started dating after the last time he and I saw each other in person) and that he was wrong for not telling me. He doesn’t deserve anything from me, but I agreed to talk to him on the phone. He wanted to explain things but that wasn’t my intention with the call.

Ever since I got that random Facebook message, I had questions I wanted answered. And in the month since that message, I’ve tortured myself thinking about what the answers could be and this phone call was my opportunity to get those answers. So I prepared for the call almost how I prepare for phone interviews for jobs.

I wrote down every question I had for him. There were plenty of questions that I knew the answers would hurt me, but I needed to hear it from him and not just have my imagination run wild. And I needed him to hear what I felt about him because he didn’t deserve to just think that everything was ok with us. When I looked back at my questions I wrote before he and I spoke on the phone, I thought that maybe I was being too harsh and mean.

But then I stopped myself. Why shouldn’t I be harsh and mean? Someone who I cared about (and I thought cared about me) hurt me and I had a chance to get answers. I didn’t care anymore about what he thought about me so if he felt like I was being a bitch after asking these questions that was fine with me. This phone call wasn’t for him even though he felt like I was doing him a favor. This was for me to say my peace when I haven’t had that chance in the past.

And the call went pretty close to what I expected. I was screaming and saying some very tough things for him to hear. I was emotional and I didn’t care. I made him listen to me and I forced him to answer the questions I needed answers to. I didn’t get everything I wanted out of the call, but I got more than I had before and that was something I needed. It didn’t quite give me a sense of closure, but it gave me a sense of power when I had felt powerless the month prior.

He and I had some deep conversations when we had been together and he knew that I struggled with a family member telling me that I was never worthy of good things. And I got to tell him that even though I know it’s not the truth, he made me feel like it was true because he didn’t seem to respect me enough to tell me the truth. I only found out the truth from a random person. And while he claims he would have told me the truth soon, I doubt that.

The call lasted about 30 minutes and we agreed that there were still more things that needed to be said between us so there will probably be another conversation. He says he needs to have me forgive him (which I don’t know when or if I can do that) and I need him to admit to his mistakes so that I can regain some more power. I need to believe that this has nothing to do with me. And I know it doesn’t, but I don’t quite believe it yet.

You may be wondering why I’m telling you all this story. This was a huge step for me. In the past, I’ve been treated horribly by men and either let it slide or just ended things without explaining what I felt. This time, I had the chance to force someone to hear what I was feeling. And even with having that chance it was a step to actually take it and go through with it. It wasn’t easy hearing some of the things he had to say, but it would have been harder not hearing anything at all. And I have learned that sometimes one way of being hurt is easier to deal with than another way of being hurt.

There is no denying that I’m hurt (and he admitted that he didn’t realize how much this hurt me until he heard it in my voice) and I’m glad I’m acknowledging these feelings. I felt stupid to feel almost heartbroken over a guy that was never a serious relationship. But even without us being serious, we did care about each other and I felt betrayed by him. I have every right to have these feelings and I don’t think I was letting myself feel that way until this call. During the call I felt worse than I had in the past month, but after the call I finally felt something release from me. I’m still mad, but it’s not as bad as it was before.

After I got off this phone call, I was able to talk to a friend of mine. I needed to be talked down from how crazy I was feeling and just needed to vent and rant. And thankfully my friend totally understood that and didn’t try to interject with any advice. She just listened and told me to honor the feelings I was having. She reminded me that this was just the stupidity of one guy and it really had nothing to do with me. She told me that I deserve so much more than what I got and I needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded that what happened to me wasn’t representative of me in any way. This was just something that happened to me and it was only representative of the guy.

I know that this non-relationship can’t define who I am. It is just something that happened to me (and will make an interesting story in the book I’m writing) and I will be past this soon. And it reminded me yet again that I am so lucky to have the friends that I have and that even if I don’t have romantic love in my life that I have friendship love. And that love is more powerful and meaningful to me.

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Not Blaming Myself (or Still Learning From Online Dating)

Posted on April 27, 2018 | 3 comments

I’m so sorry there have been so many posts about online dating lately! It feels like lately my life has become a soap opera and I’m not used to dealing with all the ridiculousness I’ve encountered. And since so many things in this adventure are new to me, I’m still trying to figure out how to handle certain situations. It feels like I’m a teenager in some ways but I also know from talking to my friends that they would be reacting the same way I’ve been reacting.

Unfortunately lately I’ve had some not great situations happen to me. And it would be so easy to blame myself for what happened, but I also know that I didn’t do anything that would make that real. But it’s tough to tell myself not to feel at fault when that’s how my mind works.

One situation ended up resolving pretty well. I had a few dates with a guy and then things got awkward and our communication slowed down significantly. I know I didn’t do anything wrong, but my first thought was that he obviously found out something about me that he didn’t like or he never found me attractive. My default thought is to think that there is something wrong with me that is causing someone to either not be interested or stop being interested. But once this guy and I had a chance to sit down and talk, I found out he was blaming himself for the situation too and was dealing with the same thoughts. It’s almost funny how it turned out because we were thinking the same thing and it was a relief to talk things out. We get along really well and are just now trying to figure out if we are meant to be friends or something more. But it’s nice to have that stress off my mind now.

Another situation is still making me feel like I’m to blame a little bit even though I know that can’t be truth. I’ve been seeing someone on and off for quite a while now. It was never serious or exclusive and we were open with each other about that. He knew that I had dates with other guys and I assumed he had dates with other women (although he claimed he hadn’t). I thought we were being honest with each other and that’s one of the reasons I think we were able to be on and off with each other without too much effort.

But last week, I got a message on Facebook from a random account that said this guy had a girlfriend and I should stay away from him. I didn’t know what to think and I took some time before I did anything. Eventually, I took a screenshot of the message and sent it to the guy asking if he knew who was messaging me. I wasn’t as much concerned about the girlfriend thing (although it meant he was lying to me at some point), but I didn’t know who he told about me and who had my information.

I still haven’t heard back from the guy. I’m guessing at this point that he does have a girlfriend and I called him out on it. I don’t think he had a girlfriend the entire time he and I had been on and off, but the fact that he was lying and claiming he hadn’t gone out with anyone since we met isn’t ok with me at all.

Looking back at this and writing this out, I think it’s pretty obvious that I did nothing wrong. Even he going out with other women wasn’t wrong since we had discussed that we weren’t exclusive. But somehow I blamed myself briefly for him lying. This is a ridiculous idea, but in my head I was thinking that I must have done something that made him feel like he should lie to me. But in reality, this guy is just not a nice guy and did something wrong.

I’ve gone through this blame idea or the idea that I’m not worthy of someone respecting me before. It’s something I’m working on getting over. And with this recent situation, I’m seeing progress. While the first thought in my head was trying to figure out what I did wrong, I pretty much immediately realized that was a stupid thought and I was blaming myself for someone else’s lies. I know that I did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be treated like this. It still hurts to know that someone who I thought respected me clearly didn’t, but I think most people would have that same reaction even if they never thought they were to blame.

I don’t expect to ever hear back from that guy and that’s fine with me. Anything he would say to me would be an excuse for his behavior and I don’t really care about that. But even though this on and off dating situation came to an end that was pretty negative, I do feel like there are some positives that came out of it. And one of the biggest positives was the progress I had in not blaming myself for someone else’s actions. I knew immediately that I deserved better than what I had and I’m not trying to figure out how to fix this situation. I’m moving on and I know that I will find someone better and more worthy of my feelings. So for being able to realize that, I am grateful.

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Doing Some More Dating Reflection (or It’s Been An Interesting Year)

Posted on April 18, 2018 | 2 comments

About a year ago, I got back into online dating. It wasn’t the first time I had tried online dating, but from the very beginning this time was so different. Immediately, I was getting more matches and more dates than I had in the past. There are a few reasons my friends and I joke about why this could happen, but there is really no good reason I can think of. It’s ok that I can’t think of a reason because it really doesn’t matter. And when I got back into online dating, I didn’t really have a timeline of how long I’d be doing it. I know for sure I didn’t think I’d still be doing it a year later.

To be totally honest, I really hoped that I would meet someone incredible and that I wouldn’t need online dating a year later. I’ve met some great guys (and I’m still seeing a few to see if it turns into anything), but nothing significant has come out of my dating adventures. Well, I should probably rephrase that and say that no significant relationship has come out of it. But some significant things have happened to me.

As much as I hate to say that I gained confidence by being wanted, that’s something that happened to me. After being told by someone that I was not worthy of people caring about me, I do like having the validation that it’s not true. I’m not dependent on others to gain confidence, but it did help me at first. Now I’m not feeling the same need to be wanted, but it’s still nice to have.

I’ve also gained some strength in knowing what I want and not tolerating what I don’t want. In the past, I would tolerate things that I shouldn’t have to because I was scared that I would not be able to find someone better. I know that that’s not the truth for sure now and if there is something that is a deal breaker for me I don’t feel the need to see if I could put up with it and see if I could make the relationship last (or make a date turn into a relationship). While I do have a little lingering fear that I will end up alone the rest of my life, being alone forever is a better option that putting up with crap and I’m glad I’m confident in that idea now.

It hasn’t all been good. I’ve encountered more guys that I’d like to think about who are online and trying to cheat on their significant other. I’ve been getting good and figuring out those guys and I usually call them out about it. And of course there are a ton of scammers and fake accounts on all the different sites I use. Those are usually easy to figure out too, but sometimes it takes a few messages exchanged before I realize they are fake. There’s only been one faker that I feel like I wasted way too much time with, but he was a pretty good fake account. But as soon as I figured it out, I moved on. The only thing that annoyed me was the time wasted and not that he wasn’t real.

I’m still pretty active with a few different dating sites. There are 3 that I pretty much only use but I’ve got 2 others on my phone that I’ll check occasionally. And I do try to check the main 3 apps every day for at least a few minutes. I know how easy it could be to just not bother with it, but I do want to try to find someone who I really like and wants to possibly be serious with me. And as much as I don’t love online dating, I know it’s the best chance for me to meet someone these days. So I just have to keep chugging along and making an effort to put myself out there each day.

I would love it if I don’t have to celebrate 2 years (or more) of being back on online dating. I really am trying to stay hopeful that I will find a guy who becomes the person who gets me to delete all the apps. I am trying to find the fun in dating and with first dates, but they can be a bit stressful too. I just keep trying to remind myself that each new first date is a potential new chapter in the book I’m working on about my adventures in online dating. But I’d love to have the final chapter figured out so I could just move on from the first date portion of my life.

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Working On Some Second Chances (or Trying To Stay Open Minded)

Posted on March 27, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On Some Second Chances (or Trying To Stay Open Minded)

It’s been about a year since I really got back into online dating and it’s been a crazy year! I still don’t understand what has changed that has gotten me more dates in the past year than I ever have had, but I’m grateful for it. I know it sounds bad that I’m learning about myself through dating, but it is helping me figure things out and I’m glad for that. And lately, I’ve had the chance to work on being more open-minded because of some experiences with dates. I used to joke that I was the queen of first dates because I didn’t waste my time with a second date if I didn’t think there could be anything there. And I’ve realized now that maybe I needed to be a bit more open to possibilities.

A little while ago, I went on a date with a guy who checked off all the boxes that I should want in a guy. He was kind, he was looking for something toward being serious (I’m looking for something serious, but I’m also not trying to jump into a relationship so I’m fine with things taking time), and he was really interesting. But there just wasn’t chemistry there and I was feeling horrible about it. I should have really liked this guy and I didn’t. And the voice in the back of my head was telling me that I shouldn’t expect anything better so I should just go with it.

I know now that I do deserve someone who I want to be with, but I also know that chemistry isn’t always something that you always feel. So after some discussion with a friend, I decided to give the guy a second date because I figured that I needed to see if it was just first date awkwardness. In the end, there just wasn’t chemistry there and I felt much better saying that I didn’t think there should be a 3rd date. I still had a bit of guilt because I feel like I should have liked him, but I also know enough now to not try to force something that doesn’t feel like it’s working.

There’s another guy that I went out with at the end of last year. We had a great first date, texted for a little while after, and things just ended. I had no idea why. But we were still matched on the dating app we connected on so last week I decided to reach out that way (instead of texting). He immediately responded and we went out again. He said he never got my texts and I joked that he must have blocked my number or used a burner number with me. But when we were together I tried texting him again and for some reason my texts weren’t always appearing on his phone! He would text me and it would be fine, but only half of my texts were showing up for him. It was so weird! But I know that he wasn’t deliberately ignoring me now. And again, this was because I gave him a second chance.

Of course, I don’t give everyone a second chance. There was a guy who called me delusional for thinking I could be an actress. There was another guy who was flirting with a different woman at the bar and introduced me as his friend (and couldn’t understand why I would be upset he would do that on a date). And there was another guy who didn’t show up for our date and then tried to convince me to come to his place to meet him there (I refused because I knew that it wouldn’t lead to anything good and I wasn’t going to put myself in a risky position).

There are some times where I’m torn about if I should give someone another chance and that’s when I’m so grateful for my friends who can be amazing sounding boards for me. There was someone I was seeing for a few weeks over the summer and things fell apart. He basically disappeared and when I tried to give him another chance he disappeared again. I told him I wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore but he didn’t seem to get that. He messaged me once a month for the next few months and I always responded with telling him that things were done. It had been a few months since he messaged me, and recently he reached out to me again. I wondered if I should give him another chance, but my friend helped me realize that I had already given him multiple chances and he screwed those up. And he couldn’t seem to respect my decision to not want to see him again, so if I went out with him again I couldn’t expect respect from him in other ways.

While I am having fun with all the randomness I’ve encountered with dating and I do feel like I’m making up for lost time in a way. But I’m really hoping that sooner rather than later I meet someone who will be more than just a few dates. I do want to be in a relationship and that’s not easy to find when you do know what you want. But I’m going to try to keep being open-minded and giving guys more than one chance and hopefully that leads to something good for me soon.

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Enjoying Valentine’s Day (or Celebrating The Love I Do Have In My Life)

Posted on February 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Enjoying Valentine’s Day (or Celebrating The Love I Do Have In My Life)

I know that plenty of people hate Valentine’s Day. Either they feel like it’s a made up holiday or they feel like there is no point to it or they hate that they don’t have someone to celebrate with. And in the past I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day. I’ve always been single on it and have never had a significant other to celebrate with.

And I’m still single and don’t have someone special to celebrate today with. I do feel like I’m making the best effort I have ever in the dating world with all my online dating adventures. I don’t think I’ve ever had as many dates as I’ve had in the past year. And there are a lot of idiots that I’m encountering, but fortunately there have been nice guys that I’ve met too. So the nice ones are balancing out the idiots and I’m still optimistic and hopeful that I will meet someone special. And even though I’ve been having fun with these dates, it would be nice to have met someone who can take me off of the online dating and I could build a relationship with.

But even though I don’t have romantic love, I do have so much love in my life. And to me, Valentine’s Day doesn’t just have to be about celebrating romantic love. If that’s the case, I think it’s just too limiting and it does exclude others who want to celebrate the people they love.

I know that I am loved by my family. I am so lucky to have the family that I do have. My parents support me so much (including financially when I need it) and I am so grateful for that. I don’t know what I would be doing without their support. And my extended family is supportive as well and they are there if I need them. I know if something happened I could call different family members and they would be there for me and would help me out in whatever ways they could.

But to me the biggest love in my life is the love I have with my friends. I’ve always felt lucky to have the friends that I have, but I think that lately those friendships have just gotten so much stronger and that makes things even better. Part of this could be that I have been open to being a bit more dependent on my friends than I have in the past. I love being independent and not feeling like I need anyone, but I’ve learned to appreciate having people there and what benefits that brings to my life. While I never want to feel totally dependent on another person, having a little bit of dependency means that you are open and vulnerable with them. And that only brings a stronger relationship between friends.

Most of my friends are married or in relationships so they will be out tonight with their significant others. But that is bothering me much less than it has in the past. I don’t feel left out or that something is necessarily missing. In some way, my dating adventures has helped me realize everything that I do have without a relationship and I appreciate it even more. And when I do get into a relationship that person will be adding to my life and not filling a missing piece of it. That’s probably a much healthier way to have a relationship start and I have my friendships and their love to thank for that.

Obviously even though I have so much love with my friends and family, I do still want romantic love. It is something that I have been seeking even if it’s not something that necessarily feels like it is missing from my life. But having as much love as I do in my life gives me hope that when I find the right guy I will be able to get the love that I deserve from that relationship. I’ve got the best examples of loving relationships in my life and I know that one day I will have the same. Maybe I’m just crazy to be as optimistic and hopeful about things as I am, but I feel like there has been a shift in my life lately that has allowed me to be more open to romantic love but not feeling like I’m desperate for it. It’s a nice place to be in while I’m still looking for the right guy.

So whether the big love in your life is a romantic one, a friend, a family member, or even just yourself; I hope that however you are celebrating love today that you are having a wonderful time doing it!

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Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

Posted on December 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

I can’t believe this is my last blog post of 2017! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing my goals for the year. This year definitely wasn’t what I expected it to be, but that was mostly for the best. But because of things not being the way I thought they would, some of my goals didn’t end up happening the way I thought. For some goals I totally surpassed what I expected and for others they didn’t happen. But even with the non-successes (I don’t consider them failures), I learned a lot.

My first goal I had for 2017 was 181 workouts. When I set that goal, I expected to be out for a little while when I had surgery so I thought it might be a bit of a stretch. I tried to make up for the time I thought I would be missing by doing more weeks of 4 workouts a week. That ended up being my new normal which was pretty exciting. And then I didn’t have surgery so I didn’t have to take the time away that I thought I would. But that didn’t slow me down and as long as the last few days this month go as planned I will be ending the year with 196 workouts!

I was pretty shocked when I looked at my total and saw how far over my goal I had gone. I knew I was going to be doing more than I thought, but I didn’t think I’d be 15 workouts ahead of my goal. That’s pretty amazing and even if every workout wasn’t the best one, consistency is so important and I think I’ve proved to myself that I have that.

My next goal I had for the year was to get through my liver surgery as easily as possible. I’ve got a history of having an easy time with surgeries, but this was going to be the first time I would have to stay overnight at the hospital and it was a much more extreme surgery than any I’ve had before. Well, as you all probably know from all of my posts about it, I didn’t have surgery. So technically there was no way for me to accomplish this goal. But I reframed it in my mind to be more about getting through this entire situation about my liver with less stress. And I think I did accomplish that. I think that I will always be a little nervous before going in for an MRI because I don’t want the tumors to grow, but beyond that time I really don’t think about my tumors that much at all. I do think about them once a day when I do visualization, but after that I try to not focus on it.

Next was to work on my recovery and hopefully reduce my binge episodes. I’m torn on how I did on this goal. I think that I have made some big strides in my recovery and there was some time where my binges were the most infrequent they have ever been, but that didn’t last. I don’t know what I need to do to keep that momentum, but my awareness is higher than ever and I consider that a win. I think this past year I’ve also become more aware of how long this recovery journey may take and that even if it doesn’t feel like I’m taking steps forward I am. I wish that some of my progress was more obvious and the results could be seen, but I think I’ll just have to wait a bit on that. But it’s a good thing that there isn’t a deadline to be recovered.

Next was a money related goal. I wanted to reduce my debt to be at a number that I had in my head. That reduction would have been about 25% of the debt I have and would have been amazing. I didn’t quite make it to that number, but I did get my debt down about 19% which is better than I have done before. This is also after getting a major reduction in my hours at one of my jobs. I went from 12-15 hours a week to 4 which cut my income down a lot. So to be able to reduce my debt that much and re-budget my life with the reduced money coming in is a big step. I wish I could have done more, but I also know that the circumstances weren’t easy and to reduce the debt at all took a lot of work.

I also set a goal to have a new PR in my 5K race. That worked out pretty well for me since I had a new PR at the one 5K I did this year. I had that PR on the course with the hills which usually slows me down. But because I had my running intervals longer that made up for any decrease in speed I had on my hills. To PR is awesome and I’m so happy that I was able to do that. But I was sad that I only had 1 race this year and that I didn’t have another chance to try to improve on that PR. Next year will be weird because neither of the 5Ks I usually do will be happening, but at least I know that I hit my 2017 goal for my races!

And my final goal for this year was to have more fun. I think I totally succeeded in this! I had so many Disney and Universal adventures with friends. I went to a lot of fun parties and just tried to have a lot of fun with the random things of life. And even though dating can be crazy and stressful at times, I’ve been having fun with that too. It does help that I’ve been turning all the bad stories into stories for my book so whenever I have a bad date I think about how funny it will be when someone else reads it. I haven’t gotten serious about anyone yet, but to have fun with dating is something that hasn’t really been in my past before and I’m glad that’s kind of my experience now.

Overall, I think I had more wins than non-successes with my goals. I might not have achieved everything I wanted, but that’s not really what goals are about. If they were all easy to reach then I didn’t set them high enough. I need to be striving for things and not reaching my goals does motivate me to do better. Look at my workouts as an example. I missed my goal in 2016 but far surpassed it in 2017. Missing that goal last year motivated me to do even better this year.

My next few posts will all be about what I’ve got in mind for 2018. I’ve got some big goals again that I’m thinking about and I’m excited to share them next week. But for now, I guess that’s a wrap on posts for 2017! It was a great year for me and I’m so grateful for you all following me on my journey! Have an awesome NYE (and please don’t drink and drive!) and hopefully we all have an incredible start to 2018!

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A NaNoWriMo Update (or Maybe I Need More Dates)

Posted on November 29, 2017 | 2 comments

At the beginning of the month, I shared how I was going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. I was going to use the month to work on writing the book I planned on writing about my adventures in online dating. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed when the month started, but I figured that I didn’t have to hold myself to the daily goals of NaNoWriMo and just could work on a story every day.

I had been taking notes on the stories that I wanted to write and it seemed like it would take forever to get through it. But I felt better when I had the idea broken down into chunks and I decided that until I got started that it would continue to feel like a huge task. So I got started on the stories and fortunately they seemed to be easy to write and it didn’t take me too much time to get each story done. It was a bit fun to remember the crazy things that have happened to me. And it helped me reflect on how much I’ve grown as a person since I’ve put myself out there more and that I’m much stronger now than I was earlier this year.

I rarely worked on more than one story a day. It seemed better to focus on one a day and it allowed me to write the story and do some edits the same day. I didn’t have to spend too long working on it so it never felt like a task. But then I ran into a bit of a problem.

I ran out of stories to share! I could technically write about more horrible people, but I did try to lump in some of the smaller stories into a single story. There is no reason for me to write about each guy that called me fat or said something about how I was an item on the bucket list for types of girls they wanted to go out with. Those could be combined and that seemed to be the best thing for how the flow of the book was going.

There are still 2 stories I haven’t written. Both are guys that I’m still seeing a bit so I don’t know how things will end. And I don’t want to work on their stories too much yet because I think the tone of it will be based on what happens with them. If one of them says something horrible to me, I’ll be more suspicious of things leading up to that than I would be if things just end because they reach a natural end. One of those stories is probably going to be a longer one and the other may or may not be a longer one (it just depends on how many more dates I have with him).

But even if both of those stories are long ones, my book is pretty short. If I printed it without those stories, it’s only 50 pages long and that includes the cover and chapter page. That’s a tiny book and I know that if I ever want to do something with it the book probably needs to be longer. I have no idea if I will ever try to publish it, but I have had some screenwriter friends express interest in it to turn into a series or something else. But no matter what I do with it, I know that if I want it to be more than just something for me that I need it to be a more substantial book.

I could go back and try to expand stories. I’ve already started to do that and have gone through several edits on multiple stories. I know there is more that I can do, but I probably need to step away from it for a little bit before I can view it again with fresh eyes and new ideas.

Of course, the other idea is that I just need to go on more dates. I’m still not seeing someone seriously and unless one of the guys I’m seeing now ends up being someone who I end up being serious with (and that’s not necessarily going to be the case), I will have more dates in my future. I’ve been less active with the dating apps lately due to my schedule and the holidays. But I’m trying to get better at it again because I want to keep meeting new guys. I don’t like dating lots of different guys, but I know that I need to do that if I want to find someone to eventually marry. I don’t meet people at work (since I work from home) or in my workouts, so online dating really is the best way for me to meet new people.

Of course, if one of the guys I’m seeing now ends up being something serious, that’s fine and I’ll end the book that way. I don’t have to sell the book, but if I do I know I can always have it as a novella and it can be a short book. I don’t expect to sell this book and make a ton of money on it, so a novella is always an option.

But I don’t feel like my story is done yet. I think there are plenty of adventures still out there for me and when they do happen I know I’ll have to write them down. I’m glad I didn’t feel the pressure to stick with the NaNoWriMo targets and that this book is going to be something I continuously work on. I have what I hope will be a majority of it done so adding stories as they happen won’t feel as overwhelming to me anymore.

A year ago, I had no idea that all these adventures would happen to me. While some of them still make me mad, I know that they all happened for a reason. And I guess that reason for some of them is so I could turn the stories into a book. And one day, hopefully this will be something I can share with others and people will get some entertainment out of my adventures.

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Trying NaNoWriMo (or Kind Of Another Monthly Challenge)

Posted on November 3, 2017 | 2 comments

Even though I just shared my monthly challenge, I’ve actually found another one and this one has to be done this month. National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) is from November 1-30 and even though I missed the beginning of it I’ve decided to see how many days this month I can do it.

I had started working on a book about online dating a while ago, but I haven’t really worked on it much since then. I’ve meant to work on it, but it just hasn’t happened. I have updated things as I’ve had new stories that I knew I wanted to have in the book, but I know that I need to start writing my stories before I forget some of the details. And doing NaNoWriMo seems to be the perfect thing to help motivate me to work on the stories.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That is about 1667 words a day. I don’t really know how that will look in terms of the book I want to work on, but I think that could be some of the stories I have. I was using some old blog posts as ideas and they average about 1000 words. So doing more than a blog post isn’t going to be possible for each story I have to share, but many of them could easily be longer than that. I don’t want to have to hold myself to doing 1667 words a day because I don’t necessarily want to have to do a story and a half in a day, but it’s a good goal to have as an average.

So my idea for NaNoWriMo is to hopefully write one of my stories a day. As of right now, I don’t have 30 stories I want to share but I have to think about things and see if there are more swipe left stories (or guys that I didn’t want to meet) that I could add. There are so many guys that have started chatting with me and then said something that made me never want to talk to them again but I haven’t really thought about putting any of those stories in. All of my swipe left stories are guys that I was going to meet or there was something funny that happened. Sadly, guys that say gross things is a common thing and they don’t each deserve a story.

I have had some friends do NaNoWriMo in the past and they have worked on their books religiously and did accomplish the goal of writing a draft of their book within the month. While I would love to say that I’m going to work on the book every day, I know that it isn’t necessarily going to be possible. I have a feeling that when I’m with my family at Thanksgiving that I might be too busy between working my day job and being with family that I won’t be able to write. But I will have my laptop with me so writing will be possible if I find the time.

While I loved the idea of writing a book when it came to me, it has scared me a bit. It’s almost the same feeling I had when I started this blog and the best way to fix that was to jump right in and not think twice. With the book, since it isn’t being shared as I write I didn’t feel the same pressure to make sure I did it. But having the word count updates on NaNoWriMo should help to create that same pressure that I need to work. And hopefully the more that I work on it the less scary it is to me.

I have no clue what I’d do if I finish the book. So many friends have said I should publish it because my stories are so crazy. I don’t know if I would do that or how to do it, but it’s a fun idea. But I really just want to finish the book so that I can say it’s done and then I can figure out what to do with it. And I’m hoping that my crazy stories will be slowing down so if I have any more stories to add after it’s done that it will be a quick update. I’m guessing what I have to do right now is going to be a majority of the book and that’s a big hill to climb. But I know I can do it.

Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo? Or have you done it in the past? I’d really love some advice on what helped you because this is a new journey for me and I know that having some tricks or tips can make this easier to accomplish.

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