What the heck happened to The Single Mom???

First, I have to say that I have had so many sweet comments from readers, whether here, Twitter or Facebook, readers checking in on me, asking what the heck happened to me and sharing their love.  It means more than I have words to express, so all I CAN say is thank you.  I’m deeply humbled that you care.

Secondly, is that looking back on my posts I feel like a different person now … my sassy has been replaced with stressy and my swag has been replaced by feeling like a hag.  Ok, maybe a little exaggeration, but you get the idea.  I see glimpses of myself sometimes but right now my game face is on.

Of course, the most obvious question is “why” and I’ll try to answer that as best as I can.   In a nutshell, my ex has over the past several months become a deadbeat dad, putting more stress on me and to be blunt, creating financial havoc for my boys and me.   The Single Mom a year ago had a carefree bravado, sparkly lipgloss and high heels to match, today I feel like a heart attack waiting to happen and I’m just trying to survive.   

  

I’ve been busy with all the legal stuff and trying to find extra ways to make money in my free time, what free time?   To be short, my life is a hot mess and I go from crying that he has done this to our boys one moment to being a total bitch and wanting to cut his manhood off with a rusty pocket knife the next.

My concern for finances is one part but I also am raising two future (potential) dads and I don’t want them to see this as an example of fatherhood.  If anything, maybe they see me as a workaholic and their dad is a 49 going on 12, but I’d be all over their little, hairy, white asses if they were doing this as grown men.  

The purpose of me starting this blog was entertainment, information and hope for single parents everywhere.  I wanted to share my hope with you and to try to encourage people to start over and be optimistic about it.   I’ve been through a lot of heartbreak and I wanted to be a positive voice.   

Unfortunately, I’m not there right now myself.  I’m scared, angry and dating is the last thing on my mind right now.   Well, sorta… there is a guy I’m interested in and I think he is also, but I’m trying to hang back a little.  I’ve also met a friend who is going through a divorce now and I know he wants more but we are both in the wrong place to start something.   It’s funny how when you say you aren’t dating that it’s almost more of a challenge or something… hmmm…   But, I’m all business right now and sadly dating isn’t really much more than a passing thought. 

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know why I’ve disappeared and to let you know what’s been going on.   I also wish all the moms out there, especially my sister single moms a Happy Mother’s Day.   I hope things look up for me soon.    We have a court date soon and I hope my ex gets a new one ripped by the judge and that he gets a job, crazy idea... I know.  

It's really made me rethink how unfair it is for deadbeat parents can get away with this bad behavior.  It's been one thing that my ex didn't participate in being a dad, but not paying support was just a new level of douchebaggery.  It makes me want to do something positive to bring awareness and support for single parents everywhere.  As usual, I don't think small...

I appreciate all the well wishes and support.  A few of you have really been great friends and have been holding me up, especially Sean.  I appreciate all the thoughtfulness and I'm so grateful for all of your friendship.   Thank you so much and I hope I'm back to sassy and my usual naughtyness soon.

Smooches,

The Single Mom

Find a Date on Facebook? Good Luck with That

Within just a few clicks on Facebook, you can enter a new world of checking out potential dating prospects.   

I’d seen these ads on Facebook so many times and finally decided to see what it was all about.  Of course my first question was that it wouldn’t show up on my Facebook page so that everyone would know I was doing it.  Check.   

Secondly, it was free so I decided to check it out.  If nothing else so that I could check it out and let you know about it.

A couple of clicks later and I was in business, several pictures of men in about my age range popped up on one side of my screen.  I’m not one to make a first move and I didn’t want to go through  pictures; I just wanted to see what kind of response I would get.   So, after just a few minutes, I closed my laptop for the night and truthfully forgot about it.

In the morning, I awoke to a slew of messages and pictures of men who “like me”.  

Basically how it works is that someone can see your profile picture, click on it and see a very abbreviated version of your Facebook profile.   It’s basically your first name, age, city and some of the interests that are filled out on your profile.   It’s really basic stuff, maybe the version that you pay for has more data, I’m not sure.  However,  the free version doesn’t give away a lot, which is a good thing.

Anyone interested in your picture and profile can click that they like you, send you a message, a virtual gift (which is like a cheesy badge) or a wink.  

I was honestly surprised at the amount of mail I had the next morning which was good.  However, a lot of them weren’t feasible because they lived out of state or even out of the country, or were just even close to being someone I’d be attracted to.    

I’d say the ratio of men I could realistically be interested in was about 1 out 10.  Again, I’m not extremely picky but for example, one of the men who contacted me looked like Santa’s twin, sitting down backwards in a chair trying to pose in a sexy way.  A couple of them were a LOT older than me, one had his picture taken without a shirt (which wasn’t really a good idea), one guy looked like a total hillbilly, his face turned to the side smoking a cigarette, another was sporting a handgun.   I’m not saying I have to have perfect, but these dudes were not even close. 

After a few days of doing this it was sad to see how many of them would send me multiple messages several days in a row, trying to somehow change my mind.  It was really pathetic, truth be told. 

I kept thinking that ok, I’m doing this for research so I could just give it a shot and see if there was anyone “normal”.    There were a couple of men that seemed nice enough and lived in my city at least, so after they had clicked that they “liked me” I did the same.  You then become a “match”,  whatever that means. 

So, I did start to talk to someone and he was attractive and “normal”.    We eventually traded phone numbers, became Facebook friends and even went on a date.  I’ll have to tell you more about that next time…

Thanks for reading and I hope you’re having lots of romance and passion in your life!

Smooches!

The Single Mom

Getting to Know You... Getting to Know All About You (meh)

So, this is one of the parts of dating that I hate the most… getting to know someone new all over again.    It’s hard after just ending a relationship to meet someone new and invest all the time again memorizing facts about them, getting to know his likes and dislikes, etc.    I’m being extra selective and only answering a few emails, and at a slow pace at that. 

Before my last relationship, I took a few months off of dating to clear my head.   When I came back to dating, I met someone I really started to like relatively soon.  It was just really easy to like him, we connected and it was simple.  At least until his feet became cold… same story different day. 

Now, I’m out there online again trollin, reading emails and profiles and kinda just going through the motions.   I’ve traded a few emails here and there, been slow to take it to the next step and hovering a little.  

I’m basically just dipping my toe in the water knowing I should put more effort into it, it’s just I’m not really gaga about anyone right now.   I’m slow to respond back and I get bored if they don’t catch my attention off the bat.  Maybe it isn’t nice but I don’t want to go out with someone unless he can carry on a conversation.    

On the site, I’ve been contacted by a few exes in the past week.   I responded to one, didn’t like his approach and just started ignoring him.  The others I simply ignored from the start.   One exceptionally douchy exboyfriend  is on the dating site and his Facebook relationship status is “In a relationship” .  He emailed me asking me out again, so I did a little look-see to his Facebook page and saw pictures of his girlfriend and him.  Oh, and here’s how classy he is, his picture on the dating site is the same one as his Facebook picture, just she’s cropped out of it.   Classy, huh?   

I signed up on a new dating site only to be matched up with “Man Candy” (my most recent exboyfriend) only days after we broke up.    Don’t you love it when that happens?  Nope, not really…  it’s a big shit sandwich.   The funny part is according to all of these scientific dating questions, we are practically a perfect match.   Ya, well someone should have told that to “Man Candy” before he got cold feet.    

I’ve been busy and that’s a part of why I’m so distant.  Someone will truly have to catch my attention to get through all the layers that I’m using to protect myself.    At work we were really busy and then a natural disaster happened in our area.   We were then approached to do a big (and keeps getting bigger) fundraising concert.   So, my time to date is even more rationed at the moment.  

I had to go to the site where the tornado happened and it had a profound emotional impact on me for some reason.  I saw houses reduced to rubble, furniture scattered around like loose change and talked to people whose lives were changed forever.    

Seeing all of this devastation made me reevaluate life and just how fragile it can be. 

It also made me miss the friendship and romantic feelings I had for “Man Candy”.    Although I tried to talk myself out of it, I texted him a simple text , “I miss you”.    It felt honest and even though it put me in a vulnerable position to not hear back from him, I did it anyway.    I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t hear back from him, although I’m pretty sure he misses me too, at least a little bit.

I guess for the moment I need to focus on the important things in my life.  Maybe this charity project is more important than me dating.  It’s doing good work and will help people and maybe I have to accept that perhaps it’s a better use of my time right now. 

It feels like I keep being forced to learn new things, be smarter and better about this whole love business.  Yet, I just want to let love find me really.  I want to be sure and I want to have butterflies in my stomach again.   All that good stuff is worth waiting for and being choosy, at least that’s what I’m telling myself to get through it. 

Thanks as always for reading and for your comments!

Smooches,

The Single Mom

Alone at Last with "Man Candy" ... Sweet and Bitter

Things have been progressing well with “Man Candy”.  He’s a unique man because he hasn’t pressured me to have sex with him, we talk (not text) a lot and it seems like we are both looking for the same things.   From early on, although the attraction was strong, we agreed not to rush into sex.   The monumental third date came and went without knocking boots and things were going along at a great pace.   We ended the night with a hot and heavy public makeout session against my car, goodbyes were exchanged but no clothing was removed. 

After the first few dates went well, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, we were falling into a rhythm of him calling me every night, texting me first thing every morning, some kind of weekend plans assumed.  We had fun on our dates and we genuinely enjoyed our time together.   

This would now be our fifth date, I had an empty home for the evening and we made plans to finally spend private time together.   I was looking forward to having some quiet time with him and having him in my home.  

My stomach and my nerves weren’t as happy about tonight as my mood.   All day at work my stomach was tied up in knots and I felt nervous thinking of the possibility of him seeing me naked for the first time.   Gulp. 

To only add more pressure, he is a lifelong athlete and works out regularly.   I’m neither  of those, yet he is attracted to curvy women and I’m working on… how shall I say this… um… smoothing out the curves a little?  Yes, perfect.  I’m on a little diet, and trying to lose a few here and there (but not there... ;). 

My ex played the spoiler when he was being stubborn about picking up our son on time.   He seemed to always sense when to pull off a move like this and his timing was perfect to make the night more complicated. 

As I was doing the mad dash to hide sneakers, errant school books and run the vacuum, I thought a lot about how easy it has been being with “Man Candy” and how he has seemed interested since day one and not given me reason to doubt that.   He has been somewhat concerned about the amount of time that I have to work and not being able to spend a lot of time together because of it.   We haven’t had one minute of drama or even anger in the four weeks we’ve been together.   It’s just been so easy.  

He seems happy, there have been no “L” bombs dropped (Love) and I’m not sure I’m feeling it, just yet.  I’m convinced I could without too much but I’m trying to contain my emotions for the moment.   I definitely feel attached to him and I look forward to hearing his voice every night, and when we do say goodnight on the phone, I have to concentrate to NOT say “I love you” because it feels like it could slip out.

Our experiences with dating have been similar, he’s been dating about 7 years just like me and although we haven’t traded a lot of war stories, we have talked about how hard it has been.    He told me that he’s changed his expectations of finding a perfect woman and has more realistic expectations now.   Enter me and my many imperfections… 

Earlier this week, he casually brought up how excited his son was to meet me, that he’s told him about me and I’m stunned.  It feels like a big step, but things have been moving so smoothly that it feels right.   This is a big deal to me and makes me feel more confident that he’s sees us working.

Tonight’s date feels like a step forward, a big one and I’m admittedly scared and texted him so during the day as we were finalizing our night’s plans.  He comforts me, but my mind flashes to thinking of everything I have to get done when I get home and getting showered and ready for him. 

The time went fast and I was going to just have to rush through my makeup and hair.  The phone rang and he told me he was at the exit and would just be a few minutes.   Once I heard his voice, I felt relieved but had a lot to do. 

I threw on some jeans, heels and a sexy blouse.   After, I lit a few candles around the house, put some ice in glasses and had a quick drink, the doorbell rang.   I opened the door and he just smiled at me and came inside.  He swept his arms tightly around me and kissed me hard.  He held my face in his hands as his mouth covered mine.    We shared several long kisses before I stopped him and took him by the hand and led him into the kitchen for a drink. 

He helped himself and made drinks for both of us which we took to the family room and sat together on the couch.  It was like our nightly routine of catching up about our days, except we were face to face, his arm around me and my legs draped over his.  

I was intentionally casual, not fussing too much and just trying to make him feel like he was at home.  It was easy being together and we were comfortable just hanging out, watching tv.   

Moments of hot and heavy making out were contrasted with moments of handholding or snuggling on the couch.  The night was what I wanted it to be, casual, romantic and passionate.   It was comfortable having him here and he made himself at home right away.  

When it was time to go to bed, it felt like going to bed for the hundredth time together, not the first.  After brushing teeth, we turned down the bed and kissed goodnight.    As we were kissing, his hands and mouth moved over my body and mine over his.  We made passionate love and were both satiated and fell asleep in each other’s arms.   It was perfect and it felt good to make our couple status "official".

 

It wasn’t a restful night’s sleep for either one of us, he had a lingering cough and I had trouble sleeping the night through, for some reason.    We kissed a lot in the morning, the smell of coffee and bacon setting the scene for a cozy start of the day.   

He seemed a little cranky which I attributed to not feeling well.   He made comments about my suburban neighborhood and how boring it was and poked at me for a picture hanging a little crooked on my wall.  He seemed a little off and I didn’t make too much of it. 

We talked for a few minutes and his tone was unusually serious when we talked.  He asked a lot of questions about how much I work and seemed a little concerned.  He seemed satisfied with my answers, and headed off to pick up his son, kissing me as he left. 

Through the morning, I couldn’t wipe off the smile on my face, it seemed right that we waited to take this step together.   Warm and fuzzy thoughts of our future and us spending time together came to mind as hope started to seep into my heart.   For the first time since I met him, I felt like I could love him and that we were off to a good start. 

During the day, I texted him a couple of times and didn’t get answers back quickly.  Although this was odd, I wasn’t too alarmed.   I was still replaying the night before in my mind and catching myself grinning.  After a few hours of still not hearing from him, I texted him asking him directly what was wrong.  My phone rang instantly with his call and I pulled over to take his call. 

I was stunned to hear what he had to say.   He expressed serious concerns about how much I work and that my life doesn’t have a good balance.    For the first time, we addressed a lot of the challenges I’ve been facing recently with my ex not working and how I feel so much stress to work extra hard.   I told him about my blog for the first time and how much it matters to me, how much time I put into it and why and how it was a part of my dream.   He asked a lot of questions and seemed to process the conversation from every angle.  

My mouth dropped open wide when he revealed that he didn’t know if he saw us being together based on all of this.  I shared my thoughts but wasn’t going to plead.   I told him I was willing to make some changes but there were some that were outside of my control at the moment.  I explained that I love what I do and I’m a part of building a small company.  As we talked I suggested a compromise that I cut out the extraneous projects I do on the side.  He seemed somewhat appeased but still held on to being skeptical. 

He mentioned that he felt that things seemed to be moving fast all of a sudden and I immediately objected that he would say that since he was mostly the one setting the pace.

We’ve talked since and traded some texts and have decided to not see each other, at least for now.  I’m not one to go back to an ex, so I don’t see being together down the road.   I’ve told him that this is a temporary time of my life and he is being impatient and unfair with this decision.  He acknowledges it and has said that it’s very likely that he will regret letting me go.  

He told me all along that he hasn’t met a woman that cared about him as much as me in a very long time, and he said it again.  However, he didn’t see a future together and we should say goodbye. We didn’t fight, had no drama saying goodbye, we respect each other a lot and knew we were both hurting. 

I’ve had a few days to process this and it still doesn’t add up to anything other than fear on his part.   I miss him terribly every day at 10:00, which was when he called me and I feel a huge loss.   The frustrating part is that I’ve made the mistake to be sexual with someone too quickly and it blew up in my face, and this time I did things right with the same result.   

I guess the only thing that is remotely a good outcome from this is that for the first time I was somehow able to hold onto my heart and not fall deeply in love.  I suppose those scars I’ve accumulated are good for something.

Ironically, a couple of days ago, I signed up for a new dating site and it sent me a handful of people it thought I’d be compatible with, “Man Candy” was one of them.   I’m sure that he received it too and I wondered how he felt about seeing how much we were alike. 

I’m trying hard to let him go, it’s been impossible to sleep through the night and I keep checking my phone for texts that aren’t there.  My workload is getting better but we have a lot of extremely important negotiations right now.  It’s just too bad that he couldn’t be a little more patient and support me until things calm down.    So, my yummy “Man Candy” snack is now just a memory and hopefully in time, recalling him will be sweet, but for today it’s not.

Thanks for reading and for your support.

Smooches,

The Single Mom 

Beers, Passion and Wanting More... A Date with My New Man, "Man Candy"

I’ve been so busy with work and trying to squeeze in some life that I haven’t been able to blog much.  Work has been demanding, working most every day.   I apologize, but it’s been a lot to manage work, being a single parent and a new romance. 

We’ve been out on 5 dates and he definitely deserves a nickname.   He’s a former baseball player and good looking in general, so I’m going to call him, “Man Candy”. 

My first date with Man Candy was a night in an Irish Pub with lots of connection, conversation, stolen kisses and hardcore flirting.  We ended the night with a long kissing sesh and talked about seeing each other again soon.   

In the two weeks that have followed, we’ve been talking on the phone almost every night and had a few more dates.   Our dates have been more of the same kind of connection, lots of kisses through the night and long hot kissing at the end of the evening.

It feels like we’ve been going out for a much longer time than we actually have.   It’s gone smoothly and things have just seemed to flow.  He calls and texts regularly and it feels like we’ve been developing a sincere closeness.  He doesn’t keep me wondering if he’s going to call or text and he seems to be genuinely interested in me and what’s going on in my life.  

The odd thing about all this is I can feel myself holding back some.    We’ve been on a handful of dates and there hasn’t been any R-rated physical activity.   I’m not sure if this is part of the reason I feel like my heart is holding back or if it’s something else.    I’ve been through a lot of heartbreak and although I normally fall in love quickly, this time it’s not happening as easily. 

When we first started talking, we both wanted to wait for intimacy until we were sure about our feelings.  Although this is a good thing and I appreciate him not pouncing on me, it’s throwing me off a little and it’s a tad confusing to not be waking up and facing bad decisions.    We talk through things that bother us face to face and don’t have to slink out of a bedroom, panties in hand, avoiding eye contact and feeling regret the next day.

The physical connection between us is strong.  It honestly feels like a high school romance, lots of hot making out and flirty texting between dates.   When we are out, the passion between us is probably borderline offensive.  We kiss a lot, he runs his fingers through my hair and our hands are all over each other.    We are playful and flirty and the desire to be together is obvious.  He’s sexy and our kissing sessions are extremely passionate.    We communicate well, have respect for each other and the passion is there so I don’t understand why I feel like something’s missing.

As I’m getting ready for our fourth date, I’m excited and nervous.   Our flirting has gotten more intense and I haven’t seen Man Candy for a week.    At work all day long, I fought off jitters and planned in my mind what to wear.    My mind slipped into several daydreams during the day and I wondered if things were going to progress past the PG-13 zone tonight.   

We made plans to meet for a drink on a Friday night and because of traffic and crappy weather, I was running late.  I didn’t have a lot of time to get ready after getting the kids off for the night and getting home from work.   I threw on a slinky black blouse that showed a lot of cleavage, more so than anything I’ve worn with him before.   I pulled on jeans and heels and rushed out the door only to be stuck in slow moving Friday night traffic.

Having more time in the car to think was not a good thing.  Over and over I kept processing how the night would go and it made my stomach tie up in knots.   I was late and apologized profusely for it.  His response was to instantly scoop me up in his arms and kiss me passionately, erasing my guilt about being late.

I felt instantly relaxed from the hurry of getting there, ordered a drink and sat down next to him.   Within a few seconds my whole body felt warm and comfortable.   We teased each other, flirted, talked and watched a basketball game together.   I’d been working long hours for the past couple of weeks and it was a lot for us to catch up on.

The hectic day was finally behind me and it felt natural being with him.   We kissed a lot and he tucked his hand inside my back pocket.    The crowd at the bar was more of a 20’s or 30’s YP group, drinking heavily and I’m sure two middle aged people making out was not what they wanted to see, ha ha.   We didn’t care and didn’t hide our affection for each other.   

We held eye contact and the attraction between us was obvious.  I drank more than I normally do and felt uninhibited.   The laughter, conversation and flirting were kicked up a notch.  It felt good to let my guard down with him and I could trust that he wouldn’t take advantage of me.  The night slipped away fast and changing my drink to water was a good choice. 

He walked me to my car as I tiptoed through the gravel parking lot in my heels, trying to maintain my balance and trying even harder to not fall on my ass.   Once we were inside my car, his hand was firmly on the back of my head, pressing my mouth onto his.   We were kissing harder, touching each other and my body wanted more.   We stopped kissing after a few minutes as we collected ourselves and decided that it should end for the night.   

I drove him across the street to his car and we had a long goodnight kiss as we said our goodbyes.   The 20 minute drive home was a time for me to check my hormones and consult my brain.  Although my body was screaming for more, my mind was telling me that it was good to be taking things slowly.    

What we have although passionate and sexy has also some more substance and I’m excited about seeing him again soon.  

Thanks for reading and being patient with me through this hectic time!

Smooches,

The Single Mom

Next time: what happens on our most recent date, and a big heart to heart talk...

A Long Distance Love Story: Frankie & Jim

This is a guest post from a fellow Blogger, Frank (her nickname).  She writes a blog called Just Call Me Frank, sharing her life through the lens of living with Multiple Personality Disorder.  It is a very personal dialogue about her experiences and I encourage you to visit her blog.  She and I met on Twitter and instantly became friends.  This post is about her finding the love of her life and how I was involved in putting these two people together.   It's a very touching and warm Valentine's Day post and I hope it inspires you as it does me.  ~  Smooches... The Single Mom

We were asked by Single Mom’s Dating Diary (@singlemomdate) to write about our romance with our boyfriend, the man she introduced us to on Twitter, back in May of 2011; even though we are neither single, nor a mom.

Most of us are not the mushy type, but in honour of Valentines we will do what we can to paint you an accurate and romantic picture of the progression of our relationship with James, the love of “our” life. <insert *gag*>

First of all, if you don’t know who the “we”, in we is, then you should probably check out our blog for info. In short we struggle, live with, sometimes enjoy, a life with a mental condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

James, our boyfriend, met Single Mom when he started reading her blog the early months of 2011, he started to follow her on Twitter, we know very little on the specifics but she subsequently directed him to our blog, we had been writing a lot about dating in the later months of 2010, where he read about our life and all the other strange and odd things we write about daily.

The story on his end goes like this: James read many entries in our blog, absorbed our writing, and then started following us on Twitter. One day got up the nerve to leave us a comment on our blog, thereby drawing attention to him. We started watching him on Twitter, with all the other followers we had, we only paid him minimal attention. At first we were only mildly curious about him, honestly we thought him odd. Turns out he’s just British. <insert laughter>

At the time we were going through a bought of un-medicated insomnia so our six hour time zone difference didn’t seem so bad, he flirted with us occasionally, and we flirted back. He’d send us e-mails on occasion, commenting on things, asking questions, agreeing with us that Natural Born Killers was one of the better romance films he’d seen; continuing to read our blog daily. Eventually we began to talk about potentially meeting, and then decided we should have a date on Skype.

We had planned to not pursue relationships any longer after the last one we had ended, decided to come out publicly about our mental illness and work slowly toward helping raise mental health awareness, and writing about our life. We knew we would never be able to keep the Us, and our “illness” a secret from any man we ever dated again, realizing it wouldn’t be right to date a man, then after weeks, months, tell him we were ill. We resolved to a life of being single and only casually dating men, having “alternative” style of relationships. We also didn’t want a relationship for reasons to do with privacy (we like being alone), and complications that might arise because of the way we decided to live, honestly, with no more hiding, so we could heal, come to terms with our history of abuse, and work towards a healthy life for us.

We agreed to a Skype date with James, deciding “why not”, he lives so far away after all, and if we were seriously going to have him visit in the future we should get to know him on Skype. On our first Skype date he drank red wine while we enjoyed a bottle of white, and ate our dinner of pork chops, 6 hours in a different time zone, thousands of miles apart.  We had a good date, and he asked to see us again. We told him maybe in a couple of days; days later we had our second date. It quickly turned into seeing each other every day, on Skype; we would talk, getting to know each other, play on the computer together, he would stare at us all silly on the bad Skype connection. For weeks it went on and we started discussing meeting in person and then we invited him to come visit us. He was excited and did what he could to fly to us as soon as he could. We were still not interested in a relationship; we couldn’t look past the distance, and the difficulty not only with our illness, but also immigration issues. Being the adventurous type, and willing to try anything we thought why not, he was nice enough, and willing to pay his way.

In July 2011 we met James at the local airport; we were excited, slightly nervous. He was better looking in person than on the computer. Our first kiss was seconds after see each other, in the international arrival room of the airport. Someone nearby made a snide comment about “kids”, we didn’t care. After weeks of dating online we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other.

We’ll spare you the sexy details that followed, but after weeks of online Skype dating; and no, there was no naked Skype escapades, in case you were assuming, only one of us is that kind of girl, and we kept he under control as best we could; and not being able to touch each other, connecting on a level uninterrupted by physical touch…need we say more?

He stayed with us for five weeks, ”fortunately” we had gotten fired from our job the week he was to arrive, and so the first couple of weeks until we found another job we go to spend a lot of time with him, and got to know him really well.

He told us he loved us one day shortly after he arrived, sitting on the sofa in our apartment, a day he’ll likely remember forever, because he professed his love to the “wrong” one of us (Cassandra) whose response was expressing her desire for a hotdog.  He laughs about it, but we are sure it wasn’t the way he’d seen that going.

A couple of days later he asked us to be his girlfriend, and we told him “no” at first. We are adventurous, but also logical on occasion. After some emotional conversation over it we decided to discuss it and talked out the semantics about how it might work, living in different countries, and neither of us being wealthy to afford several flights a year. In the end we decided it would be something we could try.

We spent the next few weeks as boyfriend and girlfriend(s), it was both amazing and difficult, difficult because it caused a lot of headaches, literally, for us, as is sometimes common in our particular disorder during high activity, stress and changes.

The day came when he had to get on a plane. Saying goodbye was hard. He promised to try to come back as soon as he could, ­he cried, we held tough, holding him at the international departures door, reassuring him he would be back soon, and it would be okay; waiting until he entered international departures, and we turned away, before we allowed the built up tears to stream down our cheeks.

It was only a month before he made it back, a long month for some, and he promised he never wanted to be away from us for that long again…and the rest…well, the rest is history, and the future. Seven long and event filled months after we made our relationship with him official we now find ourselves living temporarily in England with him. We’ll be going back to the states in the spring where he plans to immigrate, to live with us permanently.  He calls us his angels, and he is, for some of us, our knight in shining armour.

The most important thing we did, looking back over the months we were single, was finally dealing with a lifetime of baggage, condensing it, eliminating some of it; working on ourselves, and changing the way we approached dating and relationships. It’s important to be happy with you, accept whoever you are, to not go into every date thinking they “might be the one” because in doing that you are doing a disservice to the one who is truly “the one” …not to mention putting immense pressure on the situation.  

We try to have a fairly open and transparent relationship with him. We value honesty, even if it’s hard, it beats the pain of the opposite, the pain of secrets. James knows a relationship with us isn’t going to be easy, but he loves us, he loves who we are, and is willing to work at it. He knows we don’t all love him, he knows when he feels the urge to tell us he loves us, he may not be getting an “I love you” in return. He knows that a good relationship required work, and communication, just like a friendship. No relationship is organic.

We are happy we took the time to start dealing with our issues, to be stronger together, to be who we are, to learn to love ourselves, because how can you expect someone to love you, if you don’t love yourself.

Love yourself.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

~Frank et al

We, most of us anyway, want to thank Single Mom  for introducing us to the love of our life. For her beautiful soul we can only wish the same.