"These boots were made for walking..."

 (Nancy Sinatra)

12/2/21:

Last week, I had a boyfriend for exactly 7 days. We went on 2 dates, wrote many texts, and had one phone call per day until Thanksgiving, his birthday, where I called him in the morning to surprise him, and after that we had two phone calls per day. 

After the second date, I un-matched on the app, and blocked his phone number, I was so frustrated. Luckily, he found me on WhatsApp to say he realized that I had blocked him and to whimper "I would never block you." I say luckily because in all the ghosting that's been going on, it gave me a chance to get some closure, and to really break up with the words I wanted to say. 

No. I didn't want [redacted]. 

No. I didn't want him to just turn on my TV for background. 

No. I didn't want him to offer once to pay for the meal that I ordered on my computer and not INSIST. (The money isn't the issue, the manners are.)

AND No, I didn't want someone who said one thing and did something else. 

I wanted to eat out, he wanted to eat in, I caved. I wanted pasta, he wanted pizza, I caved. And so I was hating us both by the end of the evening, every time I said no and he didn't listen. I let things go farther than I wanted them to, yes, but I didn't give him a second chance to fool me with a third date. 

I heard something at a wedding this summer that has stayed with me. The pastor said there are three things before the bride today: the aisle, the altar, and him. If she's not careful, she'll carry these things with her into the marriage: "I'll alter him." Boy did that stick with me, because I have tried to change, waited for change, prayed for change. No longer. I am a fifty year old woman, do not cross me. 

Fortunately, there had been a lot of fuss--folks in an online support group thought he was catfishing me. Somewhere in there (when? where?) I got whiff that he might be a narcissist. So I knew what all the red flags were, because I read a million and one internet articles. 

What did I learn? That I do want a relationship. Just not with him, or his type. 

12/10/21 update:

My therapist's take: he's not a narcissist, he's just French. Europeans (and French in particular) have different ideas on dating and sex. Oh--gotcha. Because, yeah. 

He did give me a gift, though. I want to date now. I liked having a boyfriend. So along with going out with girlfriends tonight to dinner and Christmas lights, I'm going on a photo walk tomorrow and dinner at my favorite fast food joint, PANERA. With two different guys!! I don't plan to date the last two weekends of the year (Christmas/NYE) so I'll get it in this weekend! My subscription to Match runs out middle of January, so then I have to decide what to do. 

I was chatting online with this one guy but we were becoming pen pals and he finally cut me loose, that he didn't want to lead me on. Well, his mom just died two weeks ago, so he's not really "available" and I've been there before. I spent six months with a guy whose mom had recently died, about ten years ago. Believe me, it was not fun. (See "aisle alter him," above.)

Also, the new "chapter" of SATC (Sex and the City) has dropped on HBO. All the episodes. I only watched the first one. But boy, did they try to cram EVERYTHING into that one episode. More on that later, maybe.