The Official Weekend Singles Thread

Presented to you by OhioWfan, Kate of Spice Island, and Maximus Ridiculousness.

Kate and Phil's Story of Love and Marriage

Phil and I first met back in the teen years when I started working at a local drive-in movie theatre where he was employed. There was a "no dating coworkers" policy and we were both into following (some) rules and didn't want to get fired, so we were just friends instead.

Apparently, we were both interested in each other, but too shy/insecure/whatever...to say anything, but we became friends.

I remember going to his house and he to mine when we were still in high school, but he was older and went off to college. During a few of his weekend visits, we went on a few dates, but then I didn't see him again for a good four or five years.

By then I was married AND pregnant, but ran into Phil at work, so it was strange (for both of us apparently) in the wishful thinking at that time. From time to time, I would go by his work and say hi when we were in town. By the time my marriage was definitely over (but I still had hopes of it not being over) Phil had gotten married and although his marriage was heading for over...neither of us was willing to admit that we were

separated from our spouses and divorces were filed.

We each went about our lives and once he changed jobs, I had no clue where he was. (Prior to that, where I would visit was a place where I would also visit my bestest high school friend's father as he worked in another department.)

Meanwhile, he had been looking for and looking up former classmates and one in particular that I also happened to know. This mutual friend had lived away from where we are now and I had all but given up talking to him ever again, when on a whim I looked him up in the phone book (kind of a one last time deal, as I couldn't remember Phil's last name, I didn't look him up and even if I remembered, I probably could have never spelled it...)

So, lo and behold, our mutual friend was listed and had been for a few years and I gave him a call. Meanwhile, between classmates.com and a high school reunion, Phil and our mutual friend had been talking and e-mailing, and Phil asked him if he knew how to get in contact with me, and the friend gave Phil my e-mail address.

So, our real official long-term dating was cyber dating as Phil had moved to TX and I was in Phoenix. We went from the occasional e-mail to IM and phone calls and that evolved to a long distance romance.

I went to Texas and lived with Phil for a year, but knew my heart was with my children and family. Phil was adamant about staying in TX.

Every time Phil asked me to marry him, I asked if he would consider moving to Phoenix. He kept saying no, so I returned to Phoenix.

When I ran away to safety and Phil's care I knew he loved me and would take care of me. When he let me go and let me move back to Phoenix to be with my children, I knew he loved me enough to let me go and be where I belonged.

When he asked me if I would marry him if he moved to Phoenix, he got the answer I wanted to give him all along.

We have been married just over four months and are still working on getting into a life and a routine in Phoenix and still feel like we are trying to get settled in, but we have come a long way together and are looking forward to many years of happiness and joy with my children and grandchild(ren).

For how long we have been friends, and the things we liked about each other, are still there.

Getting used to habits has been hard (I am secretive in general and I also kept a few government secrets for a long time that I don't keep secret any more), but by nature I just have never been a "talker", so that is changing.

He likes reality TV, my reality is like the TV show, "Medium." We both like "24" and wouldn't want it any other way.

We both enjoy sports and look forward to the Cowboys VS Cardinals game later this fall.

We managed to attend the same three schools of higher education, just never were both at any one at the same time.

I think the biggest piece of advice we can offer the single crowd is don't put yourself above dating anyone with "baggage" as you have clearly got "emotional baggage" in the form of selfishness. I know that God didn't make selfishness, but He did make caring and compassion. A heart of gold is worth far more than a free lunch...

When a heart of gold is the heart within, you will find someone for you with that exact same quality.

Did I mention that Phil also is conservative and was busy advocating for Bush before we started to discuss politics? I just loved sending him links to caption Kerry two summers ago.

Barb's Two Cents on Being a Newlywed and Some Advice on Cyberdating

Ahhhh...the bliss of being newly married! What joy! The birds are singing. The bees are buzzing. The flowers are blooming...

Okay, for me our honeymoon was a little different from most. Actually, our wedding was a little different from most. You see, hubby and I eloped (with 40 of our closest friends and relatives) in Reno in 2003—four weeks before he was to deploy to Iraq. We were already engaged, and had planned on a summer wedding, but one cold winter day, hubby got "the call", and three days later we found ourselves in Reno tying the knot.

Our honeymoon consisted of phone calls, emails, letters between here and Iraq—and lots of insomnia. At first it was strange being married to a man who was suddenly 6500 miles away, and it was even stranger that I could talk to him only when he was able to call me (every two to three weeks or so).

And so it went.

Our "real" honeymoon came 18 months later. We spent a week in Vegas (yeah, I know some folks find it a tacky place for a honeymoon, but hubby's never been, and I love the Luxor). We gambled, saw some of the shows, gambled, ate at the various restaurants, gambled, walked the Fremont Street Experience, gambled, got SMASHED in Quark's Bar and harassed a poor Borg and Klingon at the Hilton where they have the Star Trek Experience (we almost got kicked out—but we snapped some hilarious photos), and we gambled some more.

All fun and games aside, our marriage (going on year four now) is a very solid one. Hubby has a heart of gold, and I could not ask for a better man. I would have to say that absence made our marriage grow stronger. We still feel like newlyweds. We are like “kids” with each other. We are the two most happy-go-luckiest-people I know, on the planet.

Some advice on cyberdating.

Back in the day, I was the Queen of Cyberdating. I started meeting men online as far back as 1996. Match.com was the ONLY online dating site (with something like, 200 local members). It took a lot of chatting, meeting bozo after bozo, and dating horrible men who were nothing like their profiles before I realized I was doing everything wrong from the very beginning. By the time I met my hubby in a Yahoo chatroom by total accident (most of you know this story) 5 years later, I had finally learned some very big lessons.

That said, here are some of my do’s and don’ts when it comes to cyberdating:

Be honest about yourself in your profile, and post an accurate, recent picture of yourself. By all means, SMILE. If you don’t, you’ll look angry and unapproachable. Trust me. You’ll want a pic (or several pics) of yourself doing some favorite activity, and at least one nice head-and-shoulder shot.
Be concise and to the point when writing your profile. Be eloquent, and don’t ramble incessantly. Poetry is big turn-off for a lot of people. Unless you are a master, avoid poetry at all costs. You’ll put people to sleep. List your preferences accurately and pick people to chat with who are close to what you’re looking for. Don’t fall for an ultra-liberal America-hating chick…just because she’s really hot.
Try and meet someone who lives within driving distance. Unless you have the time and money to travel, stick to meeting your potential future spouse within a reasonable distance from you. Don’t fall in love with someone you can’t afford to fly out to meet.
Don’t fall in love with the very first nice looking person (whom you know nothing about) who gives you the time of day. Stick to your guns. If you’re looking for your future spouse, keep in mind all of the qualities you are looking for in that person. Don’t ever lose focus.
Sell yourself. Tell your potential future spouse what a great person you are. Don’t be negative or down about yourself. Don’t appear pathetic. Be yourself and put your best foot forward. If you don’t appear to be a reasonably healthy, happy, positive person you’ll scare people away. Trust me.

GIRLS: Meet your potential future spouse in a very public place. For your very first date, only meet for coffee or drinks where you can chat for as long or as short as you are comfortable with. It’s easier to split the scene quickly if you are just sipping something, and not in the middle of dinner or stuck with a loser date in the middle of a 3-hour flick. NEVER leave your drink unattended. Before you use the restroom, finish your drink, or order a new drink once you’re back to your table. By all means, drive yourself to your destination, DO NOT EVER let your date pick you up on your first date. Tell a friend, family member, someone—anyone—where you will be and when you should be home. Take your cell phone with you. Park in a visible area.

This is probably the toughest part about meeting your future spouse—know exactly what you are looking for and settle for nothing less. Do not fall in love with someone's potential, but for who they really are. This was the one mistake I made over and over. Don't ever meet someone and try and fix them later. Also, be realistic. Unless you’re a super hot daddy, don’t go looking for a super hot mama.

It took me years and years of dating the same type of loser with a different name, and one failed marriage to a closet alcoholic, before I finally ‘grew-up’ and decided I would not settle for anything less anymore. Period. I literally sat down and made a list of all the attributes I had to have in a man. In fact, what had happened was I learned the very long and hard way about everything I did not want in a guy through my own personal trial-and-error. (Mostly error.) It was only after this personal epiphany that I met my true-love. And it didn't take long.

Dolly,

I hope that I won't come across as negative or confrontational, but I see some things very differently from the way you do. It's okay if you can't see them my way, but I want to explain myself more fully.

First, I need to say that I'm not a practicing Christian in the way that most of you are. I'm not interested in meeting someone with whom I'm going to attend church every Sunday. I don't tell people that I'll pray for them because I rarely pray. For much of my life, I spent 90 minutes a day in prayer and Bible study. Today, I'll look at the Bible when I'm having a discussion with someone and want to talk about an issue that the Bible covers. I'm touched that you and others say things that show some acceptance of me as if I were one of you, but honesty forces me to state exactly where I am in life.

I reject the notion that my problem is one of trying to put God in my timing. The fact that I've ended up a 42-year-old bachelor is a disaster in my life. My situation cannot be one of God wanting me to be where I am and me just being unhappy with it. I don't like God anymore, but I can't say that I hate Him. If I believed that He wanted me here, I'd have to hate Him. I don't hate God enough to think that He wanted me in this situation. While I agree that being single is better than being in a bad marriage, being single is sometimes different only in the degree of how bad it is.

I'd like to give a couple of examples.

The first is hypothetical, but it has happened enough in real life that I could be describing any number of people that many of us know. In this hypothetical situation, a good Christian woman marries a man from her church while they're both in their 20's. There may not be any warning signs that he's trash. Everyone may have applauded the relationship and the marriage when it began. However, he's trash. He abuses her primarily emotionally but has done some physical damage. He drinks. He cheats. He's not just being irresponsible financially but purposely destroying "their" finances in order to leave her without money and with bad marks on her credit record.

Maybe no one could have seen the warning signs. In some cases, the guy may have turned bad after the marriage began, but many of these men are bad from the beginning. They are able to pass as good people in order to get what they want. Maybe there was no way for her to know to avoid this guy. Ultimately, she still has to bear the responsibility for her decision to marry him, but many factors lead to this situation. Again, I don't hate God enough to believe that God wanted her to be in this situation.

For me, singleness has been the same way. I don't have someone else ruining my finances or inflicting emotional abuse, but loneliness inflicts its own kind of damage. We all take damage differently. If someone put 100 of us in winter clothes except for leaving us barefoot and made us walk five miles in the snow, we'd all have a different level of injury. Some people would finish, wrap their feet in a warm towel, and feel fine within a couple of hours. Others would have numbness in the feet or toes for a day or two but then be fine. For some, the numbness would last a couple of weeks. (I had two or three weeks of numbness once from letting my feet get cold.) For others, the experience would produce frostbite and lead to tissue loss. Some would lose more than others. Some would lose a toe or two. Some might even lose one or both feet. Being single has hurt me more than it has hurt some people and less than it has hurt others. Maybe I'm not as hurt as I would have been in a bad marriage, but the difference is not the difference between right and wrong. The difference between me being single and me being in a bad marriage is a difference between degrees of wrong. I don't hate God enough to think that His will was for me to be single this long.

The first example was about degrees of wrong that we don't always know how to avoid. The second example is about knowing how to avoid the wrong.

I'm an engineer, and I'm a good engineer. I became a good engineer by spending many, many hours studying to be an engineer. I had college friends who had jobs to help put themselves through school. Their study time combined with work time didn't equal the hours that I put into my engineering studies. All of the faith in the world, all of the "trusting God," all of the prayer and Bible study wouldn't have made me an engineer if I hadn't spent those hours sitting at my desk with my books, my mechanical pencils, and my calculator. If I hadn't done what must be done to become an engineer, God might have had another plan for my life, but "trusting God" wasn't going to make me an engineer without those hours of study. If that alternate plan wasn't good for me, the fact that I trusted God but failed to study wouldn't everything right.

A big part of what I've tried to say here is that "trusting God" isn't a substitute for doing what must be done. There's an old joke about a farmer looking at his fields with a friend. The friend says, "You and the Lord really have this place looking good." The farmer replied, "Well, it looks much better now than it did when the Lord had it by Himself." When I was in college and should have been laying the foundation for a marriage as well as my career, plenty of people applauded me for the diligence with which I studied. Their encouragement helped me stay on task to achieve my goals. Unfortunately, many of those same people would applaud my failure to take action towards relationships. Instead, they would encourage me to continue to "trust in the Lord" to handle that part of my life.

Getting back on point, I don't hate God enough to believe that He wanted this situation for me. I'm angry at Him for not giving me crystal clear guidance about what I needed to do. I wish He had sent someone to make absolutely clear to me that I shouldn't accept the spiritual mumbo-jumbo or the "wait" or "trust" advice. He wouldn't have wanted me to end up a homeless bum, but that's what I would be if I hadn't applied myself towards work. By the same token, my being single is not about "God's timing." My being single is about me making mistakes because I followed the wrong advice from people who I thought God was using to guide me. Those were my mistakes and the sins and mistakes of those people, but God's failure to take stronger action means that I may never trust Him again.

Because this post is long, I'll start another one to cover something else that you mentioned.

Bill

BTW all you men out there.. do you know how REFRESHING it is to have a man that has not slept with every woman he has dated? Lack of experience is NOT a hindrance to the right woman.. Do you know how thrilled a woman might be to know she is your first? I think too many men have bought into the mentality that a woman NEEDS some type of sexual genius.. couples learn & grow together..

I can accept that sexual experience isn't necessary for a man to please a woman sexually. I can't speak from experience in this area, but I can understand the theory. Sexual chemistry is supposed to be unique to the individual relationship, so previous experience shouldn't be all that relevant. I guess I still follow much of my Christian background in this regard.

On the other hand, I think that relationship skills are something that one can develop with practice. Even by Christian beliefs, basic relationship skills are not completely unique to each relationship. Failure to develop these skills means being at a disadvantage. The experience of the guy who has had sex with every woman in town may not make him better sexually, but he's probably better at everything that causes a woman to agree to go out for a cup of coffee. Those skills are what gives him the big advantage getting the coffee date.

The woman going on a coffee date with him is missing her chance to be on a coffee date with me. Even if she refuses him sexually, he's gotten further than I will. Even if she doesn't want a permanent relationship with a man like him, his ability to create the chemistry that led to the coffee date is in sharp contrast to my lack of skills in that area.

I'm not blaming him for having skills that I don't have. He's practiced those skills extensively and I haven't. I'm not blaming her for appreciating those skills. I'm just saying that we can't pretend that the experienced guy doesn't have a huge advantage over the inexperienced guy. I'm also re-stating my point that the church does wrong by its young people when it encourages passivity under the guise of "trusting in God." This passivity is a big part of why I didn't develop those skills when I was younger.

Bill

FIRST YOU ARE NOT OLD, TOO OLD, BEYOND A MARRIAGE PARTNER..UNLESS you truly want to be.

One of my favorite movies is Shadowlands.. the love story of CSLewis.. (who BTW was considerably older than you when he met "joy".. his future wife). Do see the flick. It is a true story & the young boy (joy's son) is one of the producers of the recent/successful Narnia.

I'm happy for C.S. Lewis that things worked out. For me, things are different. As far as I'm concerned, nothing that can happen now can be as good as what could have happened if things had gone the way that they should have gone. I've done a great deal of living between my late 20's when I should have married and my early 40's today. Those are times that I should have shared with the right person. The idea of finding a "life partner" is a joke to me. My life is half over, and in terms of my physical ability to do things and experience things, my life is more than half over. What is lost cannot be replaced, and nothing on this path can be as good as what was lost.

I heard Michelle Malkin and some other lady on Bill O'Reilly's show the other day talking about people marrying and producing kids later in life. All three of them seemed to blame this trend on "secularization" of our society. I keep meaning to write to her and tell her that my delay of marriage and likely decision not to have children is a result of teaching that I received in the church. The church spends too much time telling people that they can wait. Fortunately, most young people don't listen. For those of us who do, the results are not good.

I'm a very odd fit. I would have been an odd fit and had some problems finding someone even if I had started when I was young. Being single all of this time has made me even more odd. I don't see myself finding anyone now. Some women might want me, but they won't be women that I want. The numbers just don't add up anymore, and as a result, I'm slow to put more effort into a lost cause.

I've been on numerous dating websites and have put myself out there somewhat. I've been to some pre-dating events. I've had some friends who mentioned me to women that they knew, but the women just weren't interested enough to agree to a meeting. I understand, but it leads me further to the conclusion that many of these efforts would be a waste of time.

This area is the big difference between pursuing a relationship and pursuing my engineering. With engineering, I always had a reasonably good idea what course of action would produce what results. I could evaluate whether an effort was worth its rewards. With relationships, those evaluations seem impossible, and the reward isn't what it once was. I may not always make great use of my time, but I hate wasting time doing things that leave me even more frustrated. As a young man, I had more tolerance for frustration and would have been better suited to those ups and downs.

I realize that it is still possible for me to find someone, but I doubt that she'll be someone who is pleasing to me. I've spent quite a bit of time over the past few years with two women whom most people consider ideal for me. I like them. They are good friends. I just have zero chemistry for them and see no chance that chemistry will develop. Either of them might be willing to marry me if I were interested, but I would never be excited about that marriage. They'd see through any attempt to pretend excitement, so keeping things at the friendship level (with no sexual whatever) is for the best.

On the other hand, there's another lady for whom I feel good chemistry. We are friends, and I think she sees some qualities that she likes very much. On the other hand, the whole package just isn't what she wants. She hasn't said so directly, but the message comes through. I don't resent her feeling that way because I've been on that side of the coin myself. I can also see where I may not be exactly what she needs. I like her and don't want her to end up with less than what's best for her.

Bill

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Love is Patient. Love is Kind