Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Online Dating With Bundy

I love women! Seriously, I love everything about them. Okay, there is one thing I don’t love about them and that’s how damn confusing they can be. But maybe that’s just another reason to love them even more because they frustrate me and drive me crazy.

The truth of the matter is this. I haven’t dated much in my life. If I had to guess, the number of real dates I’ve gone on up until this year was probably less than I could count on two hands.  I know the reason for this is pretty simple. When you’re the size of a house, women tend to be less attracted to you. I get that and I was never really bitter about that. I’ve never been in what I would call a real relationship with anyone. It just never happened. Sure I fooled around from time to time but nothing on a commitment level.

Back when I weighed over 400 pounds and I finally decided to make some critical changes to my life, I did it strictly for health reasons. I knew if I didn’t change my eating habits and if I remained stuck in a sedentary lifestyle I was likely sentencing myself to an early death. So the journey to lose weight began and as you probably know, it has been fairly successful to date and my health has improved greatly.

Although it wasn’t my main reason for dropping pounds and getting thinner and healthier, in the back of my mind I thought, “maybe this might also open the door to some romantic possibilities if I become more attractive to women.” It was nice to have women I’ve known for many years tell me how handsome I was or how good I look after lightening my load. It sort of boosted my confidence which in all honesty could use all the boosting it could get. The person I was on the outside that people knew was an act to some extent. When I saw people I was happy, laughing, telling jokes, friendly and putting on a brave face. The real me when I was alone was lonely, depressed, bitter and in need of affection.  Oh sure, the happy version of myself is probably who I am or who I want to be all the time but I spend a lot of time alone which leaves me way too much time to dwell on negative thoughts.

But now I figured I had an opportunity to try and change all of that and seek out the female companionship I’ve always longed for. The only problem was finding a woman. Damn, I was back to square one again. In my mid-40s I wasn’t going to start hanging out at the bar again and I’m certainly not the type to hit on random women at Walmart or on the street. I’ve had friends who would hit on anything with a heartbeat but that’s not who I am. So what were my options?

The truth is there aren’t a lot of options left, other than online dating websites which I’ve never been a fan of. Sure they’re interesting to scan over and see who’s on them but to go beyond that really wasn’t something I thought I could do. However, somewhere in my new found confidence I decided to give it a try.

My website of choice is called Plenty of Fish. It was free and surprisingly there are a lot more local women on the site than I expected. I knew going into the process that the odds of finding a woman without kids and baggage was going to be nearly impossible and I was okay with that.

I like kids so that’s not an issue for me.

I made the conscious decision from the beginning to stick to my beliefs of being honest and sincere. I refused to lie on my profile and I posted photos of myself that were not misleading anyone. I immediately had some messages from women which I must admit shocked me a little.

One woman from my area contacted me and we decided to meet in a public place which I always prefer. I only had a photo of her face and the way she described herself on her profile to go on so when I walked into the coffee shop and found her I was a little surprised by who was looking back at me. Now let me be completely honest and say I don’t have a problem with women of size. If you’re a larger woman and you embrace it and are a wonderful person with a super personality and brain to match, I won’t discriminate because you’re over weight. I’m not exactly tiny and I was a much larger man at one time so I know that people of size can be loving and beautiful people. I do however have an issue with people who lie and deceive. This woman had described herself as being an “average” body type when clearly she weighed closer to what I used to weigh. Had she been honest from the start I might have given her a chance but she already had a major strike against her. We went for a slow walk and talked a bit and after learning more about her it became very clear that this wasn’t a match for me and I let her know this. I also believe that if you don’t feel something it’s best to not lead someone on or go out on more dates which will only make it tougher later to break it off without hurting someone.

I had another woman pursue me who gave me the impression that she really wanted to see if a relationship could work but for one reason or another that ended up being untrue. I’m not looking for a friend only situation. I have plenty of friends. So we parted as friends and I moved on.

Recently I had another woman contact me. We chatted online for about a week before we finally met. We had a great conversation and both of us were genuinely attracted to each other. I have to think in hindsight that things moved way too quickly which could have been a major warning sign that I should have seen. We dated five times in about a week. I’ll spare you the details, although they are pretty juicy, but needless to say it ended almost as quickly as it had started. On the bright side, I did get a couple of nights of adult fun out of it so it wasn’t all bad. I truly believe I was used for sex, and that my friends was a first for this guy.  I will admit that I fell hard and fast for this one and when it ended last weekend I was hurting but it was a good lesson for me and the knowledge I gained will go with me as I move forward.

I was still feeling quite devastated the next morning after things went from feeling amazing to feeling heartbroken in a matter of minutes. But as I was trying to sift through the wreckage I got another message from another woman on POF. Life wasn’t over and there was still hope. This woman is French and lives about an hour away. We decided to meet and go for a walk with her dogs and then we went and sat by the water and talked for a couple of hours on a bench. With there being a bit of a distance between us, there’s no chance of moving too fast with this one and time will tell if anything will come of it or if I’ll continue fishing for someone else. It’s just nice to know that after so many years of swimming in the pond by myself, some other female fish have finally noticed me.

Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Life Gets In The Way

Summer highlight having the family together in Canada.
 The summer isn’t officially over yet but having moved into September it can definitely be classified as being on life support. This has truly been the summer from hell. Easily one of the hardest summers of my life and that’s saying a lot for me.

Going into the summer I was feeling great. I had lost over 170 pounds, was working out daily, work was going well, family was doing fine and the thought of feeling the heat of the sun on my face again was something I was looking forward to. The only thing that didn’t look promising was my love life which in all honesty hasn’t been much to cheer about for a very long time.

I don’t mind sharing my own personal thoughts and life story with all of you because I like to think I’m a pretty open book. There are some family things that will always remain as private as possible. I try to walk a fine line between being honest and protecting those I love.

The one big reason why I’ve been neglecting my blog this summer revolves around my father who was diagnosed with kidney cancer and not the kind that can be cured. It’s Stage 4 renal cell carcinoma and unfortunately it has moved out of his only remaining kidney and into his lungs.

Quite simply, it devastated us when we learned the news as I’m sure it does for most families. My dad is my best friend and the toughest man I’ve ever known and he’s wearing a brave face through all of this but knowing what he is facing in the months ahead scares me and I’m sure behind his brave face he is also feeling some fear. But I made a decision to spend as much time as I can with him and keep life as normal as possible which I think I’ve been pretty successful at doing.

The support of family and friends has been pretty amazing to see and I know my dad and mom both appreciate the kindness of those who have closed ranks around us at this time.

Of course with all that is happening in my family it has taken up a lot of my free time which I’m perfectly fine with. But my plans to be more active this summer by golfing more and walking and running more has suffered. I haven’t golfed nearly as much this summer as I have in past years and as far as my health goes, the summer has taken a bit of a toll on that as well.

I postponed my gym membership for July and August which means a lot of the progress I had made last winter with my weight lifting and fitness has been lost. I’m still in pretty decent shape but I’ve lost a lot of the muscle tone I had built and I’m sure some of that muscle has also turned into fat again. Thus, my weight has increased some this summer. That’s not to say I’ve ballooned up again but I’d say I gained about 20 pounds at one point.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to ease back into my old routine again and the pounds have started dropping again and I’ve returned to my original goal weight. Come the middle of September my gym membership will kick in and I hope to be back pumping iron and burning more fat.

My love life this summer has been interesting at times. Perhaps I should just dedicate a whole other blog to that subject as it’s kinda interesting how times have changed since I used to date years ago.

So I’m sort of back writing again but as usual I’m sure life will throw me some curveballs and I won’t be able to write as often as I’d like but I’ll do my best.