Have you ever embarked on something that at the time seemed like the biggest can't-miss slam dunk of a lifetime and then later, after it all blows up in your face look at the same set of circumstances and wonder how it was you came to those conclusions? Being unemployed (this situation should be ending soon) gives a fella a lot of tine to think and I've done much of that concerning my California Adventure. I'm thinking anyone who can figure out a way to offer hindsight before a choice is made could stand to rake in the cash.
About six weeks after my admission to Ms. Fabulous that my divorce papers hadn't been signed I got an email from a recruiter asking me if I was interested in a job in North San Diego County. Jobs in my profession are hard to come by in this area but while I was excited to see the interest I also knew I had some issues with going for it. The biggest of these was the fact that I was committed to teach at Phoenix College through December. My first reply to the recruiter was that while I was interested I had to see my teaching commitment through.
A couple of days later I heard from my PC boss that due to a new policy I would not be able to teach the October-December part of the course. The college was limiting the amount of hours adjunct faculty could teach and by October I would reach that limit, so I called the recruiter back and asked her if the employer would be interested if I was available. They were. I asked Ms. Fabulous how she felt about it and she loved the idea. Woo-Hoo!
The day before my first phone interview I received an email from my divorce attorney. The ruling was finally in and it wasn't good. The judge ordered me to pay my soon-to-be ex $1600/month. In addition to that I was to remain legally separated until the end of the year (this was already in place when I first met Ms. Fabulous) and pay her health insurance premiums. A sensible person would have right there cancelled the phone interview. The cost of living in San Diego is 60% higher than it is in Phoenix and now I would have more than 40% less take home pay. Plus I had the teaching gig in Phoenix that paid really well which would help out considerably. This should have been my first red flag, but sadly, I am not a sensible person.
The next red flag that should have been heeded was the dealings with the company I was about to work for. At the time I was living in a house I was renting from a friend. That house was sold and I needed to be out by the first weekend in October. In every part of the hiring process I told them of this deadline. They insisted they wanted to get me in there as soon as possible so I thought this would go quickly. It did not. They were frustrating to deal with. I should have seen this as an omen but I did not, or rather I ignored it in my desire to get closer to my girl. Bad choice.
And speaking of bad choices the third red flag that never occurred to me but should have been obvious was the situation I was setting up for myself. Because the company was paying my moving expenses I had to sign a contract to stay at least a year on the job. In order to get the best deal on rent I signed a one year lease. Never once did I consider what that would be like if it turned out the relationship wouldn't work out. Now I'll cut myself a bit of a break here because there was no sign whatsoever that the relationship was even remotely in trouble. And if it didn't work out I figured that would be a ways down the road, not 11 weeks after my arrival. Still, it's something that should have been considered and I never did.
As I think back on my mindset at the time I was making these decisions I wonder how it was that I had all this evidence staring me in the face and I never bothered to really consider it. Any one of these should have been reason enough to say thanks but no thanks. It amazes me that it's taken me 14 months to see what should have been obvious at the time. On the other hand, I see it now and I've got that whole better late than never thing working for me. Sometimes what appears to be a dream will turn into a nightmare, but nightmares don't last forever. All you have to do to end one is to wake up.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
All Good Things Come to an End
Remember in my last post how I said that things were working out well at my job? Well, I got fired last week. The most amazing thing about all this is my response to all of it which is mostly indifference. I have no idea what's next for me, I'm now unemployed and I decided to take a vacation until November 12 to decide what I'm going to do next. I've got enough money to make my expenses until the middle of January so I'm going to use that time to make the best decision I can for me.
I can't express enough how foreign this attitude seems to me. I've spent most of the year in fear of and worrying about this event (along with all the other stuff that's been going on or not going on in my life) and when the end finally came what I felt was relief. For reasons I'm not completely able to explain that job just never worked for me and obviously I didn't work for them either. I don't bear them any ill will or am even upset with them at all for how it worked out. Sometimes a workplace just isn't a good fit for either party and this was one of those times. Because they paid my relocation expenses I wasn't able to even quit until last week and they took care of that for me.
So now what? I have no idea. I think I'm going to try to stay in this area if I can (San Diego County) and if not I'll probably go back to Arizona where I have a lot of professional connections and am well thought of. Relocation to another place is not out of play either but because of my alimony situation I don't think that's the best play for me.
Since the break up with Ms. Fabulous I've spent a lot of effort on self improvement. There's nothing like deep emotional hurt to act as a motivating force and I've used that to my advantage. I've been exercising regularly (every day since the end of May), journaling daily since New Year's, and strengthening my spirituality with much reading (again, everyday since the end of May). I've never been this dedicated to my own self-improvement and I've stuck with it even when it didn't appear that it was really doing me any good.
I'm proud of what I've done in this regard. Not only that I've been doing it but that I've stuck with it. I've learned to take responsibility for everything that I've created in the last year both good and bad. I've learned the value of perseverance. I've learned how to be ok with being alone. I've learned how to handle money (this was a big one for me).
Remember everything I've said about how bad the last year's been for me? I think I was wrong about that.
I can't express enough how foreign this attitude seems to me. I've spent most of the year in fear of and worrying about this event (along with all the other stuff that's been going on or not going on in my life) and when the end finally came what I felt was relief. For reasons I'm not completely able to explain that job just never worked for me and obviously I didn't work for them either. I don't bear them any ill will or am even upset with them at all for how it worked out. Sometimes a workplace just isn't a good fit for either party and this was one of those times. Because they paid my relocation expenses I wasn't able to even quit until last week and they took care of that for me.
So now what? I have no idea. I think I'm going to try to stay in this area if I can (San Diego County) and if not I'll probably go back to Arizona where I have a lot of professional connections and am well thought of. Relocation to another place is not out of play either but because of my alimony situation I don't think that's the best play for me.
Since the break up with Ms. Fabulous I've spent a lot of effort on self improvement. There's nothing like deep emotional hurt to act as a motivating force and I've used that to my advantage. I've been exercising regularly (every day since the end of May), journaling daily since New Year's, and strengthening my spirituality with much reading (again, everyday since the end of May). I've never been this dedicated to my own self-improvement and I've stuck with it even when it didn't appear that it was really doing me any good.
I'm proud of what I've done in this regard. Not only that I've been doing it but that I've stuck with it. I've learned to take responsibility for everything that I've created in the last year both good and bad. I've learned the value of perseverance. I've learned how to be ok with being alone. I've learned how to handle money (this was a big one for me).
Remember everything I've said about how bad the last year's been for me? I think I was wrong about that.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
May You Live in Interesting Times (conclusion)
One of the things I've discovered with my little blogging experiment is how difficult it is to write about deeply personal things and then publish them for the world to see. It's been a good thing for me however because it's allowed me to really separate me from myself and view these events a little more like you. In reading this series of posts I've looked at these events and thought, "Dude, you brought all this on yourself." That may have been lurking in the deep crevices of my mind but writing about them this way has allowed me to see my part in all of this very clearly. Sadly, I have not covered myself with much glory in the last year.
When the shit hits the fan in my life it's really easy to want to find scapegoats outside myself. Take my breakup with Ms. Fabulous. I didn't have anything to do with the event that caused her to send her email telling me she could no longer be my girlfriend. I still have no clue as to how an Arizona family court judge could award the same said ex nearly 50% alimony for two years which was how long the marriage lasted. And my work didn't do what they told me they were going to do. How was I not to be upset about that?
Eventually though I had to admit to myself that I had a hand in all of these things. I created them through my actions or lack thereof and in the way I chose to perceive them. I could have chosen to act at the time when action was needed. Lets take a look at each of these major events.
Divorce
I separated from the ex in July 2009 but I hesitated filing for divorce. Part of this is understandable. Divorce is a big step and I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing, but by the summer of the following year and a reconciliation attempt I knew we were done. I filed the paperwork but didn't follow up on it. These were extremely favorable terms compared to what the judge eventually handed out. In fact, had I followed up as I should a judge would only have been involved to sign the final papers.
I didn't do this and in the meantime she went to the doctor for an annual checkup and discovered she had breast cancer. She had been out of work for over a year (her choice) and her COBRA benefits were running out and she decided I should be the one paying her bills. She lawyered up and hit the lottery with a sympathetic judge and I got cleaned out and continue to get cleaned out every month until September of next year.
What I've learned: Deal with the things that get served while they're still hot on the plate.
Ms. Fabulous
I met her through a dating site early last year. Since the ex and I had been to court and were just waiting for the final ruling I told Ms. Fabulous that I was divorced and had been on my own since 2009. The last part was technically true but it wasn't the spirit of the truth and no matter how I try to sugarcoat it the divorce part was a lie. Whatever I tell myself was my motive for this was it was wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.
When the ruling came (in addition to her getting half of my stuff and money he ordered me to remain married but legaly separated with the ex through the end of 2011 so she could be on my health insurance) I had to fess up. Ms. Fabulous took it pretty well, but the trust had been broken. At the time she told me that had I told her the truth it wouldn't have mattered to her choices about me because she'd been divorced too and knew about how it doesn't go according to plan.
We recovered and things went along well until my ex decided to send the fateful email to Ms. Fabulous' work and BOOM! breakup. I've had a lot of time to think about how this all went down and this is what I've come up with...
Trust in a relationship is a kind of like a bank account. At the beginning you both make a small initial deposit. As things go on (and for the sake of this let's assume they go well) deposits keep getting made and you end up with a nice little bankroll. When I had to fess up about the status of the divorce with Ms. Fabulous I had a large balance but took a serious withdrawal. I managed to build it back up some before my move to CA but once I got here I didn't deal with all the changes so well, so nearly unbeknownst to me I was making small withdrawals here and there. When the email from the ex hit Ms. Fabulous' workplace I became grievously overdrawn. In her mind there was no hope for me to fill it up again and she'd given all the credit she was willing to give.
Work
Here I had my best performance. I took responsibility for my actions and decided I wasn't going to let them get rid of me. I turned myself around fast, mostly by just deciding to do so. I'm back in good standing there now but I can't allow myself to rest or be comfortable. I need to keep the same dedication I had when I was working my way out of probation. So far this is working and I'm very happy about that.
So that brings us up to date on my wild ride of a year. I still miss Ms. Fabulous and even though it's been 10 months since the breakup the wounds still feel fresh. It's hard to put something behind you when you're completely surrounded by all the changes that were made to make a relationship work. I still work at a job that got me closer to her, still live in an apartment she helped me pick out and put together, and still live on a lot less money than I would have had I stayed in AZ. Because of my alimony situation I don't have the means to change any of these things so I have to slog through it as best as I can (although I have to admit that the money part, which I was very concerned with on the way here is working out better than I ever could have hoped).
Now that my tale is told I'm looking forward to moving on with this blog. I hope this was easier for you to read than it was for me to write because that felt like pulling my own teeth. Interesting times indeed.
When the shit hits the fan in my life it's really easy to want to find scapegoats outside myself. Take my breakup with Ms. Fabulous. I didn't have anything to do with the event that caused her to send her email telling me she could no longer be my girlfriend. I still have no clue as to how an Arizona family court judge could award the same said ex nearly 50% alimony for two years which was how long the marriage lasted. And my work didn't do what they told me they were going to do. How was I not to be upset about that?
Eventually though I had to admit to myself that I had a hand in all of these things. I created them through my actions or lack thereof and in the way I chose to perceive them. I could have chosen to act at the time when action was needed. Lets take a look at each of these major events.
Divorce
I separated from the ex in July 2009 but I hesitated filing for divorce. Part of this is understandable. Divorce is a big step and I wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing, but by the summer of the following year and a reconciliation attempt I knew we were done. I filed the paperwork but didn't follow up on it. These were extremely favorable terms compared to what the judge eventually handed out. In fact, had I followed up as I should a judge would only have been involved to sign the final papers.
I didn't do this and in the meantime she went to the doctor for an annual checkup and discovered she had breast cancer. She had been out of work for over a year (her choice) and her COBRA benefits were running out and she decided I should be the one paying her bills. She lawyered up and hit the lottery with a sympathetic judge and I got cleaned out and continue to get cleaned out every month until September of next year.
What I've learned: Deal with the things that get served while they're still hot on the plate.
Ms. Fabulous
I met her through a dating site early last year. Since the ex and I had been to court and were just waiting for the final ruling I told Ms. Fabulous that I was divorced and had been on my own since 2009. The last part was technically true but it wasn't the spirit of the truth and no matter how I try to sugarcoat it the divorce part was a lie. Whatever I tell myself was my motive for this was it was wrong. Just. Plain. Wrong.
When the ruling came (in addition to her getting half of my stuff and money he ordered me to remain married but legaly separated with the ex through the end of 2011 so she could be on my health insurance) I had to fess up. Ms. Fabulous took it pretty well, but the trust had been broken. At the time she told me that had I told her the truth it wouldn't have mattered to her choices about me because she'd been divorced too and knew about how it doesn't go according to plan.
We recovered and things went along well until my ex decided to send the fateful email to Ms. Fabulous' work and BOOM! breakup. I've had a lot of time to think about how this all went down and this is what I've come up with...
Trust in a relationship is a kind of like a bank account. At the beginning you both make a small initial deposit. As things go on (and for the sake of this let's assume they go well) deposits keep getting made and you end up with a nice little bankroll. When I had to fess up about the status of the divorce with Ms. Fabulous I had a large balance but took a serious withdrawal. I managed to build it back up some before my move to CA but once I got here I didn't deal with all the changes so well, so nearly unbeknownst to me I was making small withdrawals here and there. When the email from the ex hit Ms. Fabulous' workplace I became grievously overdrawn. In her mind there was no hope for me to fill it up again and she'd given all the credit she was willing to give.
Work
Here I had my best performance. I took responsibility for my actions and decided I wasn't going to let them get rid of me. I turned myself around fast, mostly by just deciding to do so. I'm back in good standing there now but I can't allow myself to rest or be comfortable. I need to keep the same dedication I had when I was working my way out of probation. So far this is working and I'm very happy about that.
So that brings us up to date on my wild ride of a year. I still miss Ms. Fabulous and even though it's been 10 months since the breakup the wounds still feel fresh. It's hard to put something behind you when you're completely surrounded by all the changes that were made to make a relationship work. I still work at a job that got me closer to her, still live in an apartment she helped me pick out and put together, and still live on a lot less money than I would have had I stayed in AZ. Because of my alimony situation I don't have the means to change any of these things so I have to slog through it as best as I can (although I have to admit that the money part, which I was very concerned with on the way here is working out better than I ever could have hoped).
Now that my tale is told I'm looking forward to moving on with this blog. I hope this was easier for you to read than it was for me to write because that felt like pulling my own teeth. Interesting times indeed.
Monday, September 3, 2012
May You Live in Interesting Times (part 2)
No, I'm not going to leave you in suspense as to how this story is playing out any longer. We left me living in California on half of my income, the girl I moved here for just broke up with me, and it's New Year's Eve. Ouch.
Ms. Fabulous decided she couldn't trust me anymore. That would have been a very handy piece of information to have when I was going through the motions of coming out here but alas, that was not forthcoming. This year started with an attempt at reconciliation that flamed out a few weeks later when she claimed I lied to her about my dating history. I didn't but it doesn't matter because she thinks (or convinced herself) I did and that's that.
For weeks I was just dazed. In all of my life I'd never had the rug pulled from under me like that. I'd like to say that I handled it all well, propped myself up, and moved on, but that's not what happened. After a couple of months I could tell that my friends and family were tired of hearing about it so I quit talking about it.
I took me a long time to get used to my new reality. Normally when this kind of thing happens you close circles with your friends, you go to your safe places, and stay away from the things that remind you of your ex. That just wasn't possible here. Everywhere I looked there were remnants of Ms. Fabulous staring back at me. The apartment I live in that she helped me find, the place where I went to work to get closer to her, it was like I couldn't get away from why I was here. The weirdest thing of all happened when we got a new guy at work who was in a long distance relationship himself and moved here to be closer to his girl. We got to be friends and he invited me to dinner at the house he and his girlfriend share. I nearly shit myself when he gave me his address. They live on the same street Ms. Fabulous lives on.
How is that even possible I wondered to myself? San Diego is a big place, I live about 20 miles away from it and yet in trying to put distance between myself and this sad event I kept finding myself being invited back to the same places, the same restaurants, even the same activities that I had shared with her. I felt like the gods were toying with me and have way too much fun with it.
Amid all of this my situation at my job started to deteriorate. I was working in a discipline that was only vaguely familiar to me. The duties I was told I would have (and gave me some consolation) were never even offered to me. I copped a bad attitude, said the wrong things to the wrong people and before I knew it I was way too well known to the people in the HR department. In the middle of June I got hit with probation and told to mend my ways or find myself out of a job.
Wow. Did I just say that out loud? Women breaking up with me, well, that happens. My job wanting to break up with me? That's a new one. I did get a chuckle when I realized that my job was fairer to me than Ms. Fabulous turned out to be. It's about this time that I really had to sit down with myself and assess the situation. I'm living in a very expensive place on half the money I normally make. The girl I came here is long gone and my job is telling me the same fate could be in store with them. What. The. Fuck? And just as I was about to start a world class pity party for myself the thought that rocked me the hardest struck like a thunderbolt.
The one common denominator in all my troubles was me. (to be continued)
Ms. Fabulous decided she couldn't trust me anymore. That would have been a very handy piece of information to have when I was going through the motions of coming out here but alas, that was not forthcoming. This year started with an attempt at reconciliation that flamed out a few weeks later when she claimed I lied to her about my dating history. I didn't but it doesn't matter because she thinks (or convinced herself) I did and that's that.
For weeks I was just dazed. In all of my life I'd never had the rug pulled from under me like that. I'd like to say that I handled it all well, propped myself up, and moved on, but that's not what happened. After a couple of months I could tell that my friends and family were tired of hearing about it so I quit talking about it.
I took me a long time to get used to my new reality. Normally when this kind of thing happens you close circles with your friends, you go to your safe places, and stay away from the things that remind you of your ex. That just wasn't possible here. Everywhere I looked there were remnants of Ms. Fabulous staring back at me. The apartment I live in that she helped me find, the place where I went to work to get closer to her, it was like I couldn't get away from why I was here. The weirdest thing of all happened when we got a new guy at work who was in a long distance relationship himself and moved here to be closer to his girl. We got to be friends and he invited me to dinner at the house he and his girlfriend share. I nearly shit myself when he gave me his address. They live on the same street Ms. Fabulous lives on.
How is that even possible I wondered to myself? San Diego is a big place, I live about 20 miles away from it and yet in trying to put distance between myself and this sad event I kept finding myself being invited back to the same places, the same restaurants, even the same activities that I had shared with her. I felt like the gods were toying with me and have way too much fun with it.
Amid all of this my situation at my job started to deteriorate. I was working in a discipline that was only vaguely familiar to me. The duties I was told I would have (and gave me some consolation) were never even offered to me. I copped a bad attitude, said the wrong things to the wrong people and before I knew it I was way too well known to the people in the HR department. In the middle of June I got hit with probation and told to mend my ways or find myself out of a job.
Wow. Did I just say that out loud? Women breaking up with me, well, that happens. My job wanting to break up with me? That's a new one. I did get a chuckle when I realized that my job was fairer to me than Ms. Fabulous turned out to be. It's about this time that I really had to sit down with myself and assess the situation. I'm living in a very expensive place on half the money I normally make. The girl I came here is long gone and my job is telling me the same fate could be in store with them. What. The. Fuck? And just as I was about to start a world class pity party for myself the thought that rocked me the hardest struck like a thunderbolt.
The one common denominator in all my troubles was me. (to be continued)
Thursday, August 16, 2012
May You Live in Interesting Times (part 1)
The phrase, "may you live in interesting times" is a purported Chinese curse. Regardless of its origin it's certain apropos to my life over the last two years. My life over this time has definitely been interesting and most of it hasn't been so hot.
Why do I even bring this up? Well, to understand where some of the upcoming posts are coming from you'll need to have an idea of where I've been in the last 18 months or so. For reasons that escape me it seems that this attempt at blogging is going to be personal, more personal than I ever intended to be when I created it. Of course it may not really matter so much since I don't have any actual readers (that I'm aware of anyway) but I'll pretend that there's an audience for what I'm writing and for any of the coming posts to make any sense there's going to need to be some context. So away we go!
I'm not sure where to start. Should it be when my then estranged wife told me she had breast cancer a couple of months after I filed for divorce? Should it be when I was on the receiving end of a string of emails from her friends and family in early last year telling me what a scumbag I was for divorcing her when she had cancer (keeping in mind she was three months away from diagnosis when I filed). Should it be after we'd been to court waiting for the final ruling when I met the most fabulous woman I've ever known in my life? Any of these could be good places to start.
I think Ms. Fabulous is a good place because that really set into motion the circumstances I find myself in today. She lives in San Diego and I was living in Phoenix at the time. No problem. It's just five hours away by car and I had the ability to make three day weekends pretty easy at my job so we were seeing each other 2-3 weekends a month and that worked out great for both of us. Since I was just waiting for divorce judge to affix his John Hancock to the papers finalizing the divorce I made my one big mistake by telling her that my divorce was already done.
Except the judge had a nasty surprise for me. His final ruling in no way resembled what he said he was going to rule when we were in court. He ordered me to stay married to the soon to be ex through the end of 2011, to keep her on my health insurance during that time and to pay half my monthly income to her for two years. And pay her attorney's fees. I fessed up to Ms. Fabulous and though she wasn't happy she said she understood my thinking, said she forgave me, and we went on our happy way.
In August last year a recruiter called me and asked me if I was interested in a job in northern San Diego county. Though this would close the distance between us to a half-hour drive it would drive up my expenses considerably and even though it came with a nice bump in salary from what I was making, making ends meet in California would be a lot harder than Phoenix especially paying out $1600/month in alimony until September 2013. We talked about it and decided to go for it. Ms. Fabulous told me, "I'm the best girl in the world to be poor with." I interviewed for the job, got it, and in October of last year I moved to Escondido, CA.
It was great. We saw each other every weekend. There was a little oddness at times from what it was like when it was a long distance relationship but I chalked that up to the growing pains of closing the distance gap. There were no fights or disagreements or anything like that. She was true to her word about being a great girlfriend to be poor with. For Christmas we spent the holidays with our respective families and were planning a nice time together for New Year's.
Except that never happened.
My now ex-wife was very unhappy when she found out that I had moved to California. Somehow, someway, she got a hold of Ms. Fabulous' work email address and sent an email to her work saying what an asshole I was and that I had given her VD, which was preposterous since it had been over a year since we had sex. Nevertheless, the accusations were made and Ms. Fabulous was pissed off. At me.
The next day I got an email from Ms. Fabulous informing me that she could no longer be my girlfriend, that the email from the ex really had stressed her out and that I wasn't worth the effort. She said she couldn't trust me because I had lied about my divorce and there were other "red flags."
And that was my Happy New Year. (to be continued)
Why do I even bring this up? Well, to understand where some of the upcoming posts are coming from you'll need to have an idea of where I've been in the last 18 months or so. For reasons that escape me it seems that this attempt at blogging is going to be personal, more personal than I ever intended to be when I created it. Of course it may not really matter so much since I don't have any actual readers (that I'm aware of anyway) but I'll pretend that there's an audience for what I'm writing and for any of the coming posts to make any sense there's going to need to be some context. So away we go!
I'm not sure where to start. Should it be when my then estranged wife told me she had breast cancer a couple of months after I filed for divorce? Should it be when I was on the receiving end of a string of emails from her friends and family in early last year telling me what a scumbag I was for divorcing her when she had cancer (keeping in mind she was three months away from diagnosis when I filed). Should it be after we'd been to court waiting for the final ruling when I met the most fabulous woman I've ever known in my life? Any of these could be good places to start.
I think Ms. Fabulous is a good place because that really set into motion the circumstances I find myself in today. She lives in San Diego and I was living in Phoenix at the time. No problem. It's just five hours away by car and I had the ability to make three day weekends pretty easy at my job so we were seeing each other 2-3 weekends a month and that worked out great for both of us. Since I was just waiting for divorce judge to affix his John Hancock to the papers finalizing the divorce I made my one big mistake by telling her that my divorce was already done.
Except the judge had a nasty surprise for me. His final ruling in no way resembled what he said he was going to rule when we were in court. He ordered me to stay married to the soon to be ex through the end of 2011, to keep her on my health insurance during that time and to pay half my monthly income to her for two years. And pay her attorney's fees. I fessed up to Ms. Fabulous and though she wasn't happy she said she understood my thinking, said she forgave me, and we went on our happy way.
In August last year a recruiter called me and asked me if I was interested in a job in northern San Diego county. Though this would close the distance between us to a half-hour drive it would drive up my expenses considerably and even though it came with a nice bump in salary from what I was making, making ends meet in California would be a lot harder than Phoenix especially paying out $1600/month in alimony until September 2013. We talked about it and decided to go for it. Ms. Fabulous told me, "I'm the best girl in the world to be poor with." I interviewed for the job, got it, and in October of last year I moved to Escondido, CA.
It was great. We saw each other every weekend. There was a little oddness at times from what it was like when it was a long distance relationship but I chalked that up to the growing pains of closing the distance gap. There were no fights or disagreements or anything like that. She was true to her word about being a great girlfriend to be poor with. For Christmas we spent the holidays with our respective families and were planning a nice time together for New Year's.
Except that never happened.
My now ex-wife was very unhappy when she found out that I had moved to California. Somehow, someway, she got a hold of Ms. Fabulous' work email address and sent an email to her work saying what an asshole I was and that I had given her VD, which was preposterous since it had been over a year since we had sex. Nevertheless, the accusations were made and Ms. Fabulous was pissed off. At me.
The next day I got an email from Ms. Fabulous informing me that she could no longer be my girlfriend, that the email from the ex really had stressed her out and that I wasn't worth the effort. She said she couldn't trust me because I had lied about my divorce and there were other "red flags."
And that was my Happy New Year. (to be continued)
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Sometimes You've Got to Stop and Think About What You're Doing
Near the beginning of the movie High Fidelity, John Cusack's character says, "...i've been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I've come to the conclusion that my gut has shit for brains."
I hear ya John because when it comes to dating I have come to the same conclusion. I'm just not very good at it. Well, I'm fine with the mechanics of it but when it comes to the women I choose to go past the first few dates with I pretty much suck. Now if I was hooking up with the same kind of woman each time, well that would be an easy fix, but when I look over my choices over the last few years they don't have much in common. I've been at an impasse over just what to do about this but I'm coming around to the idea that it's time for a dating moratorium for me.
It's an odd decision because I'm kind of a dating fool. I'm fascinated by relationships, by what works and what doesn't work, and why we choose the people we choose to date. Since I meet most of the women I date via the online route there's plenty of opportunity to interact with potential dates and go through the whole meet and greet thing. It's occurred to me that that might be a good topic to write more about because I read a lot of stuff on the web about online dating that seems just wrong. Sure, there's a lot of horror stories and freak shows out there and I've met my share too, but I've also met a lot of interesting people and have even had good friendships come out of dates originated online that didn't have any romantic spark.
Most importantly I think it's a good time for me to go introspective and see what's going on with me and instead of blaming the women I'm dating for it not working out, to see what I'm doing that's contributing to that. I also saw a post on Google Plus last month that's been rattling around in my head since I saw it concerning standards in dating and I'm going to write more about that once I get my thoughts collected on it.
In the meantime I'll have to work on listening to my gut a little less, or at least consider the source when I do.
I hear ya John because when it comes to dating I have come to the same conclusion. I'm just not very good at it. Well, I'm fine with the mechanics of it but when it comes to the women I choose to go past the first few dates with I pretty much suck. Now if I was hooking up with the same kind of woman each time, well that would be an easy fix, but when I look over my choices over the last few years they don't have much in common. I've been at an impasse over just what to do about this but I'm coming around to the idea that it's time for a dating moratorium for me.
It's an odd decision because I'm kind of a dating fool. I'm fascinated by relationships, by what works and what doesn't work, and why we choose the people we choose to date. Since I meet most of the women I date via the online route there's plenty of opportunity to interact with potential dates and go through the whole meet and greet thing. It's occurred to me that that might be a good topic to write more about because I read a lot of stuff on the web about online dating that seems just wrong. Sure, there's a lot of horror stories and freak shows out there and I've met my share too, but I've also met a lot of interesting people and have even had good friendships come out of dates originated online that didn't have any romantic spark.
Most importantly I think it's a good time for me to go introspective and see what's going on with me and instead of blaming the women I'm dating for it not working out, to see what I'm doing that's contributing to that. I also saw a post on Google Plus last month that's been rattling around in my head since I saw it concerning standards in dating and I'm going to write more about that once I get my thoughts collected on it.
In the meantime I'll have to work on listening to my gut a little less, or at least consider the source when I do.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
What to Write About
I love to write but I never have a clue what to write about. That's one of the reasons the name of this blog is Aimless Space. I have no idea what it's going to be about and I suspect as time goes by it's going to be all over the place. From what I've read about blogging that's a big no-no but that's kind of how it goes for me. It's not that I'm adverse to taking advice or listening to experts. I just like making up my own mind about things. Since this blog is about what's in my head it's going to be all over the place because I'm all over the place in my head.
Actually this is the second reboot of Aimless Space. I set it up last year and got about five posts in, mostly about dating then I got a girlfriend and it died of neglect last summer. The first reboot was in January after said grifriend broke up with me and it was an online diary but that was pretty pathetic and I bailed on it after about five weeks. So here is the second reboot. Movie franchises do it all the time so I figured it would be ok for this. I don't think anyone will mind since as far as I can tell nobody read it anyway. :-D
What are you likely to find here? Just what is in my head? Well, I think about God a lot so I'll be writing about that. Don't worry, I'm not religious at all and don't belong to any churches but I still think about it. I guess that's the former altar boy in me. I imagine dating and relationships will show up. I'm good at dating but I apparently suck at relationships but that won't stop me from writing about them. I love history of all eras and I suspect what I write about history will frequently intersect with what I write about God. Then there's science which is my livelihood so that will show up. Technology, computers, music, movies, books, and the web are other topics you'll probably see.
Perhaps it will turn out that one of these topics will win out over the others. Maybe someday I'll actually have readers and they will have a say in what they like reading about, but until then I'll just flail about this Aimlessly, keep throwing stuff at this and maybe someday something will stick.
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