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Tag Archives: ghosts from the past

Chivalry is not dead, and neither are some old boyfriends

08 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, EX Files

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“A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do, but what he should do.”  – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

The cutest thing happened today.  I have been the recipient of chivalry and it felt so good.

Today I decided to take a taxi to work from the train station instead of walking 11 blocks.  It was raining and I was carrying a huge bag of bagels, cream cheese and butter.

When the cab stopped to let me out, and as I was paying, this guy comes and opens my door.  I was startled and said thank you.  Then I felt silly for saying thank you because I imagined that he was wanting to get in the cab and was trying to hurry me along.

I paid and got out.  He closed the door and proceeded to walk along me.  I asked him:  Aren’t you getting in the cab?  He said: no.  Oh, I said, thank you so much that was nice.  It doesn’t happen often.

He smiled a big beautiful white smile and said: it should.  I do it all the time.

I smiled and turned the corner and he proceeded to go straight. We were both looking back and smiling at each other.

This nice gesture put a little extra spring on my step today.

***

“Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that’s what.”  – ― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Yesterday there must have been something in the water or the moon was in a special way.  Three men from the past reached out.

I think it has to do with Valentine’s Day approaching.  Seeing all the hearts and advertisement telling us that we all need to be coupled.   Or perhaps they are feeling extra lonely and thinking of all of the ones that got away.

Anthony-  He works in Risk Management.   We had met online and started a phone and texting relationship, but we never met.  We were getting along great and he was trying to get his schedule in order for us to meet, then he just disappeared.

This is now his excuse and I quote: “Between my new job, settling in a place and my Mom was sick for a while. I did not have time to myself.”

Why can’t people just say what is going on instead of disappearing?  I will never know the real reason why he disappeared.  I don’t really care at this point.

I may meet him as a friend.  Once something like that happens it turns me off romantically but I like to keep an open mind as far as making new friends.

“Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us.”  – ― Jim Carroll

Peter – He is a stockbroker.  I have written a few blog posts about him.  We had a few dates, everything seemed fine, and then he turned distant.  He is the guy that took me to the Opera.  See his text below.

I don’t have a problem saying hello every now and then or even having a drink as friends, but I am definitely not interested in romance.

Frankie- works for the NY court system.  I have written about him in the past.  We had a few dates 12 years ago (he actually remembered the exact day we met).  I broke it off saying I was too busy to date.  It does sound like an excuse.  I do not remember why I broke things off.

Anyway, I mostly ignore him, especially since he told me he has had a girlfriend since we broke up.  I am not interested in him romantically, but don’t want to meet as friends either.  I don’t want any issues.

At one point I asked him why he continues texting me when I mostly ignore him.  He said:  because you are an awesome person and I want to be your friend.

He will text good morning or good night sometimes.  He will text about any holiday we may have. Or he will say: hi stranger.   I mostly don’t reply to his texts.   But not matter what, few or even several months will go by and he will say hello again.  I have to admire his tenacity.

This is his text from last night.

Since he has sent me brownies a couple of times in the past for my birthday  I am not shocked that he thought about taking me out for Valentine’s Day.  This time I had to reply and find out what he was thinking.  He wasn’t thinking, that is the answer.  I cannot blame a guy for trying.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Calvin Coolidge

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Birthdays, car choices, honesty and little embarrassments

05 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, EX Files, Finding Me

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“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” – Lewis Carroll

Another birthday and a ghost’s visit!

My birthday came and went on March 28, 2017.  It was uneventful.  Cupcakes at work and that is it.  The “that is it” is not disappointment, it is just what it is.  I was going to treat myself to a massage but it was rainy and cold and I got home and got lazy.

Many of my friends didn’t remember it, and really, I am ok with that, but everyone likes to be remembered.   I forget everyone’s birthday so I never expect anyone to remember mine.

Ex, the one that was the cause of this blog starting sent me 2 emails.

He sent me a long one the day before my birthday.  And on the day he sent me a shorter one talking about how we met. Saying how grateful he was that I said yes and he and his son asked me out to lunch.  I would find it poetic if I was not so annoyed at his audacity.

Why? Why? Why?

Of course I didn’t reply and I will not ever.  It is in the past, I have forgiven and moved on.

***

To be or not to be honest

All has been quiet in the dating area.  I have had a date here and there but nothing that I thought it was worth pursuing.

The last guy that asked me on a second date I turned him down even though the first date was a lot fun.   It was days before my birthday and he even bought me a small gift at the gift shop at the Botanical Garden.

When he asked me on a second date I was honest and said he was great but that I didn’t feel there would be any romance in our future.  He never replied.

Should I have gone on a second date knowing that I had no interest in him romantically?  To me that would be deceitful.  But perhaps if I had gone on a second date it would show to him that at least I had made more of an effort.

 

I never want to waste anybody’s time under false pretenses.

“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” – Noel Coward

***

Buy or Lease

I am now serious about getting a second car.  I don’t need 2 cars, but for now I don’t want to sell my 30 year old baby (560SL).  I didn’t get a second car yet because I am having trouble locating a garage or parking space to store my current car.

I think I have decided on the Honda HRV (a tad smaller than the CRV).  The other 2 cars in the running were the Subaru Cross-trek and the Jeep Renegade.  The reasons why those were the cars in the running is because I wanted a small (narrow) car that would drive well in the winter.

I can’t decide if I should buy or lease.  Psychologically I always liked the idea of owning things but this time I am thinking of leasing.

The pros for me about leasing:

  • Smaller monthly payments
  • After 3 years return and get a new one, so I don’t have to deal with repairs as a car gets old

The pros for me about buying:

  • After 3 years I don’t have to worry about returning the car and coming up with another down payment for another lease
  • At the end of 5 years or less (if that is how long I finance) the car is mine

Any advice?  Opinions?

***

To tell or not to tell?

The other day I was with a co-worker at the bagel store as a man passed by me I noticed his zipper was open and I mentioned it to him.

My co-worker, who was a male, looked embarrassed and told me that I should have not said anything.  I asked him: If your zipper was open do you want someone to tell you or not and he said no.  I, on the hand, always want someone to tell me if my zipper is open, if I have food on my teeth or any other potentially embarrassing situation.

What at about you?  Do you want someone to tell you or would you rather find out later on your own?

***

“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” – Roy T. Bennett

 

 

Is anyone deserving of a 3rd, 4th, 5th chance?

18 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, Finding Me

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Out of the blue I receive a text from a man I had a date in the past.

He was telling me that he sent me an email and was eagerly waiting my reply.  Here is the email:

“Hello. I hope this e mail finds you well and getting ready for the holidays.

I’ve been thinking of you a lot these past few months, and came across our first e mail exchange. It brought back some memories, like that of our first date. Its hard (or not hard) to believe it was more than two years ago.

I realized, too, that we never got too far because I was not focused, nor ready to have you in my life.

Even more recently, I know I made contact with you but did not follow through. I know that made you angry and after I did not follow through with the planning of our date, you asked me not to contact you again.

After giving it a lot of thought, I want you to know that I have NOT EVER forgotten about you, was always extremely interested in you, and wanted you in my life. I still feel the same.

Ana, I want to see you again, see you regularly and see where we can take a relationship. I was unable previously to focus on you because I had not yet ended a relationship that wasn’t good, and needed to be ended, but lingered. I have also made some changes or modifications to my work life so I can have more leisure time, and also my business is now focused in Westchester County (where I believe you live still, New Rochelle?).

Ana, I come to you not knowing what is happening in your personal life-perhaps you’re married now, or whatever, but either way, I was not going to forgo contacting you to ask that you allow me to pursue you (court you? perhaps that’s better) again.

I know its short notice, but I have appointments in Westchester tomorrow and I would like to ask you if you would like to meet me for dinner. I have attached a picture of myself to jog your memory, but if you read the e mail threads, who I was (am) should come back to you.

I look forward to your response and hope it is a positive one. I might hope, too, that you are happy I came back to attempt to be in your life…

I realize I missed a great opportunity with you, Ana, and I would like to reclaim it, as well as a place in your heart.

Respectfully, Paul”

I am always willing to give people extra chances, but in this case I am just not willing to try again.  He has asked for chances before and has never followed through with his promises.

I canceled our first date.  After many email exchanges we were eager to meet each other, or so I thought.  On the afternoon of the date he says he can meet at 7 in a restaurant downtown (I am in Midtown).  He says he has a meeting there at 6 that ends at 7 and then he has a haircut at 8.  So he can meet me from 7 to 8.

I was shocked and told him that I didn’t appreciate being sandwiched between appointments.  Also he should have taken into account my location and he should be getting a haircut to meet me.  He offered to cancel the hair appointment and meet me Midtown, I declined.  The deed was done, and the moment was gone for me.

I am not sure how many times he canceled on me until we finally met.  And on that instance he was 30 minutes late.  I was about to leave.  The date was pleasant.  After that we had another date that he canceled because he had to take his dog to the vet.

I am not sure what happened after that, but I knew this was a person that I could not count on, and since he couldn’t be free for dates things fizzled.

I remembered he asking me to dinner a prior time when he was in my neck of woods and I ignored. And this time again it seems he is asking simply out of convenience, since he will be in Westchester anyway.

I don’t want to be convenient.  I want a man to go out of the way for me.

Although he was an interesting person and we had lots to talk about this is one time where I think that I should just let go and consider tried and done.

But here is my question:  Do I reply and say Thanks, but no thanks or do I just ignore it? Even though I want to treat people how I want to be treated which is I always want to be acknowledge and not ignored;  in this case I think I will choose silence.

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.” -Tupac Shakur

 

An update on my dating life, or lack thereof

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Daily Life

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“A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe.” – Rita Rudner

  1. The Doctor continues to text every now and then and it seems that we have settled on friendship.  I am happy with that.  He is not boyfriend material as he doesn’t seem to know what he wants, but he can be a great friend. File under “No romance, but great conversations”
  2. The perfect guy that was emailing me has not reached out since I didn’t reply to his last email.  Were he real he would wonder what happened and probably write inquiring.  File this under “I dodged a bullet!”
  3. The much younger guy totally disappeared.  I am considering filing a Missing Person’s Report. :-). File under “It was going to be a mistake anyway”
  4. I met someone (still from the Craigslist ad).  We had a great time at dinner.  He asked me on a second date that same evening and I said yes and said I would let him know when.  I am having second thoughts now.  He is recently divorced with 5 kids, and I have to say that 5 kids scare me. Also not a whole lot of chemistry, so I am not sure if I will go through with the second date.  File under “Perhaps… the jury is still out”
  5. There was another guy emailing me, and even though he seemed nice he kept pushing me to meet him.  I explained that my mom is in town and I am having some other stuff to take care of and asked for his patience.  Still he continue to push me. I hate to be pressured on doing something, and I told him so.  I think that it is the end of that. File under: “Patience is a virtue”
  6. My great blogger friend Vanessa from the Vanessence blog thought she had the perfect guy to introduce to me.  Unfortunately when she reached out to him she found out he just got a girlfriend.  I am not disappointed at all as it was a real long shot, but I am extremely happy that someone would think I am a great person to introduce to friends. File under: “It is good to be thought of”
  7.  And now for the last update.  On my post of May 11 I talked about a man from my past that I dated in 2007.  He has never given up and always texted me every now and then, even thought I always ignored him.  Right after Mother’s Day I gave in and replied to one of his texts. We started exchanging flirty texts, or so I thought; only for him to tell me that he has had a girlfriend since 2008.

At which point I said I was not interested, but he is still trying.  Here are the texts he sent the following day (May 12):

Screenshot 1

I didn’t reply, I thought he would get the hint, but then again he doesn’t understand hints, so below are the texts from yesterday, to which I replied:

Screenshot 2

Screenshot 3

Screenshot 4

I cut off the rest of the message as there were personal information and names of people pertaining to the details of this event. I didn’t reply and will not again.

I have to come clean and confess that a tiny part of me would love to attend this Dinner Dance event.  I also would love to see him again after almost ten years.  I am curious.  But not looking for drama.  So this is an invitation that was easy to pass up.

If the past is any indication I will continue to hear from him every now and then.   It is up to me not to reply again.  Even though he has no business contacting anyone if he has a girldfriend I have no ill feelings towards him and I still think he has a good heart.  I feel he is just misguided.  He should invest the time he is wasting texting me into fixing his relationship.

Clearly they are growing apart.  I once too thought it was okay for my boyfriend and I to go to events alone and take vacations apart.  I am talking about the first boyfriend (one day I will write about that relationship – we were together for 20 years!!).  I remember he never wanted to attend my work events.  Even though I had always lied to myself and said it was fine, that he was just not comfortable in that enviroment, it was never fine.  It signaled  problems in the relationship.  We disguised the unwilligness to support each other as freedom and individuality.

Relationships are hard work.  It takes compromise and the willingness to venture into the uncomfortable to support each other.  I want my significant other to be there next to me.  I no longer need to stand alone somewhere to prove that I am my own person.

I would hate for somebody else to spend 20 years with someone that is not their match.  Still, not regrets!  Hidsight is 20/20.  Moving forward.  Looking back to just see how far I have come!

and file all this under: “Keeping the faith!  It is not if, it is just when”

“Sometimes the comfort of being in a relationship lulls you into mundane complacency; you become irrelevant in each other’s lives. We call this phenomenon ‘growing apart’.” – Steve Maraboli

 

Jealousy, Happiness or something else?

11 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by in Daily Life, Dating, EX Files, Finding Me

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Hi friends, It has been a longer than usual…Where do I start?  Life happens… good and bad, and all I can do is manage the very little I have control of.  I realize, more and more, the need to speak less and listen more.  It seems that will be the path to my personal wisdom. My impulsive mouth gets me in trouble every time.

Moving on… Work is chaotic at times, but I realize that is when I am more productive.  Reigning over chaos makes me feel powerful.

Mom is in town, which means more of everything, more eating, more shopping, more watching TV.  Did I mention more eating?

Having Mom in town has been great for dating, and I am not being sarcastic.  It has been a great tool to weed out some of the potential dates out.  If someone cannot wait 3 weeks or less to meet me, how great a partner are they going to be for me? I am not saying they are not great, but the person for me will understand that I have a limited time with my mother and I am choosing to put her first over somebody I didn’t even meet yet.

Speaking of dating, 3 ghosts from the dating past have resurfaced.  One called wanting to check if I still had the same work number – he announced he got married.  The second wrote wishing me a happy birthday – he announced he just got engaged.  The third wrote to tell me that he has met someone and they have been dating for a couple of weeks.  I am not sure why he felt the need to write and tell me that, perhaps he wanted to share his happiness or perhaps he wanted to tell me I missed out.

I honestly don’t know how to feel about all those ghosts from the “not so far past” being happily coupled.   Originally when I heard from all 3 in the space of 2 days I confess I felt a hint of jealousy.  Then on the next second I thought to myself, shouldn’t I be happy, or perhaps even relieved? I am the one that decided not to continue to date, or even to start dating them.  My feelings haven’t changed.  They are all great guys, but not great for me.  So in the end, I am choosing to be happy that they are happy.

Perhaps the real question here is:  Will there be a great guy for me, or should I settle for a great guy period? Perhaps my heart is stuck on that one “great”(and I use the term loosely) guy that is now known as Ex, and I am blind to everyone else?

“Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.” ― Sholem Asch

I still continue to struggle with thinking of him.  The absurdity of such situation is not lost on me.  It will be 3 years soon.  When will I stop thinking of all those happy moments?  When will I not get so sad that I was so easily replaced? I am happy and content with my single life, or am I not and just fooling myself? Now that my Mom is here I catch myself mentioning his name more and more.  I actually told her that she is allowed to slap me on the mouth if I ever say his name again.  She agreed. I am happy to say that I have not been hit yet! 🙂

When will my heart understand what my mind and soul already knows?  That part of my life is over and done with.  There were great moments, but in the end that it is all that it was: great moments.  I am deserving of more and better.  I am deserving of always and forever.

The forgiving part was easy; the forgetting part has been a battle.  I am persistent and this war is not over yet.

“Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche