Never married – Country Dating Over 30

In the woods with a router

I can’t tell you how many ways I’ve imagined murdering my router. I’ve imagined stabbing it while gleefully cackling as it dies, throwing it in the stream and watching it float away, crushing it with my car, jubilantly obliterating it with an ax, and finally, throwing it across the room to smash up against the wall. One could say I have deranged anger problem related to my router.

Internet, that lovely amazing thing that we all can’t seem to live without these days can be a massive pain in the butt. Out here in the sticks we don’t have cell service. We still have land lines, (Remember the phones that have a dial tone?) and our internet is one of three things, satellite, DSL (only if you’re lucky) and dial up. We didn’t have anything but dial up here for many years, then satellite came along with their faster speeds, and 5 million dollars a month packages that had VERY limited download ability. Basically, if you tried to watch Netflix it would take all day to get through one movie, and you’d be billed $1000 for the number of gigs used to stream it. Obviously, I’m exaggerating, but seriously I felt like I was being extorted on a regular basis, all so I could check my email. Then DSL became available in 2014. It was like the internet gods were smiling on our little town of less than 500. Suddenly we could watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and do more on the internet than just send an email. We were running through the flowering fields screaming, “YES the hills are alive with the sound of YouTube!” Of course, our happiness was cut short. Nothing lasts forever, right? With this great luxury came great annoyance. Dealing with the more than crappy issues that plague our service provider all the time is bit like going swimming in a pond full of leaches, looks great and feels great at the beginning, then before you know it your life force is being sucked out of you. I can’t begin to express how many times I’ve called to have them fix the same problem, yet nothing is done, I’d get a better response from my 98-year-old grandmother. (Okay, I don’t have a 98-year-old grandmother, but I imagine if I did, she could do better.) We can’t do anything about it because they are the ONLY DSL provider for this area.

I’m also trying to establish online “relationships.” That sounds all kinds of wrong, but you know what I mean. I can’t do that if I don’t have internet. I was talking to this amazing looking guy the other day, (With my luck he was probably a woman in a giant pink feather negligée and bright blue eyeshadow and curlers laughing at my stupidity.) and we were having fun bantering back and forth, then…my internet just quits. 5 hours later I’m finally able to respond, and of course I don’t get a response back from him. A friend said he wasn’t worth it if he didn’t understand my “issues.” (I’ve heard that before.) Okay, yes, I agree, but it doesn’t make me feel better. Imagine having an amazing conversation with a woman and she just freezes mid-sentence and turns into a non-responsive wax figure and that wax figure stays that way for 5 hours! Would you stand there waiting for her to come back to life? No, you’d go find someone else to talk too, someone with super-fast amazing internet! Oh, my god, I think after 37 years the country is really starting to get to me. I wish I could say that the frustration stopped there, but nope I also have an office here.

I’m on deadline right now and the internet has got a mind of its own, or rather my router does, it decides it will work in the morning but not in the afternoon. What do I get from my internet provider? I get bills that have erroneous charges on them, and tech support who are angels but customer service who I swear rose from the depths of hell, if demon spawn walk among us then they work in customer service for that company.

Oh what a lovely cliche you are.

I’m an accountant, so my life has been full of 1099’s and W-2’s lately, sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Better late than never though. It’s going to be like this till after April 15^th.

Oh, the joy of country dating continues. Is it just me or maybe it’s the whole rural thing, but the men who are interested in me I swear just need someone to talk to, and don’t really want to date. Is it so bad out there that human contact is that sparse, and that dating websites have become more like Facebook? I’m so confused. I’ve been talking to one guy for over a month and it’s all been, “Good morning!” and “How was your day?” and “Be safe on the roads out there.” Two other guys are basically doing the same thing. Okay, yes, I could ask them for coffee and conversation, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m just not interested anymore. I’m looking for spark, something not so vapid and lacking in any kind of emotion. (Right now, I can’t even go into the lack of emotional maturity issues I’ve encountered.) If I didn’t know better I would say I’m being treated like a girlfriend, yet none of these men have even met me. If that’s not creepy I don’t know what is. My best friend has told me I’m being too nice and to stop responding. I would like to say this is an isolated incident but it’s not, it happens all the time. If it’s not the “forever texters” it’s men over 60, close in age with my father, who seem to think I would be into that kind of thing…Hello daddy issues! No, I’m good. Finally, one dude said he wanted to meet up for coffee, thankfully he was under the age of 50.

While I understand it’s hard to take a picture that truly represents what you look like, and that maybe people don’t accurately describe their body type and weight, but c’mon there is a limit. This guy’s profile stated that he was 5’9″ and athletically built. The pictures were of a seemingly nice looking 46-year-old man. Yeah, when I walked into our “local” coffee spot, that is not what I met. Dude was barely my height, (I’m 5’4″) he had a large beer gut, and looked like he was way past, and mean WAY past 46. He hadn’t shaved in probably over three weeks, which he told me thinking that somehow that would be a good thing. When you have a goatee, it’s not supposed to look like you have been stranded on a desert island for weeks. He looked older than my father, who is 69. What’s worse is that he knew he had misrepresented himself, by saying, “My job was very taxing hence the reason I look much older than I am.” He’s retired. Okay, before you jump on my case about being mean, let me just say that his looks weren’t the major issue, it was the fact that he felt the need to misrepresent himself SO badly on his profile. Seriously, I’m being nice here, he flat out lied. I actually try to post mediocre pics of myself online, you know, with little makeup and such, so that when I do meet these men I look better than my picture, not worse. I swear, I think I’m living every blind or online dating cliché out there. You see these kinds of dating scenarios being portrayed in movies but you don’t really think that they’re true. Well, I hate to say it, “It’s all true!”

If a cute country boy shows up on your door step…

If a cute country boy shows up on your door step, don’t think, don’t hesitate, just slam the door in his face and walk away.

That’s what I should have done when that precise thing happened not too long ago. You see, I had this conversation with my best friend and my dad about what I wanted and how the next guy that came into my life had to literally knock on my door, well it happened. However, it wasn’t exactly what I asked for, or at least maybe I wasn’t specific enough. I’ve had this kind of weird occurrence happen in my life before. I’d be casually talking about something and that very thing would happen. I am forever a believer in, “Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it.” It doesn’t happen all the time, therefore I’m not exactly careful with everything I say. For some reason whenever it has anything to do with men or prospective men in my life, it’s like the cosmos, God, or whatever higher power you may believe in decides it’s going to listen in then, and only then. I wish it paid attention when I was asking for a million dollars too, or maybe when my water pipes freeze, but apparently, my love life seems to be the topic of amusement. Lord knows it’s never dull unless I just flat out refuse to date.

I don’t understand, because in my 20’s dating wasn’t that interesting. My boyfriends then were normal average guys, no drama, wonderful men, unfortunately just not the ones I saw myself spending my life with. Now that I’m in my late 30’s there is an abundance of bad encounters. I’m really starting to wonder, “Do normal guys exist past 30?” Once again, I thought, “Oh a guy who is my age, this should be so much better.” Yeah, I was wrong once again. This guy was completely different than what I was used too. He was straight up country! I mean rifle rack, camo covered truck country. 35 years old, thick Vermont country accent, listened only to country music and was a pure gentleman, or rather that’s how he portrayed himself. Who he really was? A liar and manipulator. Yup another one. Luckily, I found this out quick, long before there was any kind of emotional attachment. I’m still annoyed though. Now they’re finding me at home? It’s as if I have a bright red beacon flashing Morse code for all the weirdos come hither. If I’m not safe in the middle of nowhere, then no place is safe from these crazy, emotionally deranged men. Ugh! I mean seriously, how many woman can say they just show up on their door step? Granted I’d seen this person before, he wasn’t a complete stranger, but it’s not like we had had coffee and conversation. I knew who he was but he had never showed any kind of interest at all. Yet there he was coming to my house and asking whether I wanted to go to breakfast with him. I should have known then, who asks someone out for breakfast as a first date? Again, I was willing to go outside the box, because clearly my choices previously were lacking.

It a nut shell, something felt off with this dude, but I thought maybe I was just being too cautious. Finally, a few weeks into dating I asked him about his “ex.” Turns out he’s still living with her and their daughter, but they aren’t “together” anymore. I laughed my ass off. He thought that was a sign that I was okay with it. I proceeded to tell him in semi hysterics, laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes, that I couldn’t talk to him anymore. Look, it happens, sometimes, something is just so ridiculously messed up that you can’t help but laugh and cry at the same time. I didn’t believe for one second that he was single, especially when he prefaced it with, “I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d run.” BIG red flag right there. If they are hiding something then you always have something to worry about. I told him to go be with his family, and whatever was happening he needed to deal with and be there for his daughter. I only wish that the woman who had messed with my ex and the one who has been with my son’s father had said the same thing or something similar to them. Then again, maybe those women did me a favor.

Just call me Hester!

When you’re jealous of those who are getting divorced, “Houston we have a problem!”

When you’re jealous of those who are getting divorced? “Houston we have a problem!” I’ve never been married, I don’t know what it’s like to go through the good and bad times. I have no idea what it’s like to wake up next to someone on a regular basis for a long period of time. The only regularity I’ve ever had in a relationship was regular disappointment and lies, and regular bad sex. I’ll talk about that later. I want regular, and yes even divorce, I feel like I’m the last woman standing. I was single for 9 years, (Insert cobwebs joke) and now I’m starting to wonder, is the mid to late 30’s dating world actually worth it? I mean, when you live in the country and the best that’s available is either over 50, divorced and bitter, psychos, sociopaths, idiots, addicts, ex cons and just plain crazies, it really makes you think, “I’m gonna die alone!” When a good-looking single man who has none of those issues arrives in town, its like watching seagulls descend on a french fry. When women in my community see this man they seem to lose their minds and attack, taking no prisoners. Even the married women start thinking about leaving their husbands. The real kicker? That succulent french fry always ends up marrying someone from out-of-town. With pickings so lean, you tend to make decisions about men that you would NEVER make under normal circumstances. Yep, and I just made some mind numbing dating blunders recently. More on that later too. Continue reading “Just call me Hester!”