Diddle, Rinse, Repeat: The Monotony That Is My Middle Aged Dating

Snap on those latex gloves, ladies, and join me as I perform the postmortem on my latest fling. Yes, this one has run its course, now all that's left to do is analyze it and him and me, assign the moniker and file it away along with the others.

I like to dissect these so-called "relationships" because I am that hopeful fool who thinks there's something to be gleaned, some deep lesson to be learned from each one. And this one didn't disappoint, as far as education goes. I'm going to share with you the most valuable nugget of information I took from it:

If someone tells you they're an asshole, believe them.

Like, if they actually put it out there, in, say...a text: "I'm an asshole." There are many ways we, as women, are hardwired to respond:

The Affirmer: "Oh no! No! You're not! You're awesome."
The Nurturer: "I'm sure you're just woefully misunderstood."
The One-Upper: "You're an asshole? Well, I'm an asshole AND I'm crazy! LOLOLOL"
And my personal favorite:
The Fixer: "Challenge accepted."

Ladies? There's really only one proper response to that proclamation. You say, "Thanks for the heads up" and then you walk away. Thank them for whatever they've given you, along with such a fair warning. Thank them for the dinner or the drinks, for the tingly orgasms or the flirtations that made you blush, for the compliments and the whispered sweet nothings. Thank them and then, girl, you hightail it away from them as fast as freaking possible.

Sometimes the scooter cannot drive away fast enough.

Our time on earth is limited and one of the suckiest things about life is how late in the game we realize this. It's one of the reasons we try to placate ourselves by doing things like trying to see each timesuck as some sort of after school special. It's why I sit here on my morning off, writing about yet another disastrous trip down Lover's Lane.

Because I am, like everyone else, running out of time, I've decided to take the advice given to me by two of my favorite humans. Both of them have stood by me, one physically, the other figuratively, while I've tiptoed through the minefield that is post-divorce love.

The first person is, of course, my best friend Danielle. My moral compass, the one who knows all the dirt and still talks to me. I look to her for guidance because she's managed to not only remain married and still loves her husband despite all of their differences- but also because she tells it like it is. She won't soften blows to avoid bruising my ego, and she is absolutely my fiercest defender and my loudest cheerleader.

The second person is a guy. A friend's husband, actually, whom I've never met face to face but has become my go-to for a guy's perspective. I told him I wouldn't name him here but just for shits and giggles I'm going to give him his own moniker: Casey Jones. I owe his wife a drink and quite possibly more, because she has allowed me to borrow her husband's brain for my picking pleasure.

Danielle and Casey have almost always given me similar advice. The one time they differed was (and still is) in regards to my quasi-relationship with The One Without A Moniker...the guy I trysted with off and on for five long years and decided to stop seeing at the end of 2014. Yeah, that guy. We'll get back to him in a bit.

When this latest fling began a couple of months ago, both of my advisers were pleased. Danielle met him and gave me the thumbs up. Enthusiastic thumbs, no less. She found him to be funny and smart and charming, like I did. Casey Jones was all guy-like, wishing me fun times, good sex and lots of laughs. Both of them supported the venture.

When my gut started telling me this fling was flung, they both advised me to wait a bit. To bench my cuckoo nature and just go with the flow. When it became so completely and hilariously apparent that once again I'd cast my net into yet another shallow, silty pond, they were there with consoling words and encouragement to just keep on trucking.

Both of them also told me this, and it's taken a while for it to finally begin to sink in:

I'm worth more. I'm not saying this most recent guy isn't a worthwhile person. He's not a bad man. He's not evil or icky. He threw it all out there for me right at the beginning with that one little sentence (remember, the one about being an asshole) but I was too blinded by butterflies and the reverberations of my freshly tickled ivories to really grasp it. Like so many women in my sensible but well-worn shoes, I lug around this tattered bag of hope wherever I go. Life has proven to be less than kind but we optimists...we never give up on that little girl fairytale dream. Someday my prince will come. Someday he won't leave right after he does.

Getting back to the other guy, the five-year-long one night stand? Yeah. We had decided, mutually, to stop doing that as of last year. December 30th, if you want the exact date. It was hard to quit him, not gonna lie to you. He is funny and smart and tall and dare I say, dashing. But I did it. I stood my ground and he stood his and we avoided each other for a nice long while.

We slipped up in May. And then in July. And then again on my birthday which was just a couple of weeks ago. By that time I had realized the Ivory Tickler was done tickling and when I got the message from Mr Five Years my martini-filled belly did those sick flipflops and BOOM there he was. There I was, too, reveling in his dash and his arms and all the excitement.

Until the next morning, when I fessed up to Danielle and Casey Jones. Danielle finally let me have it. She didn't mince words and when she was done I was, for one of the first times ever, speechless. No words but plenty of tears. And then I read Casey's response. Cut to me, standing over a birthday cake shoving spoonfuls of marbled goodness into my mouth while sobbing. Not exactly the way I wanted to usher in my 49th year but pretty much nailed it.

Why the tears? They weren't shed over the most recent lovah. Not one salty drop lost there. They weren't trickling down my cheeks due to remorse over the previous evening's tete a tete, either.

Nope. I was crying because my friends were trying to tell me something and despite all of my resistance, I was finally hearing them.

I know a lot of you are in the same gross boat as me. We are women of a certain age. Our bodies are not what they were the first time we went through this insane dating ritual. We have worries and kids and jobs and so little time to take care of them, let alone ourselves.

We've been hurt. Betrayed by loved ones and some of us are more healed than others but we can all still feel the pain. We love big but we're also terrified of what happens when that big love leaves our grasp, when we stand there on the grass and watch it float away into the clouds. Sometimes it comes back to us intact, but there are times we get nothing other than shreds in return.

If you're like me, you feel ruined by the past. My wholeness is gone, and I don't know if I'll ever get it back. The men I choose to let into my life are so obviously not the right ones, and yet, there they are. And me complaining about it is akin to a fisherman bitching about no bites when he keeps going back to the same barren lake.

My girl Danielle made me cry because she loves me so much it actually makes her sick to see me making the same dumbass choices over and over. My guy Casey Jones made me cry because he managed to sum up, in one Facebook message, what my problem is. Three different therapists have taken a crack at my crazy but only Casey Jones managed to hit it out of the park. I'm going to cut and paste his words here. Obviously they are meant for me and my whackadoo situation but I think there are many of you out there who would benefit from reading them too. With his permission, here it is:

I look at you and Big Daddy, and I see you comfortable in your routine, in the life you two worked hard to construct...but I see him dissatisfied with his lot in life, having given marriage and fatherhood of 4 little ones a half-assed run and found it wanting, leaving him vulnerable to the wiles of Secretary (whom, I'm certain, finds him equally boring nowadays). That's fuckery on a grand scale, to do that to your wife and children, and inexcusable. But what I see sometimes are harsh thoughts on your behalf that you could have done more, should have done more, to prevent the dissolution of your marriage. I can tell you all day long that once BD made that decision, there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it, and I think to an extent you do recognize that cold but honest truth, but I still see you being harsh on yourself at times.  

Where I'm going with this is, because of that fuckery by BD, it's inhibiting your ability to find and maintain a healthy relationship, and leaving you vulnerable to exciting but assholey men without substance and commitment. And I'm thinking that you are OK with those relationships... because you feel like that's all you deserve. And I can tell you all day long that you deserve better than that and be uplifting as your friend, but YOU have to believe it, too. I have faith that in the fullness of time, you'll come to believe it, and you'll find it.

I'm starting to believe it. Look, I'm no prize. I'm filled to the brim with anxiety and insecurity. Even after years of practice, anything over two cocktails turns me into a hot mess with limited bladder control. I'm poor and I drive a hooptie-type car and I'm going to have to work full-time until approximately ten years after my demise. I have a front butt and ham-hock arms and despite good intentions I'll probably always be the "before" picture.

But all of that doesn't mean I'm not worthy of good. Good luck and good friends and good fortune and good love.

Like Casey Jones said, I deserve better. And so do you, my friends. Believe it.