So after Danielle’s bombshell, I panicked.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was flailing*.  So being the problem solver that I am, I jumped on the internet because the internet is always the first place someone in crisis should turn to**.  I got on OKC, changed my status from Non-monogamous to single and the first good thing happened since being rejected.  Women.  Not the random one woman a week that popped up on my Non-monogamous search, but  loads of single women looking for single men which I am now one of.  How rad is that?!?  I got pumped.  I was thinking that I’m going to soar like a fucking eagle.  Screw you, Danielle!  You may have lesbians, butch haircuts, thumb rings, and the Indigo Girls, but I have the fucking internet!

 I spent the next hour or so liking an inordinate number of women.  I even increased my age on OKC to be honest and still got hit after hit of single women***.  I updated my profile, and changed my search parameters to more realistic settings for a fifty year old.  I put my minimum age for women at 35 and maximum at 60****.    Here is what I am looking for and what I am not looking for.  I will click ‘pass” when the women are too overweight or someone who doesn’t have a lot of body hair.  Those two things are kind of game breakers for me.  Now before you get pissed at me for fat-shaming or body-hair shaming, you’re talking to a 50 year-old balding 5’4 guy.  I’m like a living and breathing ‘pass’ button*****. 

The problem now is that I was so determined to click on every single woman in the LA area, it is so freaking hard to go through the multitude of women in my ‘like’ section******!  After fucking crushing my OKC site, I wasn’t done.  Meet-up, this is Eric.  Eric, this is Meet-up.  And this is Meet-up’s join button.  I spent hours going through all the potential meet-up groups in my area that I could join.  I joined like four social groups, five singles groups, a volleyball group, and freaking eight hiking groups.  To this day, most of the emails that come into my inbox are either new meetup events or reminders about upcoming events.  But to be honest, the thought of putting myself out there socially in these groups have been a little intimidating. I have been to a few meet-up groups and even some dates and on the whole, I have met some really nice people.  But the truth is that I’d rather just be hanging out with my kid and my wife er… ex-wife at this time.  I told Danielle that after I went to a concert in the park with one of the aforementioned social groups where a mediocre Rod Stewart cover band was playing, that it was fun, but not as much fun as it would have been if she were there.  She nodded.  Hugged me goodnight and went to bed.  I went to bed too.  Scratch that.  I took a Xanex and then went to bed.

p.s. Continuing my assault on the internet theme, I also hate the Facebook Families who look so happy with their summer vacation pictures.  I’m getting divorced and I don’t want to see how happy you and your family are.  Fuck you!  But to be fair, fuck me too.  Because every trip I went on, I posted it on Facebook as well.  I stand here humbled, and I apologize deeply to all the divorced people who saw all those posts.  My bad.  

When Danielle told me that she wanted to end our marriage she said that  I forced her to tell me.  I didn’t force her to tell me, just like my daughter didn’t force her to come out to her on her birthday. 

*Flailing was in the running to be the name of this book.  It still may be since I’m only on page 60

**https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/

*** When I was non-monogamous on OKC, there was a dearth of choices so I lowered my age by 5 years to try to up my potential to meet women

****I doubt I would really date someone 15 years younger than me or 10 years older than me.  The women in the 35 year-old range would either want kids or have young kids already that I wouldn’t want to deal with and the 55-60 year-old range may be as active as I am.  Realistically, I’m hoping for someone in the 40-50 range but I’m keeping my mind open.

*****On OKC they have a question that asks; “Would you want your partner to be taller than you?”  I’ve never encountered a woman who didn’t answer “Yes” on that one.  Duh.  What straight woman would want to have a shorter partner than her?  It’s like having the question, “Do you like breathing?”  In college I dated a 5’10 woman named… I forgot her name, but I think it began with an “L”.  No!  It wasn’t an “L”, it was a “T”.  Theresa.  Her name was Theresa and we met in an acting class.  She was great and fun, and she didn’t care that I was short.  She held my hand and people stared and she didn’t care.  Unfortunately, it bothered me, so I ended it.  Just one of many stupid decisions I’ve made in my lifetime.  Wherever you are, Theresa I’m ready to go out with you again if you’re free and still into shorter guys. 

******Hey brain trust at OKC,  give us an option to sort our likes either by percentage or proximity.  Duh.