I am dealing with an odd bit of online dating.

A couple weeks ago I got a comment on one of the posts on my Hilda blog, from a man who wanted to meet me, and recognized what town I lived in. [I have a post on garbled bus announcements, and he interpreted them. +1 intelligence.] I created my corners.hilda @ gmail address just to answer him and stay anonymous.

Well, one thing led to another and we're arranging to meet. Between Christmas for him and my son's vacation plans (Mom, I'm inviting friends over for pizza and card games), it's more difficult that we thought.

But anyone that persistent and patient deserves a meeting.

One of the best exercises in "talk to everyone" I know is to take a part time job as a retail clerk.

The store I worked in (a year ago) encouraged us to chat with customers. With the checkout counter between me and them I felt safe, and I knew I'd never see most of the customers outside this tiny little role. So I could experiment.

I'm not working there any more (got a job in my field, yay!) but I can now talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime for a few minutes.  I can make people think I care about what they're saying. I can get through a job interview, phone or in person, and have the interviewer feel like we really connected.

This may be the most valuable thing I got from that job.

I'm transferring over my last post in my Gold thread ... to heck with anonymity, it's going to be gone in 3 days anyway.

--------
I just finished saving off my entire MAP thread (except for this page, which I will later this week) and re-reading it.

I have come a long way!

Back in 2012 when Athol started the forum, I was a frumpy 50+ year old housewife in shell shock from a catastrophic marriage failure and high conflict divorce. I had a big house, two teenagers, no job and no money. In classic Enneagram 5w4 mode, I had retreated into myself and was trying all sorts of low effort schemes to keep our lives together.

Today, I'm a barely frumpy almost 60 year old, beginning a solid career in a new, well-paying field. One kid has left the nest and is started on a solid career path, the other is in high school and becoming a solid Captain. I wear makeup to work every day, I have money in the bank, and life is pretty damned good — not perfect, but getting there.

A large percentage of the improvement is due to Athol, his forum, and the wonderful people here who kept after me with the wise insights and hard questions.

I'll never forget when I "met" Athol and MMSL. I was reading an email list for spouses of Asperger's people, and one person posted a "can you believe someone would write this nonsense?" letter. I had to take a look at the "nonsense" which was Athol's blog ... 15 minutes later I was reeling from the understanding I had on why my marriage failed.

When Athol started the forum, I was member #78 (I think). I joined as Milf-in-training, and after a while, I deleted that account (TMI, my posts were too revealing, and this was before Gold) and became Hilda Corners.

Not only have I learned how relationships work, I learned what I needed to do (and keep doing) to improve my changes for a great next relationship. I've gotten conflicting advice and learned to pick and choose what will work for me. I've helped others, guided a couple people through their own high conflict divorces, and maybe even helped save a marriage or two.

[And I still suffer from Forum foot in mouth disease.]

I'm going to miss this place terribly, and hope I'll be able to get enough support for my future MAP journey in the "refugee camp" as I've gotten in the real forum.

(I'm sniffling ... )

TheBoringGirl said:

i don't want to hijack the post but i have always felt that guys didn't like me because i was boring.  my exH said one of the reasons he was leaving me was because i was boring. and i haven't been interesting enough for any guy to stick around.

My most recent ex called me a fat lazy slob so often I believed him. [See: gaslighting]

Here's how fat, lazy and slobby I was.

Though I was overweight, I never went over a woman's size 12. I had also lost 15lbs in 6 weeks the summer before we split up.

Lazy: I was the stay at home mom to two active kids, one with learning disabilities. I did all the cleaning, most of the parenting, and filled in the edges when he didn't feel like cooking. I ran a small artisan business, volunteered in the community, took martial arts classes, and oversaw a major home remodel.

After the divorce I tried to grow my business, took two different retail clerk jobs, taught myself a new set of career skills, and now have a good job in that career.

The ex? Lost his job, hasn't been employed for 3 years. Refuses to take jobs below his peak, finds filing for unemployment too stressful.

I could go on ... let's just say I'm not a slob either.

You are as boring as you let yourself be. Don't believe anyone else about your character.

I'm surprised I didn't already own Nice Card, Mean Card.

I own it now.

I now own everything except the pants book. Thank you.