This afternoon I had a pleasant conversation with a dear friend that lasted over an hour. I am not a chatty guy, but I must be a good listener. During this talk she guilted me into going to a memorial service for a Lion friends sister. After some mind wrestling I decided I will get an atta-boy if I go. Nothing beats an atta-boy. Although one awe-shit erases ten atta-boys. That is why I felt it critical to go to this service. I am sorely in need of atta-boys.
I raced through supper, took a shower, shaved, and dressed for a memorial service, only to find a text saying the service is on August 20 not July 20, grrrr!. So here I sit all dressed up and clean wondering how to save the evening. Guys at my age don’t have black books that can lead to a memorable night. In fact, I haven’t had a black book in sixty-five years. I don’t think it would be of any use if I still had it.
During our conversation we discussed my lack of contact of late. It seems my friends are wondering why I don’t return texts and phone calls. I’ve been wondering about that myself. In the shower it came to me, it is grief. Grief is a strange emotion and it strikes at strange times in strange ways. I was thinking it was depression, but grief is a better explanation. The only way out is to deal with it, which is why I finally consented to go to the wake.
I will take the car out for a drive and watch the sunset, maybe that will compensate. I am truly suffering sexual grief which is what happens when a partner loses a longtime loving bedmate. No one ever talks about it though, they just trudge on through. I on the other hand, having diagnosed my problem, like to discuss it, except no one wants to listen.
So driving off to the sunset is my cure. It’ll give me a chance too think clearly about my next move in life.
I just completed reading a book titled ‘I Love You, Send Money.’ It involves online dating sites. Why would an eighty something be interested in dating sites? As crazy as it sounds I still long for companionship. Being locked up isn’t helping me one bit.
Recently, while on a soul searching session with myself I began to list all the things I missed the most since Peg left me. Most of them involved physical comfort like: sleeping in the same bed together, hugging, holding hands, kissing, cuddling, sex. A phrase came into mind ‘sexual grief.’ It sounded strange, but I googled it anyway. Bingo, the search yielded several hits under sexual bereavement. It is a very real emotion experienced by both men and women, but it is little talked about because of embarrassment. One cannot spend 20, 30, 40, 50 years with a partner sharing intimate relations and not miss it after God turns off the life switch and leaves a partner alone. The suddeness, and finality of the change is too dramatic to not take notice. I have experienced this twice now, and I am here to tell you that sexual grief is a real thing. After Barb died my emotions went crazy, and never settled until I married Peg two years later. Peg and I were very happy together and now that she died the same damned emotion has kicked in. This time, however, I was waiting for it, and my body is also seventeen years older, so raging hormones with the intensity of a flame thrower have diminished to a flickering candle.
Getting back to ‘I Love You, Send Money,’ A few weeks ago, I experienced an online scam for which I fell hard. This time it was an email from a friend who purportedly was traveling and not able to buy a her niece a birthday present. She asked me to buy an iTunes gift card and to send her the pass key via email. This friend had lost a brother and a sister within a week of each other in different cities, and I thought she may be traveling between. I emailed back using the address in her message asking for how much she would like on the card. It sounded plausible so I took the bait and rushed out to buy a fifty dollar gift card without waiting for her reply. I scratched the coating off the passkey, took a picture and sent it via email. I called her and left a message as to what I did.
Hours later, she called me to tell me I had been scammed. How can that be, it was from your address? She hadn’t gotten my email. I looked at the original message I got and discovered that her address in the header was correct, but the address in the body was not exactly the same. He address was her name, but the scammer added an additional vowel at the end to make it different, and the service provider was different. Damn! I got fooled. What can I do now? Gift cards are not returnable, so that was out. I asked my self, I wonder if this scammer has had time to redeem this card? I went to the iTunes store, logged in and found the section where you can enter gift card numbers. I did and iTunes accepted my card and I have a credit with them. I got lucky by outsmarting the perp, but it doesn’t change the embarrassment.
When I spotted this book I was searching of free e-books to read while my library is closed. The title tingled a nerve and told me to read it. The story is about people who are using online dating sites. These particular people are in their late forties/early fifties. One a widower, the other a divorced mom of two lookin’ for love. Supposedly they are both using the site for the first time. They begin messaging. The guy, I thought started talking about love a bit earlier than I would be in this situation. I wondered. The girl was very tentative at first but slowly opened up. They agreed to meet in Hawaii months later for their first date. The guy is an engineer who has a business helping railroads. To make along story short, his latest client is in Sri Lanka and while he is there he needs money to finish the job. His bank for some reason will not free up his funds so he asks his online friend to help him out. He needs fifty thousand dollars, and she agrees to send it to him. I was right this was a scam. She never gets her money back, he never made it to Hawaii for their first date, and she goes bankrupt.
Between this corny online love story scam and the third season of Homeland I am ready for COVID-19 to die and go to hell.
In the meantime, I am experimenting with online grocery shopping and keep striking out. The grocers provide the service, but they can’t handle the volume of business. A third store has now put me on hold waiting for a delivery date.
