'Tis The Season I've Been Dreading

Oh. Joy. The Holidays are upon us. Deck the halls with fear and trepidation.

Ever since the separation and divorce, I have targeted the holiday season as being a particularly bad one. Not only was I concerned with being alone at times but also that my daughters’ holidays would be ruined with the breakup of their family. I feared eating alone on Thanksgiving since the girls would be with their mother. I worried about feeling guilty about taking my daughters away from their mother on Christmas since they were scheduled to be with me. I despised the notion of decorating my new house because, really, what was the point? And wouldn’t that just make me feel worse?

I envisioned late November and all of December to be decorated with doom and gloom, not boughs of holly. I saw myself sitting lonely in my house longing for the times when I was with my wife and girls, decorating the Christmas tree and singing Christmas carols. In fact, I thought it would be so bad for me that I only took a very small amount of Christmas decorations when I moved out. I thought it would be better for the girls to have them all so they would have the decorations they are used to and I would probably not decorate anyway.

Thanksgiving was either going to be spent down at my parents in Texas or by myself. I thought back to when I was single and was alone for one Thanksgiving due mostly to not having the money to travel anywhere and all my friends having prior plans. I made a turkey dinner for myself. It was sad and pathetic and I assumed that's what I was in store for this year.

Then it occurred to me that none of the above HAD to happen. The type of holiday I was going to have was to be determined by me and how I approached it. If I approached it with the above thoughts, then yes, it would suck. I would be depressed and would be starting 2013 in the worst light possible. I had control over this and I decided I was going to do my best to prevent depression and disaster.

The first thing I did was see if I could spend Thanksgiving with the girls. This, of course, meant having dinner over at my ex-wife’s house. This was something we had discussed early on but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it back then. However, both my ex and I are very mindful of our girls’ feelings about the divorce so we wanted the holidays to be as normal as they could be which meant both of their parents needed to be in the picture. So I am going to have dinner with my ex, my daughters and the people who used to be in my family. Will it be awkward? I suppose it could and probably still will be at least initially but again, the amount of awkwardness is controlled by me. If I want to be standoffish and not talk to anyone and bemoan to myself on how it used to be, then the awkward rate will be high. If I choose to have fun, enjoy the company and most importantly, be with my girls, then it doesn’t have to awkward at all.

And if it started to get that way, well, I’m bringing the wine. 

For Christmas, I am scheduled to have the girls the entire week of Christmas and since Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year that meant I could have them from the weekend before to the weekend after. My plans were to take the girls down to see their grandparents (my parents) and their aunts, uncle, and cousins. I knew my ex wouldn’t be happy about it but it was my right and I couldn’t be concerned with how she felt.

That didn’t last long.

Regardless of how I may have been distant during the last year or so of our marriage, I am generally a thoughtful guy. I try to take other people’s feelings into consideration and I began to do that not only with my ex-wife but with my girls. Separating them from their mom on the first Christmas after they no longer have two full time parents didn’t seem right. I discussed it with my ex and we decided that the girls would spend Christmas Eve with her and that I would come over early on Christmas morning, hopefully before the girls woke up, so both of us could enjoy watching the girls open their presents. Then, the girls and I would head for Texas.

As far as decorating my house, I am planning on doing something. Even if I wasn’t doing it for myself, I needed to do it for the girls. They are over here often and not having any decorations up for them would be unfair. It won’t be as extravagant as years prior, but they (and I) will know it’s the holiday season. I can’t put up a big tree as the only place where one would fit is in the basement or in the dining room. Neither of those spots is very visible so I am putting thought into what I will do. I do know that the outside decorations won’t be as big as before. I won’t be lining my entire roofline with lights but I will put some up. The bottom line is that I need to start building my own set of holiday decorations and new traditions for me and the girls as we move on to our next destination.

I'm sure next year will be different.  An entire year will have passed and who knows where I or my ex wife will be on our journeys but I suspect it won't be as easy to make sure we are all together.  I am totally expecting that and it will be a bridge we will cross when we get there.  For this year, however, focus must be on removing the sadness from the holidays.

It’s funny how I have done an almost complete 180 on my viewpoint for the holiday season and I’m glad I’m forcing myself to make this turnaround. It’s a known fact that the holidays cause depression rates to go up and I firmly believe that is something we can control…or at least I will be making the attempt. Do I think I’ll sail through this time of year without any sadness or feelings of forlornness? No, I’m sure I’ll have my moments, but if I don’t want to forever stain future holidays by letting the 2012 one suck beyond all manner of suckiness, I have to rely on myself to make it right. I think too often people in my situation let their depression get the better of them when it doesn't really have to. It’s not easy and I may find myself writing a blog about how my whole plan failed miserably. I hope that doesn’t happen and if I keep the right attitude, it won’t.

I write this post not only for myself but for others who may be in the same situation. Just because our lives may not be where we thought they would be this time of year doesn’t change the fact that the holidays are a special time. It’s a time for charity, happiness and seeing the world through the eyes of children. To miss out on that because you are basically feeling sorry for yourself is doing a disservice not only to you but to those around you. Forget about the heartache you’ve suffered and go look at Christmas lights. Abandon the thoughts of loneliness and go volunteer at a soup kitchen. I think you’ll find there are others in a lot worse shape than you. If your children aren’t around, “adopt” one at church or a local charity. Buy them presents and know you’ll be making their lives brighter. It’s not in what we do for ourselves that makes the holiday special, it’s what we do for others. I’m choosing to focus on my girls and not on me and I think that will make the season a merry one indeed.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a Christmas tree I can display in my smallish living room.

 

Hall Of Fame

When a professional sports player retires and if he or she is of significant caliber, there is always discussion amongst those that follow sports on if the player should be inducted into their chosen sports Hall of Fame. Players at the upper echelon in their sport, your Michael Jordans, Emmitt Smiths, and Joe Montanas are no-brainers. They are going in first ballot, no questions asked. But when you have someone who may have good stats, but not great stats, the discussion intensifies.

The one really good rule of thumb I’ve heard over the years was “If you have to think about it, he doesn’t go in.” There may be debates back and forth on it but when two parties can’t decide, it’s clear that there’s too many questions on that players eligibility and until those are settled, generally by length of time since retirement, that player is out.

I bring this up because recently a good friend said that they had a friend who was also divorced and wondered if I would be interested in having a blind date. They even provided a picture so it wasn’t even a true blind date. With this information this really should have been a simple yes or no, but I stopped to think about it. Was I interested?

Then I thought about a question put forth to me by another good friend who I had the pleasure of having dinner with the other evening. I was talking about my limited adventures in online dating. Mainly just swapping emails with a scammer in Nigeria who tried to get money out of me and “window shopping” to see who was out there (see Scam and Eggs ). At one point she asked me, “Are you ready to date? I mean, do you want to?” I didn’t have an answer and I wondered about it over the next couple days. If I wasn’t ready to date, why did I have online profiles and checked the emails that were sent with various winks, flirts, and “scientific” matches?

Now I had the opportunity to go on a date with someone who wasn’t from an online gallery. A real person known by someone I knew. The opportunity I was actually hoping would happen one day…only maybe not today. Or should it be today? Should I take to this like ripping a Band-Aid off all at once or be concerned that perhaps the wound underneath wasn’t completely healed?

And if I went on this date, what kind of date would I be? The dinner I had the other night with the aforementioned friend was mainly a reuniting with someone I hadn’t seen in over 15 years but she was someone I used to have feelings for, so there was still a real date aspect to it (for me, at least). The next morning, however, I was in a bit of a funk because all I could think about was my recently failed marriage. It struck me that going on a date (or the prospect of going on a date) emphasizes, at least right now, more on what I lost and not on what I could potentially gain from a date. The scales are tipped too far over on that lost side for me to feel comfortable with myself and if I’m not comfortable with myself, we go back to the question that opened up this paragraph: What kind of date would I be? I would surmise a terrible one and let’s forget about me for a second, is that fair to the person I’m going on a date with? Doubtful.

At the end of all this, I looked back on the Hall of Fame question: If you have to think about it, he probably shouldn’t go in. To put it in my situation, if I have to think about it, I probably shouldn’t date. Continuing the comparison, the player who may not be first ballot Hall of Fame generally gets in somewhere in the future so I apply the same to myself and dating, but the question is: when? Is it something I will just know or will have to have at least one date to know for sure? I think about the lyrics the great Don Henley sang in the song, “New York Minute:”

     What the head makes cloudy
     The heart makes very clear
     The days were so much brighter
     In the time when she was here
     But I know there's somebody somewhere
     Make these dark clouds disappear
     Until that day, I have to believe
     I believe, I believe

     In a New York minute
     Everything can change

So I assume my feelings on dating could change at any minute and I’m good with that. For now, though, when faced with a dating possibility, if I spend a fair amount of time thinking about it, I probably should let the opportunity pass and hope that I will get put on the ballot sometime in the future. 

 

Scam and Eggs

In my previous blog series, Went From Being Married To Single , I talked about how I signed up for a couple of dating sites mainly just to see what it was like and what kind of singles were out there (detailed in Single White Male - Part 3). I didn’t sign up because I wanted to start dating right away and, for the most part, I’m still in that phase, but I did go and beef up my profile on a few sites so I could see what would happen.  And by “beef up,”  I mainly mean adding a picture or two.  I figured if no one knew what I looked like, they probably weren’t spending too much time, if any, on my profile.  I mean I skipped over people who didn’t have pictures, so why wouldn't everyone else?  As I said in the aforementioned blog, the most important thing in the profile is the picture.  Let’s face it, we’re window shopping on these on-line sites so put your best foot forward (which is advice many, many, many people do NOT take.  Woof!). 

Anyhoo, I did put up a couple pictures, answered more questions and added a little more content to my profile.  I mean, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs and while I wasn’t hungry enough for an omelet yet I thought I should put the eggs on the counter just in case.  I was also bored one night, so there’s that, and lo and behold, I did start getting more activity. 

Mainly the activity was getting notifications that women viewed my profile and some sent me “winks” or “flirts” or whatever they call the button next to an online profile that says, “Your profile intrigued me, but not enough to actually write to you.  Thankfully, this site provided a button to show my limited interest.” 

Then, however, I got THE email.  It was short but to the point:  “How is a good looking guy like you still single?”  Hey, not bad.  I checked her profile and she was actually good looking.  Not super-model hot but pretty.  She was also somewhat nearby … an hour to hour and a half away which worked for me as distance makes the process a little easier for some reason…just cracking the eggs, as it were.  So, I wrote back with pretty much the first thing that came to mind: “Hey, I was just asking myself that same question this morning!”  Charming, no? 

And thus began a series of emails back and forth.  The first few were just some background stuff on herself, what she was looking for in a man, her business which had her traveling a lot both nationally and internationally…all done with the poorest grammar and punctuation I have ever seen.  I shared some of the same but admittedly not as detailed as she did.  In the third email, I think, she sent a series of questions meant to get to know me better.  I actually thought this was a good idea so I answered, again, without too many specifics.  In one of the questions, “What do you think about me?” part of my response was that she had really terrible grammar but I put the ever important smiley face emoticon after it so she knew I was just being playful (although I wasn’t…really, her writing style, or lack-thereof, was atrocious). 

When she replied and answered the questions herself, I thought it was interesting that she didn’t reference any of my answers in her response, including the one about her grammar.  She did talk about her current trip in Nigeria and that she was waiting for her shipment of fabrics to get through customs (she was an importer/exporter of textiles and fabrics…or something to that effect).  Apparently, it’s difficult to get items out of customs in Africa.  In fact, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on this trip as in each email she talked about it.  I began to get suspicious so I thought I would test the waters to see if she (or whoever was on the other end) was actually reading my responses or if they were, cared about what I was saying.  In my next email, I wrote the following (please excuse some of the rather crude comments made, I was looking to get a shock out of her…if she was real):

Hi Sarah!  

Sorry to hear about your troubles.   Working with foreign companies and governments must be hard.  Flash those big brown eyes at them.  I'm sure that will work.  If not, offer him a hand or blow job.  That will get things moving!  ;)

I am having problems of my own.  The hurricane winds brought a couple trees down and one went through my garage and on top of my car!  It's going to be a while before someone can come fix it.  I don't think the rain is going to be bad but I need to move some if the stuff to the basement. I'll be thinking about you as I work and hoping I can meet you someday.  

Again, that was written to ignite some response.  If she was real and not just some automatic reply, surely something would be said.  If nothing, else, agreement on what I suggested or condolences on the damages to my house, right?  Nope.  Here’s the first sentence of her reply.  Her emails were always long so I’m not going to post all of it.  The rest just went more into her problems with customs.

i will still like to meet you first and spend some time with you oh i dont judge a book by it's cover i learn to open one chapter after the other, thanks for your email,i liked it,looking forward to meeting you soon,so i want you to know that im for real and although i dont just want this to be all words.

A couple things I started to notice as I read this email and went back to her previous ones:  There was a lot of talk about “trust” and “not judging a book by its cover” (although she used the contraction of “it is” instead of the possessive “its” which drives me crazy).  She’s building up this notion that everyone should be given a chance and people should be trusted right off the bat instead of judging them perhaps negatively.  Basically this email confirmed that I was being scammed. There’s no way you can get an email where the subject of “hand jobs” comes up and you don’t make some mention of it.  And no concern over a hurricane hitting my house?  At this point, I decided to have some fun and see how far I could push my responses.  Here was my next reply:

So great to hear from you again!  I depreciate and decree everything you said!  

Busy day for me yesterday.  I told you about the hurricane bringing down a tree onto my garage and car?  Well, it got worse.  The garage sustained such damage that a wind gust caused the rest of it to come down, including a portion of the second floor of my house.  I now have no place to live and I'm writing this to you from a local Starbucks. I can't wait for you to get back so we can move in together.  I know it's crazy but it feels so right and now that I have nowhere to go, it's perfect.  Tell me where you live and I'll start walking towards that airport.  It may take me a while but since you're still in Lagos, the timing may work out perfectly. 

It’s like one door closing and another opening! 

The start of her reply to the above:

thanks soo much,you dont know how much sunshine you bring into my day when i hear from you,i love it babe !,thank God you are here by my side to see me through, dear i just got back in from the sea port ,a little tired and stressed,my ship didnt come in and i had to go to my clients place to explain once more,i must say im really getting worried now and i just dont know what id do,hmm,your soo nice,thanks for giving me a listening hear,your special

Again, nothing about the fact that I was homeless and wanting to move in together, which is funny because she really turns up the heat in this particular email:

i dont know how to say this without sounding crazy,but This feeling of love (i think thats what it is ,couldnt be anyting else,its soo sweet,makes me feel soo good inside,reading from you gives me a sense of clam and of arrival,i feel like im home..how do u feel?.please tell me im not havng these feelings alone!!)that I hold within my heart for you runs deeper than any ocean or sea; I just wish you could see how much you mean to me. If only you could hold me, then maybe you would feel my love for you that burns with a flame high enough to last. If only you could hear my heart beat, then maybe you would understand the language of love with which it speaks

Wow!  After four emails, she was in love with me and that was without even reading the emails I sent!  So now I was just waiting for her to ask me for money which was surely where all of this was heading.  My next email:

Hey Sarah.  Great to hear from you!

I'm still on the road.  I think you live in New Jersey so that's where I'm headed. I decided to try taking a bus because all this walking was hurting my feet...well, foot.  I told you about my peg leg, right?  Anyway, I got kicked off the bus because I crapped in my pants and the smell was too much.  What could I do, though? I can't go on a bus bathroom.  I'd be too embarrassed.  So I'm hitch hiking now and caught a ride with a bunch of clowns.  We're in a small car and there's like twelve of them but I was able to squeeze into the trunk.  Not too bad and luckily there was wi-fi.  

I can't wait to see you so we can start our life together...although I may need to do some laundry first, if you know what I mean!  Wink-wink, nudge-nudge!

Her reply:

Hi Babe,so sorry for the late email,but i havent been able to write because i have encountered a problem here with my goods Dearie ! ,i have been busy seeing how i can get this solved,but i havent found a way ,i just got to the room and have been sitting at the computer for nearly an hour thinking what i should do,dont want to ruin your day but i just want to run this by you and see if theres anyway you can give your support here

She went on to say she needed to pay an “Instant Security Port Clearance” to get her items out of customs. She had a three day deadline and (this will probably come as a shock) she didn’t have the money.  She wanted me to send her $2000.  There were no instructions on how I was supposed to get it to her but I suspect if I replied, I would get an email with instructions on sending it through Western Union.  However, I did not reply.  I wanted to see if I would get a follow up email on it but I didn’t.  She said she had a three day deadline, so I assumed I would get something pleading for the money but I didn’t which leads me to more firmly believe this is an automated response.   It’s interesting to me how the scammer gave up so easily.

So, what have we learned here?  For starters, isn’t it sad that these things exist and that there are those who fall for them?  I did some research and found the exact same emails I received that someone else received so this is a known scam (if you're interested in reading all of them, you can here).  In fact, Nigerian scams are fairly popular, not just with women attracting guys but the other way around.  I read where some have chatted online with these people and I really find it hard to believe it goes that far.  I probably should have been leery based solely on the way the emails were written but in truth, that actually led me to believe it was real at first since a lot of people just simply don’t know how to write.  But people did fall for this stuff.  Some are out thousands of dollars all by sending money to someone they have never met in person.  It was incredible to read, but, as I said, sad that some people are so desperate.

The second lesson learned may be obvious but you have to tread carefully in the online dating waters.  Not only do you have to be careful in general for potential heartbreak or stalker-type folks, but also for scammers looking to get money out of you.   I’ve learned a couple things to watch out for based on this experience:

·       Grammar – If it’s this bad, there may be a reason:  English may not be the writer’s first language which could potentially be a flag (i.e. emails coming from Nigeria or Russia or somewhere like that) or they are trying too hard to make it sound real.

·        Pictures – After I realized this was a scam, I went back and looked at the pictures on her profile.  In them she is with her “friends” but she is wearing the same outfit in all of them.  Comparing that to other profiles where pictures are obviously taken at different times based on outfits, hair styles, etc. seeing a series of photos all from the same time is probably a red flag.

·         Semi-immediate words of love – C’mon.  No one falls in love within the course of a week and only by email.  That just doesn’t happen or at least it shouldn’t.  You may get excited about who you are talking to but love?  Let’s get real.

·        Immediate words on trusting someone at first sight – I think this is where they trap a lot of people.  They get you to think that people should be trustworthy because they are.  Don’t fall for that.  In the world of online dating, it’s probably better to be guarded and a bit untrusting instead of the opposite.

·        Requests for money – Do I really have to say anything about this?

So, I managed to escape a potential scam without any egg on my face.  I actually had fun with my replies but this is certainly a reminder that things are not always as they seem. 

I am still not quite ready to do a first date with someone I meet online, but if/when I do, I’ll make sure to be leery about getting into a meal of scam and eggs.

 

Daylight Robbery

We did the big “Fall Back” last weekend and now somewhere between 5 and 5:30, my world is plunged into total darkness.  It always takes me a few days, maybe weeks, to get used to this time change but I think it will be especially difficult this time around. 

You see, I used to associate the time when it got darker earlier to the holiday season.  Late October or now early November, the days got shorter and here come the holidays!  We just had Halloween; Thanksgiving was coming up and then Christmas and New Year’s!  Nighttime seemed to enhance these holidays...well, maybe not Thanksgiving.  This year though, it will probably take some adjustment as I’m not really sure how I will react to the holidays this year, but I’ll whine about that some other time.  For now, let’s talk about this so called Daylight Savings Time deal.

I always forget which time of the year is Standard Time and which is Daylight Savings Time, but I never forget about Google and Google is all knowing.  We are currently in Standard Time.  We just finished Daylight Savings Time.  Doesn’t that seem odd?  Doesn’t the definition of “savings” mean to “put away,” “store,” or “preserve?”  We’re not doing that in the summer. We’re wasting all that daylight and making ourselves be in it longer.  If anything, it should be switched.  November through March should be Daylight Savings Time because we experience the darkness more and then make the time between March and November, Standard Time.  Doesn’t that make more sense?  I feel like George Carlin.  Perhaps he or some other comedian has ranted on this same subject.  I’m sure I’m not the first.

Although, here’s the kicker:  I’m going on about Daylight Savings Time like I hate it but the truth is, I hate Standard Time.  I don’t like it when it is dark at 5:00 but that’s the way it’s SUPPOSED to be; however hating Standard Time just seems wrong.  Daylight Savings Time is something invented by the government to give farmers more daylight to plow their crops.  Standard Time is just how it is.  You shouldn’t complain about something that just is and yet here I am doing just that. 

The only time we’re justified in complaining about Daylight Savings Time is when we have to “Spring Forward” in March.  We all moan and groan about losing that extra hour of sleep but in reality, we’re all glad the days get “longer.”  We want more sunlight in the early evenings but sure enough come March, I’ll be seeing numerous Facebook statuses on how they dread losing that hour of sleep just like I saw (and wrote) about the days getting shorter in November.  Truth is, all this talk about gaining or losing an hour sleep is kind of silly.  We all like the “extra hour” of sleep but it’s an illusion.  If you don't want to lose it, go to bed an hour earlier when the time changes. For me, the switch to Standard Time actually did more than just give me that extra hour.  Lately I’ve been staying up late and thus, getting up late and I generally like to get up early.  Now with the time change I’m ready to go to bed at 11 instead of midnight and I get up at 6-6:30 instead of 7-7:30 (or 8…8:30). 

Of course I’ll lose that when we have to Spring Forward even though I want the longer days.  MAN!  This whole thing is a mixed bag of good and bad feelings.  Just look:

Change to Standard Time:

·         Gets dark too early:  BAD

·         Get an extra hour of sleep:  GOOD

Change to Daylight Savings Time:

·         Stays light later:  GOOD

·         Lose an hour of sleep:  BAD

This whole topic is emotionally and logically frustrating to me and I’m not even sure the reason why we started the whole thing is still valid.  Don’t farmers generally get up before the sun comes up anyway and are generally working after sundown?  The days naturally get longer in the summer so why do we need to shift the time?  Of course, all I’m doing here is voting for getting rid of Daylight Savings Time and then I’ll be living in the dark at 5:00 every day of the year. 

Sigh.  How do Arizonians* handle this? 

* In case you didn't know, Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time.