Being Newly Almost Single on the Social Scene, Part 2 

 

It’s very weird out there, as an (almost) single woman – in the world of single guys.

  

I thought I was pretty levelheaded, cool, but I actually felt a little off-balance, being around VE today.  I don’t know why I should be (ok, here’s the little voice in my head speaking: “maybe because you’ve been married 30 years and a nice guy is showing interest in you for the first time in 30 years because you’ve been married this whole time, knucklehead, and now you’re not?!!”)

 

Not only married, but monogamously, loyally married.  I thought I was a lifer, and now clearly, I’m not, and it’s going to take some adjusting to.

 

I really like VE, but just the energy of that whole man/woman thing – it’s like “Ok, what do I do with this?  I’m so not used to this right now.”  It just threw me off balance.

 

——————

 

It’s funny, a few months ago I went to a music conference and bonded with my roommate, RD, who had been to this particular conference many times before, and knew a lot of the attendees, so we had a lot of meals with her friends.

 

At that time, even though my husband and I hadn’t yet officially started our divorce proceedings, some of my “married lady” veneer had apparently already begun to wear off.

 

There was this one guy, one of her friends’ friends (a peripheral friend), nice looking, successful club owner, who followed me almost everywhere.  He came to all my showcases, sat next to me at every meal, hung out with us (me) at every opportunity and made some, what I thought were a little weird, sexual comments.

 

In the privacy, confidentiality of our hotel room, I said to RD, “[___] is a little bit of a lech, isn’t he?”  She was surprised, and asked, did he make an aggressive pass at me, do anything lewd, inappropriate?  I said, “No!  but he shows up at all my showcases and is always trying to sit next to me at dinner….”

 

I will never forget the look RD gave me.  She looked at me like I was totally nuts, and said “And why wouldn’t a man be attracted to you?  He just likes you.  What’s wrong with that?”

 

Oh.  That’s what that is.