fibromyalgia

There’s No One Waiting

Posted on by akiwifreund

I belong to an online support community where patients, family members and care providers can ask questions of each other or find others who are facing the same challenges. One man was trying to be proactive as the spouse of a woman newly diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune condition, and asked basic questions, such as would it be worth it to see a specialist vs. a regular internist, and what should he expect from the insurance companies? Here is my reply:

I love hearing about supportive spouses! My mom has a very supportive husband, and my sisters do as well – we ladies have terrible genes, unfortunately.

Just keep in mind that “supportive” might mean different things at different times. Fatigue and pain are the most common symptoms of any autoimmune diseases, and what she may have been able to do one day might change the next day, and then change back that day after that. Confusing, right? It will be. In fact, there are going to be other odd things about her condition that will confound her, and you. One thing that I like to tell people in my circle is that they should not start any conversations with, “Why don’t you just _______?” If there was an easy answer, we’d have it already.

My personal experience has been that it is tougher to deal with the doctors and staff than it is my insurance company. Don’t be afraid to fire doctors and look for new ones if they refuse to treat your wife (and you) as people who are involved in your wife’s care. It doesn’t do anyone any good to just blindly follow without understanding or questioning why certain things are being ordered, like meds or tests. I don’t get along with doctors who don’t allow for an open dialogue. Sometimes I will even write down a list, and when the doc enters the room, I first ask, “How much time do we have?” and then I tell that person I have a list. The good ones appreciate efficiency. And boy, read as much as you can. Get info from reputable websites, but also look for posts on your wife’s condition from people like us. There may be times when she thinks she is completely alone – but someone inevitably will confirm that she’s not crazy, and whatever is happening is affecting someone else as well.

Just as a side note: I live in a very large city, but have a hard time finding a decent rheumatologist – no one wants to go into that field because there aren’t any cures and the patients all complain. Anyway, the last time I went to see the nurse practitioner, who I was handed off to unwillingly, he told me that if I would just lose weight, the lumps in the tendon sheaths in my hands would go away. I told him I didn’t walk on my hands, so I didn’t see how losing weight would affect the lumps. I fired him.

And my final piece of advice is that I beg you, both, to keep your sense of humor. Try to find something to laugh about every day, even if it’s at the absurdity of what is happening at that moment.

What I would like to add, though, is that I hope his spouse realizes how lucky she is. Dating at my age is no picnic, and heaping complex diseases on top of that guarantees singlehood. I’ve been left by men I have been seriously dating when they realized that the surgeries would be a constant in my life as surely as I have green eyes. That’s why it kills me that every time we get to question of who is in the waiting room for when I get out of surgery, the nurses ask me multiple times, “Don’t you have someone in the waiting room?” It’s always the women who are disbelieving – surely not all men are put off by my bald head and scars all over my head from surgeries? Believe it, sisters. There is no one waiting for me to come out the other side okay.

Side Eyes

Posted on by akiwifreund

Internet dating takes a lot of patience. It takes a lot of patience, a sense of humor, a filter, a hard candy coating, and a take no prisoners attitude.

I have had many forays into internet dating, though the concept is a lot more organized than when I first dipped my big toe into it. See, kids, first there was instant messaging on AOL. Then MSN messenger became popular. Then Yahoo messenger joined the fray. Any other programs after those big three were copycats and fleeting.

The internet used to be very difficult to navigate and very boring. I remember poking around on it circa 1991 and thinking it wasn’t at all interesting – it moved painfully slowly, and it was like reading a 102-page term paper. But only a few years later, when these messenger programs were becoming popular, pop-up ads and porn were running amok like children who only ate sugar for all of their meals. So it didn’t take long for sex and porn to work their way into conversations happening on messenger windows.

By 1996, the internet was evolving quickly. I remember how exciting it was to join chat rooms to talk about a topic and actually connect with other people in real time. From my profile, other users could tell that I was a single woman in my 20s, and within a few minutes, I would be trying to juggle upwards of 25 windows of private chats – specifically, men who were trying to hit on me. Sometimes there would be bots in the room who would automatically start a chat when someone new would join, and they would include a link for you to click; but being the savvy users that we were, the other members of the chat would send out a general warning to ignore “STACIA69” or some similar screen name because it was a bot that would send your machine a virus. Decades before textspeak, we all had to learn cute codes and acronyms. There was no DTF (down to fuck), but I’m pretty sure the original was BRB, which, depending on who you ask, either stands for “be right back” or “bathroom break.” The chat rooms I chose to enter would be based on my location; at that time, I lived in Albuquerque, so I would enter a chat for that city or state. I hadn’t dated much before moving to New Mexico, so I wasn’t exactly confident in my ability to catch anyone’s attention. Suddenly, hoards of men wanted me! They all thought I sounded cute – blonde hair, green eyes, not too tall or short. If I felt like we could have conversations lasting more than two minutes before a guy started talking about banging, I’d go out with him. BAM! Internet dating.

Fast forward to 2003, after two live-in boyfriends: I relocated to a city where I didn’t know one single person. By this time, there were a few very popular sites set up specifically for dating, including eHarmony (which was heavily running ads on TV) and LavaLife. I tried to take the free eHarmony quiz, and at the very end of it, I wasn’t completely turned down, but I did get a message saying “Only 3% of the male population would be interested in dating you. Bear with us, it may take a few weeks to find someone who would be a match.” I joined LavaLife instead. I think they had categories available for people to choose broken down into “Dating,” “Long-Term Relationship” and “Just Sex” or something like that. I quickly found out that it didn’t matter which category you designated – the men would hunt you down for just sex. I remember that I went on a few dates with a guy who was a chauffeur, and I wasn’t feeling especially connected or attracted to him, but we were having an okay time – or so I thought. At the end of our third date, he turned to me, exasperated, and said, “So are we going to fuck or what?” I chose the “or what” and that was the end of that. Another guy that I started talking to through the site was in Italy (Yay! Very exciting!), and we started talking on Yahoo messenger. I think it was only five minutes into the conversation when he started sending me buzzes to try to get my attention because I wasn’t answering fast enough, then he told me he didn’t want me talking to any other men. To clarify, I wasn’t allowed to smile at or even look at other men, even if it was a guy ringing up my groceries. BAM! Internet stalker.

Around 2005, Match.com and PlentyofFish.com entered the picture. At that time, both were very rudimentary; Match considered you a “match” if your height/weight/age/eye color fell within the other person’s parameters, and Plenty of Fish allowed users to send emails, but that was it. It was around this time that I started singing to myself, “Shopping for men! Shopping for men!” every time I’d log on. I had become a lot more specific about what I was looking for in men, starting with their grammar – if they couldn’t formulate a complete sentence, I’d write them off and move on. I also noticed that the messages from the men on Plenty of Fish were getting more and more outrageous, so I didn’t really take anything on that site seriously, because I think all of the guys were DTF and crazy to boot.

OKCupid entered the scene around 2008 or 2009. Their contribution to the now-crowded internet dating scene was the questions. The questions ranged from “Are you looking to settle down and have children?” to “If you caught your husband looking at animal porn, what would you do?” You could answer as few as five questions or as many as a thousand, but the more questions you answer, the better the picture prospective dates could compile from your answers. (Of course, everyone is expected to be on the honor system and answer truthfully. You should always answer “No” if you are asked if you would do something immoral and/or hurtful, even if your instincts say that you should answer “Yes” to screwing that turtle if no one would ever find out.)

In 2011, after many starts and stops with internet dating, I was giving it another go, but sticking to the free sites – OKCupid and PlentyofFish. Surprisingly, on PlentyofFish, I had a decent conversation with a guy. We were talking about traveling and road trips and seemed to like some of the same things, but had enough diverse interests from each other that I would be able to look forward to new adventures. We talked about where to meet up in the next week. So upon waking up the next morning, imagine my surprise when I opened a message from him that was sent at 3 a.m. and it was a folder of dick and cum pictures. I replied back asking what in the hell he was thinking, because we hadn’t been talking about sex at all. He gave some lame excuse about not meaning to send them to me. I told him that shit would not fly with me, and he apologized. The next morning I woke up, and there were more dick and cum pictures, sent around 2 a.m.! I replied and asked what the fuck was going on, and he said he was a recovering alcoholic and had impulse control problems. I didn’t feel the need to stay in touch with him. (Also, just as a side note, if your dick is smaller than a thumb when it’s hard, I don’t advise sending unsolicited pictures. Warn a girl first.)

A lot of the messages I was receiving on OKCupid weren’t going anywhere either. I think I went on a handful of random dates, but nothing made it past the initial meeting. The way that I was being approached was pretty trite – almost every guy said, “What’s up?” or the bad grammar version thereof. At least when I approached men, I would find something in their profiles to talk about. One guy immediately asked me out for dinner, so I looked at his profile, which didn’t contain any information, so I next looked at the questions he answered. One theme that kept coming up was his dabbling with hard drugs, including meth, coke and heroin. I replied that I wasn’t interested and I wouldn’t date a user. His reply was, “C’mon, it’s not like I’m going to do blow off your tits. Big deal if we go out to dinner.” Yeah, buddy, still not interested in wasting an evening with you.

I swore off internet dating forever after having some bad experiences. However, now that I have relocated and reconnected with my uncle, I discovered that HE is doing internet dating. (He is also texting on a regular basis, which I blame on him having a 16-year-old son.) He found an age-appropriate girlfriend for the first time in his life – he’s in his early 60s. So of course I irrationally think, “Well, if he can do it, maybe I can try again.” Never mind the fact that I walk with a cane and have a droopy face, and most days I can’t be bothered to wear my wigs because they’re uncomfortable to lay down in…someone has to be okay with dating Quasimodo, right???

On second thought, no. I don’t want to be someone else’s internet dating story.

Dumb and Angry

Posted on by akiwifreund

With perfect timing, “Elastic Heart” by Sia came up on my Pandora just as I finished writing this title. She sings, “You did not break me.” I know, I know, so angst-y, like a teenager!

Out of everyone, I have the longest history with Dumb and Angry. When I was in the fifth grade, my family relocated from a suburb of Minneapolis to the smallest town imaginable – 300 people. It was the beginning of the awkward years for me. Almost immediately, though, I started getting love letters from this boy. Eventually I made plans with one of the girls from my class to stay at her house, which happened to be near his, and the boy and I were able to hang out a few times to play on the neighborhood merry-go-round and swings. All I really knew about him was that he hated his step-dad and that he was a year older than me because he had to repeat a grade. After a half a year I dumped him unceremoniously because I had a crush on another boy.

When we were in 10th grade, without knowing the other had done it, we auditioned to get into the public arts high school that had just started accepting students the year before in Minneapolis (and is currently in operation). One day in the middle of winter we were both called into the principal’s office of this school out in the middle of farm country to receive our certified letters telling us we accepted and were going to be living at the “Fame” school the next year. Heading back to our classrooms we were so excited, doing that mix of whispering and screaming and throwing out “I can’t believe it!” every few steps. I was thrilled to be going back to the big city, and he was happy to leave his horrible home life.

We had vastly different lives at the Fame school. He was a straight male in a school that had a ratio of 4 girls for every boy, and he fucked around a lot. A LOT. Dumb and Angry also did a lot of drugs, including weed, acid and huffing. I was at the other end of the spectrum and didn’t date or do anything except follow the rules. I held a lot of hair back while drunk girls barfed, but I was never one of them. I kept my distance from him except for attending one party together where we kissed once. I knew he had always had feelings for me, but I never really encouraged him.

The day after we graduated from high school I left to live on Mackinac Island in Michigan. I know that he had started dating a girl from the class behind ours; years later I found out that she used to say to a friend of ours every day, “What can I do to make Dumb and Angry like me???” Apparently she was finally successful, and they moved to Seattle and had a kid.

In 2007, when MySpace and Classmates.com were still being used, I received a message on one of those sites from Dumb and Angry indicating he wanted to reconnect. For about six months we talked on the phone, emailed, shared pictures, sent packages through the mail, made plans for him to visit and basically had a long-distance relationship. I was definitely flattered that he was still interested in me romantically and I was unsatisfied with my dating life, so it was easy to get into a situation with a familiar person with whom I shared history. However, as the months went on, it became glaringly obvious that he was angry ALL OF THE TIME. He was not making a lot of money and he was living with roommates, and the woman he had married and had a kid with cheated on him, so they had divorced. He constantly complained about how everyone was out to get him and he was a huge conspiracy theorist. I called it quits when he kicked in a door at the house where he was living. It was extremely depressing to talk to him and the violence scared me.

In 2013, I received a message on Facebook from his ex-wife, who just happened to be living in Arizona with the guy whom she cheated on Dumb and Angry with, along with the son with Dumb and Angry and another son with the live-in. She began a campaign to convince me to give it another try with Dumb and Angry; he didn’t understand why I broke it off with him, he was a completely changed person and very passive, he had been under duress when he kicked in that door. I caved. Dumb and Angry and I resumed a long distance relationship. It turned out that we just missed each other when we were in Minnesota at the same time – me for a vacation, and him because his mother passed away. His mother bequeathed him her car and a lump sum of cash from her life insurance.

We started having serious talks about him relocating to Arizona to be with me and be closer to his son, who by that time was 15. At first he was looking into buying a trailer for $10k, but I knew that was not a great option in AZ – he’d have to cool it down in that 117 degree heat, and he would probably end up repairing the trailer so much that he would end up doubling the money he put into it. Eventually we settled on buying a house. He had the cash for the down payment but horrible credit, so we agreed that the house and loan would be set up under my name.

The day he arrived in AZ was the day I closed on the house. He had asked for me to find help for him to get his motorcycle off of the moving truck, so a good friend who was also a motorcyclist arrived to assist. I told Dumb and Angry that I didn’t know if we could start unloading the truck because I hadn’t received word that the deed had recorded, and he threw a fit. This was my first indicator that he had indeed not changed. I was embarrassed that my friend had to witness the meltdown.

I was still renting a place and so couldn’t move in until a month later. Dumb and Angry didn’t lift a finger to help me even though I had helped him with cleaning the house, getting set up with a bank account, finding stores for staples and revamping his resume. He had actually driven his motorcycle to my old place to pick something up while the moving crew was loading me up, and even though he told me previously he would help, when I asked him to vacuum, he refused and took off. The moving men called him a dick.

Three weeks after I moved into the house my shunt went into failure. He refused to visit me at the hospital – including on my birthday – even though he wasn’t working. When I got home from the hospital after I had two back-to-back surgeries, I asked him if he could get me a glass of water while I changed into pajamas, and he told me to stop being lazy and get it myself. Ten days after those two surgeries I asked him to drive me to the grocery store because we had run out of everything, and he was swearing, swerving and flipping other drivers off, all because I had asked him to help. I was in a lot of pain in both my back and abdomen where the surgeries had taken place and being thrown around in the car did not help. He deliberately tried to run into people with the grocery cart in the store. A couple of weeks later he moved into the spare bedroom, saying he was doing it so I could rest – but he had never, ever been concerned about my well-being before, and the way he could not meet my eyes told me he was lying. We fought about his refusal to help me in any way, he pushed me, I called the cops. I didn’t press charges but instead gave him another chance. I had to have two more surgeries and be in the hospital a total of three additional weeks by the end of August, and still he wouldn’t lift a finger. If I wanted food, I had to go to the grocery store – and I had to make sure I made his dinner or he would lose his mind. He refused to cut the grass, saying stupid things like, “But I like the grass knee high.” I reminded him that the city would fine us if it wasn’t done.  He didn’t clean anything in the house either, because that was “women’s work.” Over and over he would tell me that if women would just stay home, there would be more jobs for men and they would be able to support their families. At that time, I made more than twice his salary, but I always told him that it was OUR money, not MY money. I was constantly walking on eggshells waiting for him to blow. To add to my stress, I was also working two jobs from home and finishing my bachelor’s degree online.

Finally, after yet another fight about him refusing to mow the lawn (which took 1.5 hours every two weeks, as opposed to the 15 hours I put in weekly doing all of the cooking and cleaning and other miscellaneous chores and repairs), I had had enough. I sat down and worked up an entire spreadsheet of the expenses each of us contributed to the house while we were together for the five months and tallied what I owed him, as his investment was larger because of the down payment. I proposed that we become official roommates and sign an agreement, and he could continue to stay in the house rent-free; for every month he stayed, a dollar amount would be deducted from what I owed him. I specifically entered a clause twice that stated that if he threatened me or physically harmed me, he would forfeit the entire dollar amount.

For a short time, we were able to be civil. I took on all of the duties around the house – which, honestly, was not different from what I had been doing before. His son still came to visit whenever he could be bothered to drive down to get him. Dumb and Angry was still very much dumb and angry, though. He still ranted and raved about women taking all of the jobs, and p.s. – he also hates all minorities and homosexuals. However, he did hang out more with his ex-wife and her boyfriend, and Dumb and Angry claimed to be best buds with the boyfriend. I think that was because the boyfriend was beating his ex-wife, and he fully endorsed that behavior. Dumb and Angry would always yell at his son that he would never become anything after graduating high school; I imagine it’s what he always heard from his step-dad when he was growing up. Dumb and Angry lacked common sense as well. A story that sticks out in my mind was a day that I was doing trimming and cleanup all around the yard and I had just purchased a chain saw. He kept pestering me to let him use it, so I finally said, “Okay, cut off all of those suckers around the base of the olive tree.” Instead of cutting around the base of the tree, he put the chain saw at the tips so they just kind of waved around, and he said, “I don’t think this is going to work.” So I took the chain saw from him and cut them all off at the base. All he said was, “Oh.” I said, “Okay, if you really want to cut something, why don’t you cut off the dead arm of that cactus?” He went over to a cactus that was about as tall as him, and instead of cutting off the arm, he cut the cactus off at the ground so he killed the whole thing. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “I didn’t know the cactus was growing out of the ground.”

I guess that Dumb and Angry was complaining to the ex-wife that he was unsuccessful with dating because women were just looking for money (not the real reason, which was that he hated women and we could smell it), because she encouraged him to get in touch with a woman he had dated in high school around 9th grade. He followed his usual MO with her, emailing her and carrying on a long distance relationship and telling her how great he was and how everyone was picking on him and conspiring against him. At the same time he became more and more hostile to me. Eventually he started threatening to shoot me and I took to hiding in my room so I could reduce my interactions with him completely.

When I had had enough of that business, I wrote up a formal letter asking him to move out within 30 days, as it was clear we should no longer be in the same house. I indicated I would continue making payments to him to pay back the amount owed. At first he was making an effort to find a new place to live, but then at the fourth week, he served me with papers telling me he was suing me for the house and that he was going to force me to put his name on the deed. I quickly found an attorney who replied that Dumb and Angry was obviously in violation of our agreement with his death threats AND that it was against the law to try to force someone to put a name on a deed.

After another month and more letters back and forth between the attorneys, Dumb and Angry moved out. I found out that the old girlfriend from ninth grade flew down from Minnesota and married him two days later after seeing him for the first time in about 20 years. They did not intend to live together (which was probably a good thing because she has two pre-teen daughters whom Dumb and Angry would have made miserable) – and the only reason I found this out was because I received a tax notice saying that the house they purchased together in another part of the city had been fraudulently classified as owner occupied since the wife wasn’t going to live there. The marriage itself made me chuckle – he had to go that far back to find someone who would take him??? I can assure you that his dating problem was not money-grubbing women, but rather the large chip he proudly carries around on his shoulder.

Can Men and Women Really Be Friends?

Posted on by akiwifreund

Recently, I had to cut off a friendship with a man I have known for 10 years. I did it very deliberately and specifically told him why we could no longer be friends – as opposed to other methods such as always appearing to be too busy, or never answering calls/messages.

At the beginning of this month my sister passed away, and ten days later, a friend passed as well, both from cancer. Both were young, and their cancer took over their bodies very quickly. I felt as if I had been crying non-stop since I moved to Minnesota. So when this friend, Clueless, texted me about taking care of destroying old, useless MRI films for me, I told him what happened. This is how he responded:

“How old was he? How did he die?”

Now, let me rewind a little bit and tell you that I had told him when my sister was sick that it was imperative that I move back to MN as quickly as possible so I could say goodbye to her. His response was, “Well, WHEN is she going to die?” Up to that point he had been calling me to complain that he didn’t have any friends, and the people he had considered himself close to – me included – were all leaving the state and he wasn’t going to have anyone left. So when he started quizzing me about the friend who passed, I ended each short answer with, “Why?” After the second time I responded with “Why?”, he told me he felt as if I was fishing for condolences.

Fishing for condolences.

He told me that he was justified in demanding that I defend why these deaths affected me.

Let me go back even further to February 20, 2013. That was the day I had my third brain surgery (I’ve had 10 at the present date), and I was lying in my hospital bed, in horrible pain as the anesthesia was wearing off. I got a call from Clueless. He wasn’t calling to see how I was doing; instead, in his most whiny voice, he said, “This is day one without Nasty, it’s your job to keep me from calling her.” Nasty was his ex-girlfriend, whom he wasn’t currently seeing, who ended up giving a cable guy a BJ like she was living out a porn scene, and Clueless found out about it. Nasty was a very mousy woman with glasses and braces who called in sick at least twice a week at her workplace because she didn’t feel like going to work. The only reason Clueless was so attached to her was that she is a swallower. They had nothing in common, fought constantly, and she didn’t understand any of his cultural references because she was at least a decade younger than him. That day in the hospital I tried to follow his rantings, but he got pissed off when I dozed off, and hung up on me telling me that he was going to call back the next day and quiz me about what he said. And he certainly made good that promise.

Let me go back even further. In 2005, I joined an online socializing group. We would sign up to events listed on a calendar, hosted by other members of the group. It was a great way to meet new people and try new things. I hosted a few events myself including a dinner night at an Ethiopian restaurant. Cluless joined the group at around the same time. At the events, we would often gravitate towards each other, always laughing and sharing stories. We ended up dating. Now, the length of the dating varies according to whom you ask; we lasted about six months, but Clueless says it was only one month because the rest of the time he was trying to find someone better to date. He also had a list of 42 qualities he was looking for in a mate. I met all but two because at the time I had already lost all of my hair and so didn’t meet his minimum requirement of shoulder-length hair, and my bachelor’s degree came much later. At the time we were dating he wasn’t working and he was getting his food from the food bank, but was still convinced that he should buy an investment property. Clueless would often tell me that he was different from everyone else – he really, really didn’t want to work, and he wanted all of his income to be passive income. No, really. So when he told me he was going to have his mortgage broker cook the numbers so he could qualify to buy another property, we got into it. (By the way, #3 on his list was to have a girlfriend who would NEVER question and always tell him he was doing the right thing.) During the fight he told me I obviously didn’t know what I was talking about because I had never owned a home. It didn’t matter to him that I had already been in real estate for 12 years at that point; he had just gotten his real estate license six months prior, and that outweighed any experience I had. I told him that the crazy prices in the market weren’t going to last and that he shouldn’t count on a house becoming instant income, and he obviously couldn’t handle taking on another mortgage. (Incidentally, six months later the market crashed and his properties were sold at 1/3 of their high values. He is still kicking himself 9 years later.)

Anyway, it got ugly. We didn’t talk for a year and a half. When he contacted me again, it was to tell me that he didn’t know why we broke up. I reminded him. He said it wouldn’t have worked out anyway because it always weirded him out that I don’t have hair. Lemme just tell you that he’s a few inches shorter than me, is losing his hair, and doesn’t care for his teeth, so his rotting mouth smells like moth balls. He’s completely obsessed with appearances and it kills him that other men are taller than him, and he has spent thousands of dollars on hair products. He doesn’t see the merit in making an effort with his teeth.

Since reconnecting, Clueless and I have kept in touch and even had times where we could comfortably be friends. We’ve shared birthdays, movie nights and game nights. We did not, however, resume dating. I couldn’t view him the same after knowing that he respected me so little.

Besides the phone call I got on that day of surgery and his jerky attitude with my most recent losses, there have been other times that he has not acted in a caring manner. For example, whenever he wanted to socialize, he would insist I drive 60 miles round trip to his house, because he could not handle driving from his workplace to my house, which were only 2 miles apart, and for all but 8 months in the last 5 years I haven’t been able to drive more than 2 miles or be upright for more than 30 minutes, if at all. In other words, if I couldn’t get myself to his suburb, he wouldn’t waste his time with me. Also, during one of our conversations in the last year, he told me that women do not age well, only men, his mother included.

So when I told him that I was no longer interested in being friends, he became very defensive, telling me that he was a much better friend than me because he would always reach out to me (and say incredibly shitty things!). I blocked his email, phone and Facebook accounts.

It doesn’t help his case that after I left Phoenix he invited himself to my friend’s house under the guise that he was sad that I left and he ended up trying to force himself upon her so that she had to push him off of her and kick him out of the house. He was mad. I was tempted to bring that up when i was telling him to fuck off, but why drag her into it? He thinks he has some magic micro penis that is going to put girls under a spell if he just waives it around.

Maybe the problem isn’t whether men and women can be friends, but rather what kinds of patterns of behavior do we fall into because of our history. When I think about what I enjoy out of any friendship, it’s sharing adventures and quality time together, and there’s give and take, plus a fair amount of respect for both parties towards the other. Ultimately I have decided at this point, Clueless can kiss my fat ass.

Overeager Beaver

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’ll just come clean right now and say that I’m a member of FetLife, an online site for fetishists, experimenters, every shade of sexuality, bondage, sadomasochism, discipline, and everything else that you can (or can’t) think of. Just as an example, there are discussion groups for “Ask a Male Questions” and “Ask a Female Questions” – both having somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 members each. Then there’s more specific groups, like “British Accents and Kinksters that Love Them” with about 2,000 members. One of my favorites is the “Return to Sender” group, which has over 14,000 members, and people will post their crazy conversations from FetLife or dating sites like Match, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish. Surprisingly, there are over 14,000 members in a CBT group – and if you don’t know what that is, look it up. Just now I found a group dedicated to sexual experiences with water balloons. (Not surprisingly, there are only 8 members of that group.) Some people – “vanilla,” we call them – may cringe and think that this site is not for them, but you don’t have to be into EVERY aspect of an alternative lifestyle to find something to relate to. I happen to like tall men, and there’s even a group for that; people just talk about how much they like tall men or guys will get on and brag about how tall they are, like “6’10” here, is that tall enough for ya?” (Hint: They aren’t really looking for a thoughtful answer, just worship.)

I joined FetLife four years ago because I was having a hard time in the online dating world dominated by Match, OKCupid and Plenty of Fish due to my baldness. Most men, no matter their cultural upbringing – and I’m not exaggerating in any way – are not okay with dating a completely bald woman. By my experience, I can go on 50 dates, but only 3 of the men will be okay with my baldness: 2 of the 3 will have major mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, and 1 of the 3 will be a fetishist. My choices are that I can go out with men who are batshit crazy (if they aren’t taking meds or aren’t on the right dosage) or I can date a guy who wants to do all kinds of dirty things to my bald head but doesn’t give a shit about me personally.

One guy that I had met through OKCupid in 2011 seemed to be a good match. We had gone on somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-6 dates, and he was a non-aggressive individual, very smart, seemingly relaxed. One night we went to see a show and had a very enjoyable night; when he drove me home, we sat in my driveway and kissed, and he started playing with my hair, which he had never done before. I leaned back and said, “Hey, I want to tell you about something I have going on, because you may feel something on my head that you aren’t used to. I am actually wearing a wig right now.” He asked me if it was just for fun, and I explained that it’s because I don’t have any hair, and I won’t be able to grow hair in the future. He backed himself into the corner of his driver’s seat as if I was his aunt trying to French kiss him. Then he said he “had to think about it” and would let me know in a few days, then he took off. Well, he thought about it, and it freaked him the fuck out, so that was that. This was just ONE experience out of many attempts to date.

I realize that I’m not exactly a prize to date since I look more like Mr. Clean than Gizelle with my bald head. It can be quite startling to see me without my wig on for the first time. I even joke that my dead father, the hair stylist, is rolling over in his grave because he has a bald daughter. Being rejected so many times over the last nearly-20 years of dating during my major hair loss has made it difficult for me to make sound choices in partners, sometimes ignoring my need to have a healthy relationship with a loving partner and settling for ass clowns instead. However, I am getting much better at spotting bad behavior and cutting it off than I used to be.

Here is a recent series of messages from a guy on FetLife who has never talked to me before:

Title:  be my friend

hell you say you want a roommate l will be that for you ,in fact l have not meet you yet but l am pretty sure if you want me you have found a husband l am very serious about this ,let me prove it to you please

Title:  I only want one

an l think you are her my god l have waited a long time for you ,lets get to know one another -you can be in charge l don’t care l love you already

And on some pictures I have posted:

l want you to marry me-an l will tell you why

And:

l am not bsing you l know that l love you,l would treat you as a queen should be

And:

i am open single an love bald lady’s please let me in your life

Okay, 1) One of the “kink” groups I belong to is “Grammar is Sexy!” – definitely not something this guy subscribes to; and 2) On everything else, just…no. I believe in a real relationship evolving over time and conversations and living experiences together, not anonymous, baseless declarations of love and devotion. This is creepy! Knock it off! It’s just one example, but there have been many others. The majority of the guys messaging me with a bald fetish offer to shave my head for me. It does not matter to them that I don’t have active hair follicles – they are in it for the illusion and the sense of power it gives them. Afterwards they want to whack off onto my head. However, the idea of my head being covered in warm snot does not get me hot.

As noted in my previous post, I changed my city to reflect my recent relocation, and immediately got a few messages. The first guy is a foot fetishist. I explained that I’m not currently able to go out either on dates or to social events, and so he started asking me questions about my current health challenges – it seems his mother died of an extremely rare blood disorder. But once we got that out of the way, he asked me to send him pictures of my feet. As I stated in the previous post, I’m not being modest when I say that my feet would kill any hard-on. I received a friend request from him a few days later; it appears that he has forgiven me for not feeding into that fantasy. Of course, he could be just keeping me in his back pocket to pull out later and try again.

The kid that contacted me Sunday reminded me of why I don’t want to raise more men. I’m tired! No – really, truly, I’m exhausted. He called and texted me a couple of times yesterday, so I sent him a quick note telling him I’d catch up with him later in the week. I guess he took today to be “later in the week” because he started calling and texting again. I told him I couldn’t talk but that I hoped he was having a good day, and he replied back, “No I’m not having a good day! Why won’t you talk to me?” Ugh – needy, demanding, self-absorbed – I can spot that shit a mile away. Still trying my hand at Minnesota nice (because I’m a little out of practice), I told him that I needed to not be dumped on emotionally or have demands made of me, because it just stresses me out and makes me sicker. I suggested that he seek out other people. His response was, “No! I only want to be friends with you!” I wrote back and said, “I don’t have the same needs you do. My preference is for you to seek out other people.” Again, his response was, “No, I don’t want anyone else, I just want you.” This is where I ditch the nice. I texted to him, “You are not respecting my boundaries. I am telling you goodbye now.” So his last message was something to the tune of, “Boo-hoo, if you change your mind and you want to be with me, let me know.” I feel pretty secure in the idea that he’s only going to hear crickets. That sheds some light on why he doesn’t have any friends too – he’s unable to interact in even a remotely healthy way.

Out of all of the online sites I have used to meet people either to attend social events or to date, it has been the most diverse in good and bad experiences. I met some great, open-minded people who are friendly and welcoming to newcomers at events. Some events have had very specific themes with people willing to teach and share their knowledge. I love that shit – we should all continuously try to learn, not just assume that we know everything and become lazy and complacent. On the other hand, I’ve met some people who are very single-minded and focused on only getting themselves off (like these individuals or a guy who wanted his jaw and mouth to be stomped on, no joke). I haven’t only had Overeager Beavers, so for now, that profile stays active.

Wait for It

Posted on by akiwifreund

This week has been full of challenges and changes. Just last night the moving men emptied my pod in record time into my new studio apartment – 375 sq. ft. as opposed to the house I used to own at 2200 sq. ft. with an additional 675 sq. ft. in the garage outside. I thought I did a really good job in downsizing until I started trying to cram everything into this little space. I smell a donation in my future.

I have to get used to the noises associated with living on a popular street and in an apartment as opposed to a house. This weekend there is a jazz festival happening city-wide including all along my street, so I hear people outside my windows TALKING (they’re drunk, so they don’t know quiet) and the clinking of beer bottles. I jump a little every time I hear someone passing by my door in the hallway – like it’s my roommate coming home and I am running around in my pajamas and no wig. Then I remember that no one is going to open my door and catch me looking garishly frumpy.

I’m not sure that it has really sunk in that I’m not in Phoenix anymore. It has only been a week since I have left, and even with the sad messages I have traded with the friends I left there, it feels more like I am on vacation (but a working one since I am filling the new place up to the ceiling with my stuff). We are also on the third thunderstorm since my arrival. The humidity makes me feel like I’m swimming through the air and I have to walk funny so that my thighs don’t stick together.

One friend wrote a quick note saying something to the effect of, “Ooooooh, I saw that you just changed your city on this site – have any men hit on you yet?” The second that he sent that, I received a message saying, “Hello tantalizing delectable dripping wet treat.” That was the title. BAM! First hit. Well, I’m not sure about it being a hit – I mean, it’s quite a leap to assume that I am “dripping wet.” Does this work on other women? Or is it like that thing where you throw a bunch of shit out there and hope that something sticks? I have a disclaimer that specifies that I’m not currently well and so cannot be involved in any activity in any way. I received another message from a different guy a few minutes later that seemed a bit more tame. He wanted to know all about my condition, so I gave him the very abridged version, and he seemed to be genuinely interested and concerned. Then, BAM, I got a request to email him a pic of my feet. Now, I would not wish my feet on anyone. I am well aware that feet fetishists are very particular in what they enjoy seeing, and it is worlds apart from my Flinstone-wide feet. I also have not been able to get rid of rough skin and calluses at all in the past two weeks. They’re just a hot mess. So while I think it’s pretty harmless to send someone pics of my piggies to give them fodder for the spank bank, I think it would put him off permanently if he saw them in this condition. I mean, what if I want a foot rub (or seven) in the future? Later I received a message from a guy (kid??) almost 20 years younger than me asking to be friends and to “connect with me and get to know me better.” He also specifically states in his information that he has always wanted to be dominated by an older woman. Yay for both of us, except for the fact that I have no experience in that realm.

Wait a second – I bet I could run that little boy into the ground ordering him to finish unpacking my new place. He would be aroused by it too. I should take a crash course in being a Domme and get him over here. I bet he would even scrub my floors.

Protected: Dating an Aspie (Or Four)

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Ping Pong and Other Sports with Balls

Posted on by akiwifreund

I’m at an age now where I’ve had a chance to really build up a history with a man. In fact, I’ve done it with a few, though this person is by far has racked up the most time with me.

I have been in and out of a relationship with this man that I will refer to as Ping Pong since 2008 all the way to 2014. We met because he was my trainer for the absolute worst job I’ve had to date – calling people to ask them to donate blood to a blood bank. Everyone we contacted had either previously attempted or successfully donated a pint of blood, so it wasn’t exactly cold calling, but often people screamed in our ears or made crazy sounds and then hung up on us. His job was to prepare us for the worst. For the week that we had training, when everyone else would leave the room to take a break, he and I would stay and chat. (You support human rights? I support human rights! You are a democrat? I’m a democrat! You used to love The Scorpions in 8th grade? I used to love The Scorpions in 8th grade!) At least fundamentally, it seemed like we were on the same page about a lot of things, plus he was very cute with big brown eyes and curly eyelashes, and we easily fell into dating. He was very socially conscientious, affectionate and caring. I always liked holding hands with him because we were extremely physically comfortable with each other.

This was not my first or even fifth try at dating someone with children from a previous marriage. He has two daughters and one son with a woman that he married very, very young – mainly because her boobs were so big that when she sat down, they nearly touched her knees (his words). She proved to be very unstable and had numerous affairs during their marriage. At the time that we started dating, she had moved back in to live with her parents to raise two more children with her current husband, a marine. The first sign of trouble started when very early into our relationship, Ping Pong left his phone on the counter at his former in-laws’ house. This was when phones were rarely password protected. So Ping Pong and I were eating dinner at my place and I got this call from a number I don’t recognize, and it’s her. Good lord, she was drunk. She was slurring her words and shouting, and telling me that I needed to stop dating her husband. Ping Pong left to go over to her house and get his phone back, but of course, she wasn’t too drunk to plan ahead and she programmed my number into her phone. For the next 8 months I received all kinds of calls and messages from her with strange accusations, mostly with her being drunk. Whenever she called while he was at my place, he always left to go to her house, ostensibly to talk her down or through the latest episode of bad choices.

Ping Pong explained to me that because his ex was such a nut job and cheated on him constantly, he wanted to take things slow with me. His definition of slow, however, eventually evolved to mean that he would only want to see me once a month for sexy time, and he would not introduce me to his children. I got tired of it and called it off.

(Pause for time with Drummer #2, to be told at a later date.)

Ping Pong kept in touch with me while we had over a year apart, sending random texts saying he was thinking of me and just wondering how I was doing. I ended up in the hospital to get an appendectomy, and he visited. When I saw him again after so much time had passed, I felt as if I was seeing my best friend again, and all of the good feelings of love and comfort returned.

When Drummer #2 was finally out of the picture, Ping Pong and I fell back into dating. But again, it didn’t take long for the old patterns to emerge. I would only see him once a month for sexy time and I was not allowed to meet his children. Again, I called it off.

(Pause for time with Dumb and Angry, also to be told at a later date.)

After the whole Dumb and Angry guy, I told Ping Pong that I would really like to try to make it work, but that things had to be different. I had to meet his parents and I had to meet his children. He said he would definitely set something up where we could all go to dinner, and I wouldn’t be his dirty little secret anymore. Again, the old patterns emerged quickly. Every time I tried to pin him down for a time to get together with everyone, he would give me excuses on why either his parents or his kids wouldn’t be available. (By this time, the kids were 21, 19 and 14. Saying that young children shouldn’t be introduced to partners would not apply here.) But on days he said they weren’t available, he would get together with them anyway and then tell me later. My parents flew down from the Midwest to help celebrate my 40th birthday as well as my graduation with a bachelor’s degree Summa Cum Laude, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for him to meet them, and I gave him about 6 weeks notice with reminders so he couldn’t claim he was busy. The day we were supposed to get together he texted me to say that he was playing a softball game really, really far away and he didn’t think he could make it. My lie-dar was going off big time.

Ready for something weird? Sometimes at night I would receive these garbled text messages that would always say something like, “Why don’t you love me apoigfdahsdf alhdfgpoia qweonigdfgh” or “You are the most lgpohierthg ghpoiu ahs gthpia”. It turns out that he would take heavy medications including Ambien before bedtime and if he didn’t hide the phone from himself before turning in, he would send drug-induced text messages. I tried to joke about them or tell him it wasn’t a big deal but he was always embarrassed – but not embarrassed enough to put his phone in a different room. I’m a firm believer that you say what you’re truly feeling when you’re drunk or high, but I wish that he could have been able to actually finish those sentences so I could get the whole picture.

Another factor that sometimes interfered with our relationship is that he is bipolar. When the downward spiral of depression would hit him, which it would often because he wasn’t on the correct dose of medication, the text messages would get more desperate and garbled and he would be on the verge of tears when I would see him. He was never interested in doing anything when he was in the throes of the sickness, and I could not count on him for emotional support for anything that I was going through.

The last breakup happened via text. First, I think it’s terribly disrespectful to use this method for someone you have known for 6 years. Second, I didn’t get any closure. His message said something to the effect of, “I’ve really tried, but I have put my heart into a castle and built the walls and moat up around it, so that I can never be hurt again.” I mean man, for a 43-year-old guy, that suspiciously sounds a lot like his 14-year-old daughter got ahold of his phone. I texted something back to the effect of, “Maybe you should be honest with the women that you date in the future and tell them you are just trying to get laid.” And that was it. I was left alone to process this breakup without being able to say anything else to this man who had a sizable history with me – but maybe it was not enough, or never would be enough, because we didn’t have children together.

So the lesson learned here is a very simple and short list:

1) Don’t look back or go back to someone that didn’t work out on the first try.

By the way, this is a recurring theme. I’m human.

How to Kill a Relationship, Pt. 1

Posted on by akiwifreund

Not long after Eva Mendes gave birth to the baby she and Ryan Gosling created, she was quoted as saying something like, “Wearing your sweatpants around your husband is a surefire marriage killer.”

Okay, let’s review:
1. She isn’t peeing standing up or even trying to whip out her penis in front of him, which, if you’re in a hetero relationship, would be pretty startling if you think your wife/girlfriend is a woman with all of the associated lady bits and trappings thereof. 2. If wearing sweatpants is the worst you’ve got, you’ve got it pretty good.

I think we all have grandparents or even parents where we know the woman in the partnership does not let her partner see her without makeup, even when it’s bedtime. It was a concept that gained popularity around the 1950s, but nowadays most people understand that it’s not healthy to sleep in your makeup every night.

I am an extremely light sleeper and so it’s easy for me to wake up long before my bed mate does when I have sleepovers to brush my teeth and either furiously rub away the sooty eyeliner that has been smeared as low as my nostrils, or to apply just the right amount of eyeliner so that I don’t look like a cancer patient since I am missing my eyelashes. (It also gives me a chance to twist my wig into the right position. It’s very, very uncomfortable to sleep in my wig, but most guys freak out if they wake up to Mr. Clean in their beds when they went to bed with Christina Hendricks the night before.)

I think there is a much more realistic killer to a relationship and it has nothing to do with being beauty-pageant ready, and that is snoring. Inevitably with every couple there is a light sleeper and there is a snorer. In my house, my roommate is the snorer and I am the light sleeper. Sometimes the surefire way to be able to tell he is home without leaving my bedroom is to hear his unabashed open-mouthed, window rattling snores. When talking to other friends about the phenomenon, the one who is the light sleeper is constantly complaining of lack of sleep, and the snorer shrugs his or her shoulders and says, “It’s not a problem for me, I never notice.”

This turned into a debate with a friend on Facebook because he is a window-rattler. He insisted that I hadn’t thought of all of my options, which boiled down to him deciding that if he just purchased ear plugs for his partner, the problem would be solved. Of course, none of his options involved weight reduction of his 300+ pounds or different sleeping positions for the snorer.

So, 1) He is incorrectly assuming that he has the perfect solution (because he has a penis) and I’ve never thought this through. 2) As the person who would have to wear the ear plugs, I wouldn’t be able to hear the much quieter alarm go off in the morning to get up for work. 3) I hate to have shit stuffed in my ears. Doesn’t matter if it’s foam or cotton or ear buds, I just don’t like anything inserted in my ears. (And no, guy, you can’t fuck my ear either, even though I know you are tempted to because you have a penis.) 4) Losing sleep because you can’t even get 30 minutes of uninterrupted sleep isn’t just an annoyance, it’s damaging to the health, especially if it happens every night, not to mention the sleep-deprived person is going to be constantly crabby.

The Best Excuse Yet from Walks with Wood

Posted on by akiwifreund

I met this guy through work – he changed my laptop, I changed his life. (Oh, if only!)

He worked on me for about two years – you know, how guys like to keep women on the peripheral just in case they want to pursue some serious V. We stayed in touch and chatted every once in a while, and then after a year, we became intimate. Twice, I think. This was during the thick of my illness, and I was out from work many times because of serious problems with my shunt. When it got really bad I cut him loose, but we still stayed in touch. Then in December of 2014 he came back to me and said that things didn’t work out for him with an ex he went back to. I had also just ended a relationship with someone whom I had dated off and on for about five years. We sat down and had a serious discussion about what we wanted from a relationship, and we agreed to be exclusive. He told me that he was interested in me as a woman, and my lack of hair and my repeated brain surgeries did not bother him at all.

It wasn’t so bad, at first. He told me that he was trying to cut down to only drinking once a month, and he had made a promise to his sisters, niece and me that he wasn’t going to drink and drive. He’s a smart guy with a high I.Q. I affectionately nicknamed him Walks with Wood because he is Navajo and is obsessed with sex. About a month into the relationship, he tried to tell me that he has multiple personality disorder and he turns into a different person when he drinks.

Can you see the red flags? I did not go into this naively, so I always held back in connecting with him on a deep, emotional level. This wasn’t my first rodeo. Quite honestly, a statement like that about having multiple personality disorder is usually presented as a humblebrag and is completely untrue, so I just took it to mean that he is a liar.

Shortly after we started dating he landed a travel tech job. I would jokingly tell him that when I agreed to be in a relationship, I didn’t mean long-distance relationship. We talked every day but I only physically saw him three times a month, tops, and that mostly centered on me driving him back and forth to the airport after he parked his SUV at my house so he didn’t have to pay for parking. There were a couple of times when I stayed up 24 hours at a stretch to make sure he was picked up and dropped off when he needed to be. He moved to another apartment during these months that we dated, and I helped him with getting his belongings into storage so his free time at home wouldn’t be consumed with moving.

Oh, yes, I did ask him to fix a few things in my house and hang some new ceiling fans. He also promised to cut down a tree that was growing into some power lines (his idea). He never came through with help.

Walks with Wood could not keep up good behavior for very long. First he started visiting strip clubs – even one up the street from me, telling me that the waitresses were also the dancers, so they would dance on the poles fully dressed down to their tennis shoes. Not sure who to feel sorry for in this case, the ladies or WwW. Then he started saying that whomever he is dating better be okay with him watching strippers all of the time because he wasn’t going to give that up. I know it’s difficult to try to get someone to stop something they are addicted to and it would create problems if I put my foot down, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret: his drinking and diabetes are seriously interfering with his ability to perform. WwW is 6.5 years younger than me, but I would rate his functionality to be the same as some guy who is, say, 80 years old. So he’s basically a dirty old man watching naked women writhe around a pole. That much exposure to strippers has the same effect as having a porn addiction 24/7.

As time went on, he resented me asking if we could spend time together when he was in town between work trips. When I say “time”, I mean more than one hour. I never even asked him to stay overnight. At the beginning of the relationship, he told me that if the woman he’s dating puts her foot down and says that she wants him to do something with her, he will put her above everyone else. That was definitely some hot, stinky smoke being blown up my ass.

Then he started drinking heavily again. He broke all of his promises to me, and he was proud of it. The last fight we had happened because I invited him and his roommate over for dinner at 6:30. After he was an hour and a half late showing up, he and the roommate finally arrived, but he had another woman with him. He also had a tall Mason jar filled with Coke and Jack. I was mad because, 1) he was late – VERY late; 2) he was back to drinking heavily, and 3) he brought his fuck buddy with him. When a fight ensued, he was yelling that I was using his past against him, and that if I said anything, it would make him want to drink. I told him his past was his present. I asked him if he had been to the bar that day, and he said no. So when the roommate, the other woman and WwW and I sat down to eat, the other woman revealed that WwW had driven her around all day to look at cars to buy (even though she doesn’t have cash and doesn’t qualify for a loan) and then they sat at their neighborhood haunt and drank for three hours before heading to my house. Everyone quickly finished eating and the roommate and the other woman went to sit in the car outside, and WwW and I had a few more loud words. He left by saying he really wished I hadn’t fought with him. That was the end of it. We didn’t talk about it later and we didn’t have any contact at all…

Until about a month later. I got a text message saying, “I was in a really bad car accident and I hit my head. I was going through our text messages and it seems like we didn’t end things well. I hit my head really hard and I don’t remember anything.” When he said he didn’t remember anything, he meant ANYTHING. He claimed that he didn’t remember any of the months we dated, any of the times I picked him up or dropped him at the airport, any of the promises he made to me about helping out, and anything of what we talked about in general.

This is like the lighthouse of red flags. I have never, never had any of my former men claim total and complete amnesia.

He kept offering to send photos of his banged up head. I told him I wasn’t interested at all, and I was busy with having to sell my house, get surgery #10 and move to MN. His only response was, “Oh, okay.” Then I told him to check his texts for conversations with other women and go screw them, because he had told me right before the big fight that he would cheat on me if he got bored, and he was bored. Again, he responded with, “Oh, okay.” No denial. No apologies.

In conclusion, I have improved greatly my ability to send someone packing, even if the guy says he is “okay” with my health issues and lack of hair. The lesson is to believe someone when they show you who they really are (thank you, Maya Angelou). I didn’t have stars in my eyes and hang onto the relationship as I might have just a few years ago. Life is short.