My love

 How we met

    I got a job working for JC Penney in 2007.  The store was brand-new, and my job was to help stock it in preparation for opening.  I remember seeing a man running back and forth from the dock to the offices to the floor to wherever; he was just always going somewhere, always busy.  I was busy, too, stocking the towels, or the pillows, or whatever else needed stocking.  Once the store finally opened and I was assigned to the early morning stocking crew, I officially met the busy man, aka Troy.  We worked the same shift, but he was the receiver, so he mostly worked on the dock.  Sometimes he would help us stockers unloading boxes and getting product ready to be taken out to the floor, and that's how I started getting to know him.  I found him to be a genuinely kind man, very charming, and funny. Eventually, I started confiding in some members of the stocking crew, and Troy, about the problems I was having in my marriage (I was married to a cheating liar for 4 years).  
    One day, I'm not sure why, Troy gave me his phone number. We had been getting along really well at work, fast becoming friends.  He was my favorite person there, but everyone there liked him.  He was just such a nice guy, and always ready to lend a hand.  Anyway, I called him that night.  I really needed someone to talk to, and Troy was a great listener.  My husband worked the overnight shift at a grocery store, so I would spend the whole night talking to Troy sometimes. He showed me that not all men were scumbags by just being himself.  He was so down to earth and funny and charming.  I never wanted to hang up.  Around that time, I had been on an antidepressant for a couple of months, and I was feeling braver, so I finally filed for divorce from my husband.  It was finalized 10 days later, and then I was with Troy.  My family thought it was going to be a rebound fling . . . but I fell in love.
    Our first date- we went on a tuesday after work, still wearing our red JC Penney shirts, to the 50-cent movies. We saw the first Transformers movie.  Haha, I had already seen it, but he hadn't, so he actually wanted to watch it. I had other plans. I waited until the movie had been playing a short while, and then I asked him if he was going to kiss me. He did, and that was our first kiss. 

Our time together

    We moved into an apartment together in November of 2007, I was pregnant with our first child by February of 2008, and we got married in April that year.  We moved to a rental house in winter of 2008, and bought a house in 2011.  He introduced me to a lot of excellent movies I had never wanted to watch before, and I encouraged him to read more books.  We had a lot of ups and downs, including dealing with our 2nd child's congenital heart defect and everything that entailed.  We lived paycheck to paycheck for our entire relationship, with him working full time and me working part time while the kids were little.  
    When the kids were old enough to stay home alone for short periods of time, I got a full-time job.  Troy liked to visit me at my lunch break and take me to Hideaway Pizza.  When he started a new job about 2 years ago, he was able to text me throughout the work day.  He would also call me at my breaks, so I could talk to him twice a day. I would also call him when I got off work, and sometimes talked to him the whole drive home.  He always made sure that I knew how much he loved me.  Our routine at home after work for the last 2 years was to watch the news, eat dinner, watch our shows together, and then go to bed.  We were so connected- nobody has ever known me as well as he did.

The end

    After 17 years together, Troy was diagnosed with a glioma in his brain stem.  Essentially, there was no cure, and he was dying.  He was gone in a week.  I was devastated- he had been hiding the symptoms from me, so I was blindsided by the diagnosis and there was no time to prepare.  I spent his last two days lying in the hospital bed with him while he was unresponsive.  I had to sign a DNR, because that's what he would've wanted.  And then I had to watch him pass away in my arms.  It's been almost 5 weeks now, and it still doesn't seem real.

4th of July, 2024

                                        

Online dating in 2003

My Experience with Online Dating in 2003

So, apparently Match.com came onto the scene in 1995.  I was 12 that year, and I didn't even get my first email address until 1998 (gwenevere2@juno.com).  I graduated high school and got my first cell phone in 2002.  I went to college while working a part time job and living with my parents.  By 2003, I was 20 years old, I didn't have any close friends (they mostly went away for college), and I was looking for love.  I had met my first 2 boyfriends through work, and I was interested in trying online dating.  

I really can't remember why I didn't try Match, or eHarmony, or Plenty of Fish . . . they were all available in 2003.  At the time, I was really into taking online surveys, questionnaires, etc.  I would go to Emode.com to take fun personality quizzes.  According to wikipedia, "Emode.com was founded in 1999 and focused on quizzes and tests for both entertainment and self-discovery."  It is now defunct, and I can't go and look at my account or anything, so I have to rely on memory.  In 2003, Emode had a section of the website for online dating.  Basically, I would log in and take personality quizzes to see how I compared to potential dates.  I made a profile, including a picture and general location.  

Yep, I chose to use a picture with my eyes closed.

Since this wasn't a well-known site, there weren't many men close to my area.  Right away, I found one guy that I had gone to high school with, and I was not interested in him.  There was another guy pretty close by, but he never responded to my attempts to communicate.  

Eventually, I started emailing one man named Brent that lived about 15 miles away from me.  There was no texting back then, so after a couple of emails, we started talking on the phone.  Pretty soon, we decided to meet in person at a park in the nearest town.  I drove to the park, where Brent showed off his cool car that had those weird lifting doors.  We walked around the park and talked for awhile, and then he drove us to the nearby Walmart- I can't remember why.  While inside Walmart, he got a call.  He looked surprised and then worried as he answered his phone, and then he told me to wait where I was while he took the call a few aisles over.  He obviously didn't want me to hear the conversation.  At the time, I thought it was weird, but he had left me in the book aisle . . . so I was happy sitting on the floor reading a magazine.  After he finished his call, he found me and took me back to my car. For our 2nd date, he took me to a restaurant for hamburgers, and then back to his house.  I was very excited by this- I had found a man who had a really good job, a cool car, and his own house.  AND he was only 27.  So I was looking around his house, and I noticed that it was VERY decorated.  It didn't really look like a single man's house.  But remember, I was only 20 years old and very inexperienced in the world . . . and I was really horny and looking for love.  So I let him take me to bed (not a great time), and then I never heard from him again.  Looking back, I wonder if he was married???  He was definitely keeping some kind of secret.

I can't remember the name of the next guy I met, but I think it might have started with a J.  I emailed with J and then talked on the phone.  He lived about 45 minutes away, so we agreed to meet in the middle.  He suggested McDonald's, and I didn't really care so I said okay.  I figured for a fast food date, I could dress casual- so I wore jeans.  This man showed up overdressed for McDonald's and carrying a huge binder.  We got our food- he paid for my chicken nuggets- and then we sat at a table.  He proceeded to open the binder and show me that it was full of modeling pictures of himself.  We spent the entire date looking at these pictures, and I was not impressed.  J wasn't even good-looking.  He was average-looking in the face, but kind of overweight and not at all model material for the time.  AND we lived in the center of the country, not exactly the place to get a modeling career started.  I might have continued to date him anyway if he could have just talked about anything besides himself.  Also, I don't think he was a fan of my casual look.  I was very low maintenance. I got the impression he wanted a fancier type of girl.  The vibe was not there.  We ended the date with a hug.

The next guy I met was about 24, lived an hour and a half away, and was named Jason.  We emailed at first, then talked on the phone a lot.  We really wanted to meet, so he agreed to drive to my town for our first date.  We met at a taco place, and then he drove us to see a movie.  We couldn't keep our hands off eachother- the chemistry was so strong.  We sat in the back of the theater heavily making out, and then went back out to his car.  He took me back to the taco place where my car was, and we made out some more- until a cop knocked on the window.  Apparently, some customers had complained about us, and the management had called the cops.  My belt was unbuckled and my pants were undone (so were his), so it was embarrassing.  The cop told us to take it to a hotel room.  So then I got in my car and we drove separately to a park, where I proceeded to get into his car and make out some more.  Until another cop came by and told us the park was closed.  We then found a closed video rental store, and engaged in some more making out and other stuff in the parking lot.  Since I lived with my parents and we didn't have the money for a hotel, we had nowhere else to go . . . so the date basically ended.  The next weekend, I drove to his house- an hour and a half away.  I was really hot for this guy, so the drive didn't bother me. That's when I found out that he was a high school dropout, living with his mom, and working at a gas station.  He had spent a few years traveling around the country, but now he was back home.  I didn't care. Anyway, he had some cold leftover pizza for us to eat, and we sat on the couch to watch Flatliners.  Of course, I could not stop myself from touching him, so we quickly went to his bedroom (his mom was not home).  I spent an amazing night with him (he was great in bed), and drove home in the morning.  I was completely dickmatized.  I played "Criminal" by Fiona Apple on my car CD player, and scream-sang it all the way home.  I really liked him, and I don't remember why we never met up again, but I had another guy on the line by then.

I ended up marrying the next Emode guy I met.  We were together for 4 years. I don't recommend getting married after dating for only 3 months. It turned out that he was cheating for the whole relationship. One of the other girls sent me a picture of them in bed together, and that was that.