In 2020, I met a guy who ranted about his ex-wife. I suggested we meet for a walk in Riverfront Park. He complained about his ex during our walk and dinner at a restaurant.

"Clearly you're not over your wife because you can't stop talking about her," I said. "No, I'm over her!" he protested and launched into another story about how she screwed him over.

"Have you heard me say anything negative about my ex-husband?" I asked. "No," he replied. Case closed.

By Debbie Wise

When I started dating at fifty after losing my husband, my biggest surprise was that everyone was disillusioned. Most of the men I met weren’t expecting much beyond an empathy machine. One long single guy opened our date with, “I realized I so excited to meet you because you haven’t been divorced so you’re not broken like the rest of us.”

Um, no, I was widowed and in my own kind of fresh hell. But I wasn’t yet disillusioned. I’d had a long marriage to a good man to whom I’d still be married if he hadn’t died. I assumed the men I met were like me, perhaps sad and lonely, looking for love, hopeful they would find a good woman.

But they weren’t.

They acted as if they already knew nothing was going to work out. They were entrenched in their pasts and had little to offer except weariness. Most implied I was going to have to change to suit them. No making the extra effort to come to my suburban town. They didn’t even seem to want sex so much as they demanded I listen to their woes.

We’ll better appreciate the chance for in person connections. Maybe with more time alone we can try to heal the wounds of disillusionment.

Re-emerging from our homes will bring with it a sense of newness. We might even find love. At least, we’ll be kinder to each other since we’re all coming from a place of shared vulnerability.

Having become aware of our mortality, we might at least do better at limiting our time with the toxically jaded:

Thanks, I’m leaving now. No, I don’t want to hear about the fifth woman who trashed your faith in love.

Okay, gotta go. It’s been over an hour. I know all about your ex-wife’s spending habits, but you haven’t asked me one question about myself.

No, I don’t want to come over tonight. I just met you. That’s creepy.

If someone is spending your time explaining how he’s pissed off or devastated by other women, he’s probably not really with you. You deserve someone who’s present. And who loves this life. As we’re all learning, it’s more finite than we thought.

[psiloveyou.xyz]