Bumbled: Dating After Divorce

Life is funny. Adulthood even funnier. No matter how much you plan, strategize, and think you’re in control….you’re simply not.  

After my divorce, I made the decision that I wanted to remain single, raise my kids, and rediscover myself.  I did not want to be in a relationship ever again, and being that I am something of a lone wolf….I embraced the solitude.

Sure, I’d see “happy couples” (social media has those on display ad nauseam, doesn’t it?) and think wistfully about what it would be like to be part of something like that.  

I’d look at my friends who had lived through divorce and found their person…their actual person despite having kids and an ex that, because of the children, would always be in the periphery.  Couples that just work beautifully together.  Witnessing that allowed me to know that that option was out there for me too….but I just didn’t want to put myself out there, and I didn’t want to let my guard down again.  

I’m a tough chick, but not when it comes to my heart. I had made my decision…but life decided differently.

A year ago today, life decided that I needed to meet someone….and so I did. In an odd and coincidental way.  In a way I was 100000% sure I wouldn’t meet someone. I met my person on a dating app….we basically bumbled our way into each other’s lives with the swipe of a finger.

Let me do a little backtracking though…..about a year after my divorce I was dared by one of my best friends to download another app which was much more popular at the time.  We had some shots of tequila and swiped left, left, left and laughed and decided that this city was a cesspool of undateables and that was that.  

I swiped right on one person who ended up texting me for a few days . However, he turned out to have the potential of needing a restraining order, so the app got deleted and I was more convinced than ever that I was going to remain single.

During the course of the following year I focused on myself, my kids, building up my self-esteem post divorce, and poured myself into writing for my clients.

During this time, I lost my father and as I was starting to feel like my life was turning around for the better, I was knocked completely off of my feet and left raw and broken.  My father was an angel of a man and I loved and admired him in equal measure.  Losing him was unexpected and weakened me to the core…yet somehow, I feel like he had to make sure from beyond that I would be ok.

Shortly after his passing, I met a woman who would become like the sister I never had. This woman had also lost her father just a few months prior and she reached out to me on Facebook out of the blue one night to console me.  

Our friendship was instant and as if our dads had orchestrated our meeting from beyond.  Mystical, I know, but when you lose a loved one you believe in things that to everyone else may seem irrational. So I’ll always believe my dad had something to do with my meeting this friend.

Despite her living in London, we would check in on each other almost daily.  Helping each other with the grieving process and learning how to deal with it while raising children.  

It was inevitable that I would go to London and meet her and her family in person, and in doing so I earned a new little family….and somehow in the process….a boyfriend.  

So, how the boyfriend?  

Well, one night in London over wine, cheese, and Branston Pickle, one of her dinner guests let us know with a sparkle in his eye that he had met a lovely lady on Bumble.  A dating app I hadn’t really heard of at the time, and I figured it was a UK thing.  

We went on with our conversation and had a few laughs as he showed us some of the profiles on the app.  My friend was curious as to what the men on the app would look like so I downloaded it in order to satiate our curiosity…basically for shits and giggles.  

While there were some guys on there that seemed like they’d be great to meet with, I knew I was leaving London soon, and to be honest, also knew I was happy being on my own.  

I didn’t look at the app again until I got back home to LA, and ended up in bed for two days with a high fever from some bubonic plague I got on the plane. This is what happens when you get seated next to a pestilent woman and the plane bathroom. Welcome to Pathogen Airways!

There was only so much Facebook I could scroll through while in bed and in between naps, so I decided to do a little snooping around Bumble and see what wares LA had in the men’s department.

Again…just for shits and giggles and perhaps out of feverish delirium.  And that’s when I saw him.  

Best smile I’d seen in a long time, and the fact that he lived in my hometown but was from England….automatic right swipe. I figured, if nothing else, we could text for a bit about Old Blighty and that would be it.  

Well, text we did.  He asked me out the second day we connected on Bumble and I put him off for two weeks….but he persisted and was cheeky and charming and, well, I couldn’t help myself.  

We met for doughnuts from Bluestar on Venice Beach and I was as nervous and awkward as a school girl.  Hadn’t been on a date in 14 years…had no idea what I was doing or what I was supposed to do.  Didn’t want a relationship, but didn’t want to come off as a massive dork either.  

Both were inevitable. I was a dork, he liked it, and here we are a year later.

After our first date, I knew I liked him. Instant chemistry, everything in common, and he made me feel comfortable from the minute we lay eyes on each other…..but I didn’t want to get my hopes up so I drove away not expecting to hear from him again.  But I did.

That same day.

…and from that point on we were inseparable. Still are. Despite the odds which have not always been in our favor (cue the Hunger Games theme song).  My Englishman that I met in LA because I downloaded an app while in England. What? How? Yeah.  It took me flying to his homeland to meet him while he was living in my hometown. Crazy. But so good.

So here we are a year later…..a year is a lot in LA.  It’s like dating someone for 5 years or more in this temporal and transient city. He is everything I didn’t think I would or could find in one person. He says the same about me.

The connection, the chemistry, the compatibility was effortless from the second we met and has remained that way. We just work.  We’ve dealt with difficult personalities and obstacles set by them…but this is adulthood. This is life.

All this because of a surprise friendship, a trip to England, and a downloaded app. This man. Yeah.  I couldn’t help but let my guard down….he came crashing through…..but he’s a soccer player, so scoring goals wasn’t foreign to him and I suck as a goalie.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, I get asked a lot how I met him….so now I can just refer anyone else who does to this blog post, ha!  …and also…because I want to give hope to other people, especially single parents, that divorce doesn’t end your life.  It’s the end of a chapter.  

Things didn’t work out with your former partner because there was someone you were better suited for waiting for you out there….the when and the how is always a mystery, but if you don’t release what’s not meant for you anymore….that wonderful, amazing, magical, happy new story can’t be written.  Life knows what it’s doing…..you just gotta let it.

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