How Glo Got Her Groove Back X – and they lived hopefully ever after

Wow. I have to say the response to the last few posts, particularly from those of you who know me In Real Life, has been overwhelming. I’ve been receiving pretty much a constant flow of comments and messages from belovedests from all around the world, expressing excitement and saying such beautiful, encouraging things.

You all seem so excited, so happy for me. And some of you have messaged me sharing from your own experiences, saying there are things in what I’ve written that resonate so strongly with you, that to see it written and shared in this way is an inspiration to you. And you even seem to appreciate The Cheeky that underpins a lot of my writing style.

To be able to write, and write things that reach people…that give them a new and different view of the world, of themselves, of others, and of God…is all I’ve ever wanted to do. That’s always been where my heart is. That’s been my dream since I was a 9 year-old girl writing idealistic girlish stories – armed with an HB pencil and a refill pad – about best friends and cats and finding and losing then finding again.

I’ve taken a circuitous route, via 20-something years in Planet Corporate. But those years were all part of the journey, and I believe exactly where God wanted me at the time. Those years taught me so much – they grew strength and wisdom and courage and compassion and resolve into me…things that otherwise may never have had a chance to grow the way they did, let alone surface.

So, as 2015 rolls out before me, it seems as though God is bringing to life the dream that He placed into my guileless, trusting, 9 year-old heart.

And the beauty of it all is that the vehicle He’s used which has elicited the most encouraging response…is the story of contestant number 10, who became My Ardent Pursuer, who became My Sweetheart.

So now, it’s time for me to share a little more on that. Just to close the loop, so to speak.

The events I’ve written about took place about 8 months ago. A lot has happened in the last 8 months.

We are no longer together. We decided to stop seeing each other 6 months ago.  Which is about when I started writing this series of posts.

It was a very difficult decision for both of us. We sat on my couch and hugged and cried and held onto each other and cried some more. We had become really close. He had become my best friend. Neither of us really wanted to end things. But we both knew, it was the right thing to do. We both had so much respect – for each other, for who the other person was, and for our relationship – that we knew the only way we could honour it for the beautiful thing that it was, and to honour one another, was to end it at the time we did.

Two months together might not seem like a long time, and in many ways it isn’t. But those two months have left such a beautiful mark on me. They have been the catalyst for God to bring life-changing ground-breaking healing into my heart, my life, and my other relationships. It’s healing that I have been crying out to God for, from the depths of my heart, for most of my life.

6 months ago, when we ended things, there was so much I didn’t know, so much I didn’t understand, so much I wasn’t ready to take in or acknowledge – about the significance of that relationship, about what God was really doing, and the impact it would have on me in the months following as I have processed it all…and have learned to hear God’s heart, and let His heart heal mine.

There is a lot that I know now, that I didn’t know – or maybe didn’t want to know – 6 months ago.

I didn’t know that he loved me. But he did.

I didn’t know that I loved him. But I did.

I didn’t know that My Sweetheart was a Love-Gift from God. But he was.

I didn’t know that My Sweetheart, was actually My First Love. But he was. He is. He always will be.

He is the first man who ever loved me.

He loved me with such sincerity, such respect, such integrity, such honour. He loved me more than he loved himself.

It amazes me that all I did was finally be OK with being me, with accepting myself, with not making apologies for who I was – and I somehow managed to get myself loved without even trying or realising it. It took me completely by surprise, to the point where I didn’t even recognise this until months after we ended things.

It is the first time in my life that I have come away from such an encounter with any man with my self-esteem not only intact, but enriched. He validated everything about who I was. He gifted me with a confidence that can only come after one has been truly loved by another for who they are.

I had become so accustomed to being treated a certain way by men, that when he treated me with such dignity, right to the very end, it disoriented me. Where is the part where he tells me all my faults and says no one could ever be with someone like that? Where is the part where he judges me harshly for my looks, my intelligence, my career history? Where is the part where I come away feeling worthless, decimated, rejected and completely unlovable? In the 6 months since we parted, I have been unable to find that part. I have looked for it, and looked for it some more. But I have been unable to find it. Because it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there.

My First Love challenged, and then completely broke apart, a core belief that had been suffocating my heart for most of my life. A core belief that I am unlovable. I’ve been picking up the pieces of that broken core belief for the last 6 months, and throwing them back where they belong, which is into oblivion. That lie doesn’t belong on me. That lie doesn’t belong on any of us.

It is God’s greatest source of sorrow and heartbreak to see so many of us burdened, weighed down and held back by such lies. God wants us free of them. His heart for us all, His desperate desire for each of us, because of His relentless unconditional love for each of us, is that we are set free of such lies.

God used My First Love to set me free of those lies. I can’t begin to describe the wonder with which I consider this. And the awe I have for my God, who doesn’t belong in any silly little religious boxes, and brings people and situations we don’t expect, in ways we don’t expect, to show us more of Himself. To show us more of His love.

My First Love always said he wanted to protect my heart. And not only did he protect it, he nurtured it, encouraged it, cherished it and held it with such tender affection, such care. He opened up parts of my heart that had long since been shut down.

I had no idea how shut down my heart really was, until I met someone who showed me what an open heart looks like and how beautiful it is. How God-breathed it really is. This man, by Christianese prayer-of-salvation standards a ‘non-Christian’, had no idea that – with every kind word, with every caring gesture, with every understanding hug – he was showing me something of God’s Heart in his. And it was extraordinary.

I could see God in him. I could see God in his heart. God was reaching me, beginning to heal all my hurt and broken parts and open up parts of my heart that had been locked down for years, through the love that He had put into this man’s heart for me.

Never again will I limit or doubt my God. How can I, after this?

My First Love and I have had no contact at all in the 6 months since we ended things.   This is because shortly after we ended things I messaged him asking him not to contact me anymore. Because I said I wanted to be able to ‘move on’. I knew that he would respect my wishes for no contact, so I knew that he would not try to contact me.

At times I have missed him so desperately though. But I also know that if the reasons why we ended things haven’t changed – and they haven’t changed for me – then further contact would have only served to confuse and hurt us both, and hold us both back, no matter how much we both may have wished for one another at times over the last 6 months.

The irony of my stated wish to ‘move on’ is that it has taken, it is taking, quite a while for me to be able to do that.   There have been times over the last 6 months when I have been very frustrated that I haven’t been able to just ‘shake it off’ (thanks Taylor Swift) more quickly and actually move on.  But I have realised that to move on from something so significant, it deserves the respect of time to fully appreciate and learn from it.

And even in this, I am learning. I am learning to be kind to myself. I have had to learn to feel things, as part of the grieving process that comes with the loss of any love. Feelings have always terrified me. I have always preferred to push feelings down or ignore them or fight them off. But God has been teaching me how to feel again. Even the feelings that don’t feel comfortable, that don’t feel good, they serve a purpose.

It sounds strange I know, learning how to ‘feel’. But that’s part of what I need to learn. If I am ever to love again, and next time to know that it is love that I am feeling, and to embrace it instead of run from it or be suspicious of it or fear it.

So I am making progress, towards being able to move on completely.  I am learning that these things take the time that they take.  And I know I will get there.

At the time we parted, we said that we would have no regrets. But I do have regrets. My biggest regret is that My First Love may have come away from our time together with hurt, not healing.  It hurts me, to think that I may actually have hurt him.  God has spoken to me about things in the last few months, and I’ve come to realise that there were things that I didn’t do or say in my relationship with My First Love, that perhaps God could have used to reach him, to heal and open up parts of his heart as well…if I had done or said those things.

But I was still quite shut down. Those parts of me hadn’t opened up yet. I wasn’t ready. So I have to trust God to make up for my weaknesses and trust that He will reach, touch and heal My First Love in His way and His time.

My First love, he was searching for something. We all are. I could see it in him, this hunger, for something real. For something honest and true and faithful. I wonder if he was so drawn to me, not just because of me, but because of God in me.

This relationship, in God’s eyes, was never just about me, about healing and loving me. My First Love was there too. And God loves him just as much as He loves me. And God’s heart for him – my heart for him too – is that he finds the love and peace and acceptance and happiness that he has always longed for. That we all long for.

My First Love had such an open, honest heart and he respected and cared for and treated me better than any man ever has. There was a lot of understanding and empathy between us.  I am grateful for the time I had with him. He wasn’t perfect but none of us are, and even in his imperfection I don’t think I have ever felt safer or more appreciated by any man before. That’s why he was God’s Love-Gift to me.

I have no idea where My First Love is at now. It has been 6 months, so he will have been dating again and by now will probably have met someone else. But that won’t change the love that God has put into my heart for him. It is not a desperate, anxious, needy love that so often typifies unhealthy romantic attachments. It is a love that desires all God’s best for him, all God’s favour, all God’s blessing, all God’s peace. It is God’s love, so it is eternal, and it will never change.

On our last night together, we went to church. I stood next to him in church during the singing and surrendered him – My Sweetheart, My Love-Gift, My First Love – to God. I didn’t know at the time that we would not be together a few hours later. I’m not sure he did either.  But that’s how I know that God is looking after My First Love. Because I gave him to God that night.

I don’t know where My First Love is now and I may never know – but I do know that no matter where he goes, no matter what he does, no matter who he is with, no matter where he may turn for comfort or the depths he may go to, God won’t ever give up on him.

And neither will I. I will always want the best for him. I will always be in his corner. He will always have a special place in my heart and prayers. God saw his sincere, honest heart, and I know that God treasures an honest heart, and He will honour that.

I will always have hope for My First Love, that God will touch his heart and give him the life that he wanted so very much. I really hope that he finds it in God.

I will always have hope for My First Love.  Always.

There may well be other contestants, other pursuers, other sweethearts. But I will only ever have one First Love. And I am so grateful that it was him.

Future Husband, you are coming after a very hard act to follow. Just saying 🙂

How Glo Got Her Groove Back IX – the striking charm of a heartfelt pursuit

Yawn. Stretch. Gah. Mornings are like so overrated. No Tuesday, I am so not interested in you. I want to stay in my nice warm bed. Streetttch…sigh. Ceiling looks the same as yesterday. Lalalalalaaa…good morning God. I think I may have met the sweetest man ever. Did You hear what he said to me last night? I think he might actually see my heart. You know this is all I’ve ever wanted from a man. To be appreciated, first and foremost, for my heart. More than for the clarity of my skin or the height of my cheekbones or the texture of my hair or the length of my limbs or my waist-to-hip ratio or my dress size or my dress sense.

So, God, is this the bit where You say tut-tut you wayward girl, he’s not a Christian, you shouldn’t be getting involved with him, he is the devil’s way of seducing you into hell, he will only drag you away from Me? Be ye not unequally yoked or forever burn in hell? Oh, wait, that’s what I expect to hear from other Christians. But is that what You would say, God?

No? No telling off from You today? Not yet maybe? You’re awfully quiet on this subject. Maybe I am shutting You out. I don’t want to. You know I’m your girl, I always will be. But this man is so different. Unless You put a major blockade in front of me and write a sign in the sky that says ‘Stop seeing him’…I will go with the flow. Capiche? We good? Love You. Love You with all of my girly heart. You know that, right?

And go with the flow I did. For the next week or so. Witnessing – and being in the eye of the storm of – the striking charm of a heartfelt pursuit.

Every day, he would message me saying beautiful, sincere, genuine, things. I’d be on these other Tinder dates and he’d be texting me all through them, we’d be trading giggles or silliness or sweetness or I would be geeking out about something geeky-cool that happened at work that day. I tried to pay all of my attention to these other Tinder people. I really did. But contestant number 10, who had now become My Ardent Pursuer, left me in no doubt whatsoever about his interest in me and his intention to Win My Heart. It was difficult to do justice to giving any kind of genuine attention to anyone else.

Sometimes he would actually call (so old school! So sweet) to hear my voice and we would talk, sometimes for hours, like teenagers in the 80’s who didn’t have cars and the phone was our only way to spend time with each other. It wasn’t of course. Which made it all the more endearing.

But it wasn’t all just coming from him. Sometimes I would be the one to message him to say good morning, or to share something funny that had just happened in my day, or to see how his day was going or to say something sweet or silly.

He made it so safe, for me to reach out to him, to be more open, to share – because for some reason I had no fear whatsoever that he would reject me or pull away from me or shut down on me. When he heard from me, he’d respond so enthusiastically, and often straight away.

This man didn’t seem to be playing any kind of treat-‘em-mean-keep-‘em-keen game. He wasn’t even remotely looking like he was trying to play it cool. But he wasn’t desperate either. He just seemed to be…I don’t know. He knew he wanted to win me. And he was going after me. He wasn’t pretending not to. He was just there, all the time, engaging me, with his sincere, open heart held out to me, asking me to let him into my heart.

Over that week, we did see each other a few times. Actually any spare time we got, we found a way to see each other, even if only for an hour or two between other commitments (read: Tinder dates, for me at least). Somewhere in amongst those times, the kissing started, and the insane electricity between us would jolt right through me, every time. Oh, God. This man was So. Hot. And a Complete Sweetheart with it. Which made him even hotter.

But at the same time, he was such a gentleman. I can’t quite explain it. It was clear, he wanted me – and he was probably quite accustomed to having any woman he wanted – but he seemed to have so much respect for the fact that this kissing and stuff was no small thing for me. He knew he wasn’t just another guy who I was seeing in a succession of guys. He was the first man who had come near me, in that way, in more than 2 decades. He seemed to understand the enormity of it, he seemed to understand the trust I was placing in him with that, sometimes more than I did. And at no time, did he ever, ever judge me, or say anything judgey like well if you were really a nice Christian girl you wouldn’t be kissing me so passionately like this etc etc.

He just seemed to, well, celebrate me. Every part of me.

No man had ever celebrated me before.

In amongst that week, on the Sunday, he came to church with me. That’s a bit of a misnomer really, because actually, I went to church with him. I’d told him that I’d recently stopped going to church because it didn’t feel real or honest to me anymore and I couldn’t bear to spend any more minutes of my life on things that weren’t real or honest.

I said I did like the church I was going to, it was a really good one, but I wasn’t in a great place in myself, so it didn’t sit well with me at the moment. I said it was me and my stuff that was the problem, it wasn’t that particular church.

That church was actually pretty awesome, I said, because it was the sort of church that encouraged people to find the gifts God had given them and use those gifts, to reach others with God’s love, and to celebrate those gifts.  It wasn’t the sort of church that locked people down into a way of behaving or dressing or living and in the process stifling who God made them to be – I said I’d spent a lot of years in a church like that before, so that’s why I appreciated the church I was going to now, so very much.

I said I’d probably go back to church eventually, but that I was just taking some time out. I was thinking that I’d probably go back soon, maybe in the next few weeks. He said he’d be really interested to go to my church with me sometime, when I was ready to go back, if I’d be OK with that. I was really surprised. I said that’s good with me but please don’t come to church for me, if you’re going to come to church, come for you.

I really didn’t want him to feel like I wanted or expected him to ‘fall into line’ and become a Christian or anything like that just because of me or for my sake. Because I didn’t. He was an amazing person, just as he was. And I knew, from my own journey, that God is the only Person who can really touch someone’s heart. He might use other people to reach out to someone, but ultimately, the decision that every person makes about God, one way or the other, needs to be their own. That’s how God made us. As free agents, with a free will, to decide for ourselves.

So anyway he said he really did want to come to church. He said he’d actually been thinking about going to a church up the road from him for a while anyway, he just hadn’t gotten around to it. So that’s how, on the Sunday evening, he ended up taking me to church after we’d spent the afternoon together.

I don’t think he’d been to church, much less a church like that, in a very long time. Afterwards, he said it was very different from his past church experiences, but in a good way. He said he could tell there was something real there. He said he’d like to keep coming with me if that was OK. I was really happy for him to come with me, because actually otherwise I’d be going to church by myself which I kind of hated. I hated going to church alone, in that big crowd of people. It made me feel more alone, not less. So it would work for both of us. Win-win 🙂

All throughout that week, he maintained that he was still intent on winning me over to the idea of a relationship with him. No matter what curveballs I threw his way. And I threw quite a few curveballs. I figured he’d better know what he would be getting himself into, so in the spirit of full disclosure, I’d tell him things, about My Crazy (as opposed to ‘The’ Crazy that we had in common), to see if it would put him off. I told him all sorts of things about My Crazy, each thing, more crazy than the last. Waiting for him to back off and say he’d changed his mind because no guy would be up for Crazy Like That. Nope. Not putting him off. He said I wouldn’t be able to push him away that easily.

Eventually, towards the end of that week, I realised that I’d run out of My Crazy. I’d exhausted all avenues of My Crazy. I couldn’t come up with another, more insane version of My Crazy with which to freak him out. I had no more curveballs left to throw. And anyway he wasn’t buying any of it. He saw me. He saw my heart. And yes, he admitted, he thought I was incredibly beautiful and unbelievably hot. And he wanted to be with me. Simple as that.

He wasn’t changing his mind. Nothing I had done or said had changed his mind. If anything, he said, the more he learned about me, the more he knew he wanted to be with me.

Well so much for scaring him off and thereby abdicating any responsibility to make a decision myself. He wasn’t changing his mind. He wasn’t going anywhere. The only way he would be going anywhere would be if I sent him away by saying No to a relationship. The ball clearly was in my court, to decide what happens next.

Dammit.

I began to realise that, alongside all this, it really wasn’t fair to be spending time with these other Tinder people when my interest was becoming so very skewed in one very tall gorgeous sweethearted direction. Although in my mind they were all just friendly dates, if I was honest with myself, I knew that some of these other guys were probably quite keen on something much more than the relaxed friendship that I was giving them. These other guys were really very lovely. But some of them did appear to be a bit smitten with me, but they were probably less confident than My Ardent Pursuer was, and hadn’t gathered up the courage to say something, or Go For It.

Gosh, that feels weird writing all that! Multiple guys, smitten with me?! Sounds kind of conceited, ugh. But I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m not saying oooh look at me I’m so great all these guys are chasing me around…it really didn’t feel that way to me and it still doesn’t looking back on it. I just knew that those guys deserved the respect of getting the same kind of attention back, that they were giving. And I knew I was not able to give that to any of them now. Not with My Ardent Pursuer competing for – and winning, hands down – all my attention.

So, one day, I sent individual messages to each member of my Tinder Family who was still keeping in regular contact and asking me out. I let each of them know that I had met someone who I had decided to start seeing exclusively, and that I had really appreciated the time with them, would be happy to keep in touch as friends if they wanted to etc etc.

Their replies back to me only confirmed my belief that they were really very lovely guys. They all, without fail, said they were happy for me, and that they’d really enjoyed spending time with me, and they hoped things went well. None of them were annoyed or nasty or anything like that. I really hoped that those guys would each meet someone as lovely as they were.

I still hadn’t properly decided that I wanted to actually go in boots-and-all into a relationship with My Ardent Pursuer. I just knew that I had to, in fairness to the other Tinder people, let them go.

One week after our second date, the one where he said he wants to pursue a relationship with me. Yeah, that date. We are sitting in another trendy eatery in another trendy part of town. I am laughing at something My Ardent Pursuer has just said. He says you have such a beautiful smile. You light up the room with that smile. I think I might be blushing. I look down at the table. I’m a bit self-conscious now.  I tilt my eyes back up to look at him. I am smiling again. He is smiling back at me. I think this is what they call flirting. Oh, my. I’ve become a bit of a flirt with My Ardent Pursuer. The girl has grown up just a little bit more lately.

My Ardent Pursuer is saying that he wants to win my heart. I shift a little in my seat. I say nothing back. I am looking at him. Studying his face for any sign that he’s just Taking The Mickey. He’s not. He means it. He’s been meaning it all week.

So anyway, I say. He sits up a little straighter. He’s waiting to hear what I am going to say next. Because he knows, that I am about to tell him what I have decided. For the first time all week, he looks a bit nervous, a bit unsure of himself.

Anyway, I say. I have sent all the other Tinder people away.

I can’t describe the look on his face. He’s not saying anything. He’s just looking at me. He looks like he can’t say anything because there is a lump in his throat. He doesn’t cry or anything though, his eyes are just looking a bit damp. Oh dear Lord. I don’t think it hits me until that moment, how much I actually seem to mean to this man. He really does care about me. He is genuine. He hasn’t been making any of this up.

I reach across the table and squeeze his hand. His other hand comes over mine. After a minute, he says something. He says, Thank you.

After a few minutes we take out our phones, delete our Tinder accounts, and remove the Tinder app. That is 2014 speak for I Choose You.

And that is how, My Ardent Pursuer, became My Sweetheart.

Relationship drought = broken.

How Glo Got Her Groove Back VIII – wait, what? You want to whaaat?

Funday Monday morning. Whoa, I have a date tonight. A second date. With contestant number 10. Eek! I am a bit excited *swoon* 🙂

I’m still a bit amused at how he went – in the space of an hour or so – from Point A: ‘maybe you’re not ready for a relationship’ to Point B: ‘You are intriguing, I have to know more about you, I want to see you again’. What happened? What did I say? What did I do? I’d pretty much shoulder-shrugged and put him into the Just Another Really Nice Guy In My Tinder Family category from Point A, right up until Point B. At which point I valiantly fought – and thankfully overcame – an insane urge to jump on him.

Oh well, he was right in a way. I’m not sure if I’m ready for a relationship, but I know for sure that I’m not in the headspace for a relationship. Crikey. I’ve only got my training wheels on with dating and have only let one person kiss me! Relationship?! Are you frickin’ kidding me?

I’m actually kind of enjoying just meeting nice guys, being a bit of a smartypants with them and going to cool shows/events/cafes etc. No pressure, no exclusivity, no expectations, no involvement, no messy entanglement, no snogging, no nooky. Just good friendly company. And it’s novelty enough with all these really nice guys actually wanting to take me out and hang out with me. No guy in church ever did in 23 years!

But this contestant number 10, he seems to be really really interested…and I am also, maybe, really really interested. This whole being in touch with my feelings lark isn’t my strong suit, so I’m not really sure. It could just be the caffeine kicking in.

Late afternoon. He messages me saying lovely things to me and asking if he can pick me up tonight. I say nah all good thanks, I’ll meet you there.   It’s a second date for crying out loud, I’m thinking, and it’s a jungle out there on Planet Tinder! I mean, notwithstanding the fact that I am finding it difficult not to be wildly attracted to him, I barely know the guy. I’m like totally meeting him there. Nobody is picking anybody up for this date tonight. Just saying…

6:30pm’ish. Sitting in a trendy eatery in a trendy neighbourhood. He’s a minute or so away. Actually this place is in his trendy neighbourhood. About 5 minutes up the road from my (less trendy) neighbourhood. He suggested this place I think because he knows I’m a bit Asian in the head after years of living in Singapore, and this place does good Asian fusion food. I’ve eaten here before. It does do really good Asian fusion food. Good call contestant number 10! Impressed 🙂

He strides into the restaurant – tall, dashing, handsome, every inch the consummate Man About Town. Crushy schoolgirl swooning and gasping for air on the inside. You mean that hottie is here for me?! He looks around and his face lights up when he sees me. Huge smile, bounding towards me. He has such a positive, lively, energy about him. Oh that smile. Weak. Weak. Feeling weak. I think I am going to faint. Stand up, you need to stand up and say hello to him. You can do it! Stand up. Oh, mercy. Please, legs, please stand up!

He sees no evidence of my little internal dialog. I know this because my poker face is world class. And my body is not the boss of me. I totally stand up and we exchange kisses on the cheek. Easy peasy. But then he puts his arms around me and holds onto me, with this big, warm, affectionate, lovely hug. It’s so comfortable, I instinctively settle into it because it feels so nice there, so easy, so safe. He is hugging me like he means it, whatever ‘it’ is. No one has ever hugged me quite like that before.

Thank goodness I get to sit down now, and just as well. Because my legs are now no longer functioning.

We settle into easy conversation, talking about anything and everything, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Then he tells me that what we talked about yesterday, it really challenged him on so many levels. He says that when he got home after our date he kept thinking about the things I said, about my journey, my 23 year drought, about what it must have been like to feel so unwanted for so long, about what it must have taken for me to finally decide to fight back and kill the drought after so many years. He says it also made him think about his life, his journey, his regrets. He says it made him think about God, about what I said about God, about how I seem to have such a deep love for God, about how he views God himself. It made him think about where he’s going with his life, and what he’s here for. He says he’s been thinking about it, and thinking about me, ever since we said goodbye yesterday and all day today. He says he couldn’t wait to see again me tonight.

He seems so sincere, so genuine. His willingness to be so open, so vulnerable, is so lovely…and not like anything I have ever encountered before.

Who Is This Man?  This Silver-Tongued Man? Am I being played, or could he actually be a Complete Sweetheart? Do they even exist anymore?

Then, he says something that I was not expecting at all. He says that he’s thought a lot about this since we said goodbye yesterday, and he said there is so much about me that he likes, and he wants to spend more time with me…and he’s still not put off by the whole sex after marriage thing, because there is so much more to me than that and he’s never met anyone like me…I am an amazing person and he is so taken with me…and he would really like to pursue a relationship with me.

*Cue audio of record scratch here*

Wait, what?

Whoa whoa whoa whoa…back up the bus buddy.

Huh?

So, let me get this straight. I am thinking this through in my head. I met this guy a little bit less than 36 hours ago, and in that time he has gone from:

Point A: ‘maybe you’re not ready for a relationship’

to

Point B: ‘You are intriguing, I have to know more about you, I want to see you again’

to

Point C: ‘I would really like to pursue a relationship with you’

I am looking at him blankly. I have no words. I am speechless.

Is he high? I don’t smell any weed. This place is far too trendy for bog-standard weed anyway. Actually I have his scent on me from that big hug, and he smells pretty yummy (just saying).

Silence. But not an awkward silence. I’m looking at him more closely. He actually looks like he means it. He couldn’t be more serious.

But how? How does someone go from Point A to Point C in the space of a day’ish? I can’t get my head around it. Heart – shush, you stay out of it. I’m not asking you. You hearts are all the same, just a bunch of flippin’ hand-holding kumbaya-singing tree-huggers, the lot of you. Sheesh.

I say to him that I have to be honest, I am a bit suspicious of this ‘instant connection’ type of thing that we seem to have had. I say that maybe this smells a bit to me like infatuation and maybe it will quickly dissipate for him and then where would I be once his fascination with me has passed? Yes that’s right, probably hung out to dry. I say that as far as I’m aware, things that start with a hiss and a roar also end with a crash and a burn. I say that he doesn’t know anything about me, apart from what I’ve told him. I could be a totally crazy psycho right now, and he could be asking to be in a relationship with a totally crazy psycho. Has he thought this through? Doesn’t he want to take more time to know more about me before he starts using words like ‘relationship’ and ‘with’ and ‘you’ in the same sentence to me?

I say that I am quite enjoying meeting and going out with a few people at the moment, and that’s about as much as I’m up for right now. I say that I really like him, I think he’s lovely and I admit that he’s totally my favourite Tinder date so far, but for now, he’s not my only Tinder date, and I don’t intend to change that. I still intend to keep dating other people. And I would love to keep seeing him. But I’m not thinking relationship. We’ve known each other for a day. A day, dude. I really like him, but it’s too soon for me. I mean, I’ll think about it, now that he’s said that’s what he wants, and because I think he’s lovely. I’ll definitely think about it.

He nods and says he understands. Yes of course he’d love to keep seeing me. He doesn’t look disappointed. He really does look like he understands. When he looks at me, there’s something quite comforting there. He looks like he actually cares about me. But how? He met me yesterday. Yesterday. One day ago. One. Day. Ago.

This is all very overwhelming. I’ve had 23 years of nothingness in terms of romantic male attention, and I am now suddenly faced with a man who I met yesterday, who seems to see who I really am, who seems to see my heart, respect me, value me, and appears to be ready to actively pursue me and commit to a relationship with me. He also thinks I am stunningly beautiful. But he says he knows that my beauty goes much deeper.

No man, and I mean no man, has EVER really seen past my externals and into my heart, and said, you are an amazing person and I want to be with you.

The space just under my ribcage and above my belly feels strange. It’s not painful in a bad way. But it does hurt a little, because it feels a bit tender. Like it hasn’t been touched in a long time, even though maybe it should have been. And even though it’s a gentle touch, it still hurts. I want to cry. For a long long time. But I can’t cry now. Not here. Just ignore your belly for now. Pay attention to it later. Date mode now dear girl. Smile. Sweetly. Smile Sweetly.

He eases me back into lighter conversation…it must be pretty clear that he’s taken me by surprise. So much for my world class poker face. I guess part of this journey will be being OK with the poker face not being there. He says something funny and I start giggling again. I make some smart-mouthed wisecrack in reply. And off we go again. Flirt-laden banter volleyed from one side of the table to the other.

After dinner we pop into another place for a drink. It’s a trendy bar, but it’s quiet because it’s Monday. And they serve peppermint tea. Yay. He knows I don’t drink, mainly because it seems more hassle than it’s worth to start now (calories, ageing, hangovers, anyone? No thanks!). He finds it kind of cute that I want to drink herbal tea in a bar. I suppose he’s accustomed to a much more sophisticated worldly-wise kind of woman. It dawns on me, how very different I must be from his usual kind of date.

We talk a bit more about his history. About The Crazy that we have in common. During our conversation, he gets a text from one of his sons and then calls him. He’d told me earlier that his sons live in a different city, but he messages or speaks to each of them every day. When they were younger he used to fly them up to stay with him every second weekend, or he would fly down to see them. It wasn’t cheap, but time with his sons was more important to him than any cost. They’re in their teens and early 20’s now. It’s clear that he loves his boys. They mean the world to him. He’s talking on the phone to his second son. It sounds like they’re pretty close. It sounds like they have a really good relationship. When they say goodbye, he says ‘love you’ to his son. His teenage son. That is extraordinary. It says so much about who this man is and what is important to him. My heart melts.

Afterwards he walks me to my car. I’m thanking him for dinner, I’m saying I’ve had a lovely time – which I have. He says he loves spending time with me. Would I agree to see him again? We get to my car and I say yes, of course, he is my favourite Tinder date after all :-). He kisses me, so sweetly, on the cheek, and gives me another of those warm hugs. There is something in his hugs that makes me want to stay there. But I don’t of course.

I’m driving home, half shell-shocked, and half ummm, what is that? Not sure. But it’s nice whatever it is. Before I arrive home, he sends me a text to say goodnight, and that he’s looking forward to seeing me again.

Is this what it’s like, to have somebody interested in you? To have somebody think you’re amazing and special and want to be with you? I’ve never had this experience before. It only took 43 years 🙂

He knows I’ll still see other people, but that doesn’t seem to have dampened his enthusiasm.

I think, for the first time in my life, that I am about to be romantically pursued…

Well, this is unexpected. To put it mildly 🙂

How Glo Got Her Groove Back VII – was that one long date or 3 dates in one? I still don’t know…

So, contestant number 10 – tall, handsome, open and honest, and looking remarkably like I’m getting as interesting to him as he is getting to me.

Well, at least I don’t have this insane urge to climb across the table and jump on him. Yet.

Coffee number 2. We navigated our common background – of what I will call The Crazy – in such a way that we didn’t go down a conversational rat hole of regret, bitterness and victimising ourselves…impressive! This bodes well, because it means that whilst we can talk about The Crazy and acknowledge it’s in our history, we’re both pretty much done with the unhealthy nonsense that can so easily come with it and keep us stuck. Means we’ve both decided No More to being stuck. And we’ve both probably managed to sort our stuff out on that front, at least to some extent. Mad respect.

We slip seamlessly back into idle first-date banter, but with even more ease…it feels a little bit like I know so much more about him now, knowing that he’s been where I’ve been.

After trading more information, witticisms, musings and light-hearted smartypantsness, we both confess to a serious – perhaps life-threateningly serious – weakness for good coffee and rilly rilly rilly good food. It’s a bit of a burden, we agree, living this life of coffee fussiness and free range foodiness…at which point I really open up my heart to him to share that I cannot, I repeat, cannot, live without chocolate. Life without chocolate, I say, what is it all for? It doesn’t even bear thinking about.

And even though he confesses that he doesn’t share my addiction to chocolate, like, at all (in fact he kind of hates chocolate) he demonstrates great understanding and compassion in response to the risk I took in sharing such deeply personal information on a first date. What are we to do with such human frailty? There’s a coffee and chocolate show happening up the road he says, shall we check it out? Both our vices in one easy stop. Do I have time? Did I have other plans today?

My crushy little schoolgirl brain is whirring…I’m sure I had another date (details fuzzy now), but that’s later today I think…so I say umm, yes, I’d love to. I have plans later on but I have time now 🙂

Date 1, part 2 or is this Date 2, I’m not sure…we are walking around this coffee and chocolate show. Gosh, he’s so gorgeously tall. Good-looking much? And pretty fit for his age. Silver fox. Sigh. Oooh, look, chocolate! I’m like a kid in a candy shop – OK, I am, quite literally, a kid in a candy shop. I’m buying chocolate moustaches for my cutie patootie toddler nephew and pretty much hoovering up any free samples on offer. No shame man. All class. Did someone say Free Food? He seems to find it all very entertaining. Oh Lordy, that smile. The sweetest thing. Straight from heaven. Oh, my. Keep it together Missy. Keep. It. Together.

There is this coffee guru giving a talk shortly, he’s going to tell us how to make awesome coffee in all kinds of ways, even with a french press (gasp). These are indisputably important life skills. We must see this talk. I’m sitting next to him listening to this coffee guru. But I’m not really hearing what the coffee guru is saying. Contestant number 10 is sitting very close, closer than any guy has sat next to me in 23 years. Yes, 23. Years. Not days, not months. Years. It might be no big deal to him – I doubt he has much trouble attracting women – but it’s all very unfamiliar to me. Not at all uncomfortable though. Is it me or is it really, really, really warm in here?

Still no insane urge to lean over and jump on him. Yet. Honest.

I check the time. Contestant number 11 is in a couple of hours. I should really go soon. I’ll need time to collect myself and regroup after this date if I have any hope of doing any justice to paying any kind of decent attention to contestant number 11. I don’t tell him I have another date. Just that I should go soon. He seems reluctant to say goodbye. I am reluctant to say goodbye. He asks, do I want to grab an ice cream by the water? Shouldn’t take long. Do I have time before I need to go?

Date 1, part 3, or is this Date 3…sitting on a bench overlooking the harbour. The water is sparkling in the sunshine. Such a gorgeous day. This ice cream is Getting Owned. It doesn’t last long. I guess by now he’s figured out that I have the appetite of a horse. Oh well, it was going to come to light sooner or later…if there is one thing I have learned on this epic wee Tinder journey, it’s that there is no point not being me 🙂

So we talk a bit. We talk a bit about him and his history and experiences, and a bit about me. Out of respect for his privacy, I’m not going to give much or anything away really in terms of his history here…

So he’s asking me about my relationship history. I say I know it sounds so odd, and I know people find it hard to believe, but I have no recent relationship or dating history really. Just a few confused mixed messages from confused mixed-up Christian men that left me picking up some pretty painful pieces at times over the years. I tell him about my 23 year drought, and that I decided it was frickin’ ridiculous…I don’t know how it happened that I managed to be a ‘nice Christian girl’ in churches for 23 years and get passed over and ‘left on the shelf’ all that time, time and time again. But the fact that it left me at 43 feeling invisible, worthless and unlovable was probably not ever what God had in mind for me, or anyone.

So I decided to change it. I decided that I could change it. I wasn’t trapped. I wasn’t stuck. I didn’t have to stay there. I’d had enough. I was pretty sure I was more of a catch than all those confused mixed-up Christian men had led me to believe. I had a hunch.

So I changed it.

Cue the Tinder experiment. I needed to learn how to talk to guys, how to date. That’s why I joined Tinder. Simple as that.

He says he can’t believe it. 23 years? I’m a beautiful-looking girl, he says, and so lovely, how could no one take enough of an interest in me to pursue me in 23 years? How did that happen? He’s looking at me with genuine confusion on his face. He can’t seem to equate the woman he sees before him and all he’s learned about her so far, with her 23-year history of Never Been Kissed and feeling Roundly Ignored or worse by Christian men. I can barely equate it myself, and I’ve been hanging out with me more than anyone else has for all those 23 years.

But I confess to him that in spite of confused mixed messages etc, I had already gone into Relationship Lock Down before then anyway. So any guys who would have been interested probably didn’t stand a chance of getting really near me anyway. I had me some seriously tall walls up. It wasn’t all the guys’ fault, confused as they may have been. I say I’m the one who made that decision to lock down at the age of 20 – after a very traumatic first heartbreak. To shut down emotionally so that nobody could get in. Nobody decided it for me.

I tell him I thought it that it would be easier to completely shut that part of me down than to put myself at risk again and live with a succession of heart breaks like that. Turns out I had the succession of heart breaks anyway, just in a more confusing, less open way, which is pretty common for Christian girls in church settings – so what did I have to lose by opening up shop again, I say? At least I might at get a sense that some guys might find me interesting! Which it turns out they do. Find me interesting, that is. Teehee.

He wonders out loud if I’m ready for a relationship then. By this time I’ve turned to face him and have my legs crossed on the park bench. I say well I didn’t join Tinder to find a relationship, I joined Tinder to learn. I’m starting from way further back than a relationship. I lost 23 years. I have so much to learn. There’s so much I didn’t know about even the basics of getting to know a guy and being open to someone before I joined Tinder, I say. I don’t know what reply he was expecting from me, but I don’t think it was that. The expression on his face was priceless. And gorgeous.

He asks about my ‘Christian thing’…he says he believes being a Christian is about basically being a good person. I say I disagree…there are lots of good people who don’t call themselves Christians, and lots of people who call themselves Christians who are not good people…I believe that being a Christian is about having a heart connection with God, I say. It’s our heart that God wants to connect with. It’s our deepest part that He wants to know and love, and heal from hurt. I say it’s such a personal thing.

I say I have such an allergy to religiousness now, I really don’t believe that how a lot of churches operate is how God ever wanted us to live…I say I’m done with Planet Christianese, I’m done with religious ‘rules’ that only lead Christians to judge and condemn one another…it’s so dysfunctional. I say I don’t believe that’s God’s heart for us at all. I want to know what God wants, and I want to own it, to make it my own…

I say I want God with all my heart, but I want Him real. I want His heart in mine and mine in His.   Everything else is just detail. That’s what I want, and that’s what I’m going to fight for. That’s why I knew I needed to open up to people, especially guys, a bit more and be willing to learn again and let people back in.   Tinder isn’t your conventional Christian vehicle, but phooey to conventional Christian expectations.   I don’t believe God belongs in any of our silly little man-made boxes.

And yes, for the record, I am saving myself for my husband I say. I know people think I’m crazy or silly or both to be so idealistic, but I believe that’s God’s best for me and I don’t really give a rat’s what people think about it. And my Future Husband is going to be one very lucky sod. Because I am pretty sure that I am going to be Scorching Hot in the sack, after a bit of practice. I don’t exactly have much to base that on, but that’s what I reckon. 23 years of waiting? Are you kidding me? I’m pretty sure it all will still work down there. My poor unsuspecting Future Husband won’t know what hit him. I hope he’s keeping fit wherever he is, is all I can say. Damn straight.

He’s looking at me like, Who Is This Woman?

He’s saying that there is a purity and an honesty about me that is really quite fascinating…he’s saying something about wanting to kiss my ‘beautiful lips’, about being a bit lost for words, about feeling like a schoolboy right now. I’m looking at him. I’m studying him. I guess maybe, I’m smiling a little bit, but I’m not saying anything. I’m definitely not leaning in for a kiss. I’ve only known him for a few hours for goodness sake. He knows I’m not going to be such an easy score in the kissing stakes.

But it seems like he has decided that I am worth the effort. Because now he’s saying something about being totally up for it, the whole saving sex for marriage thing, at least with someone like me. He’s saying that doesn’t scare him off because there’s too much about me that he finds intriguing, that he wants to know more about.

I’m not sure I heard him correctly – come again? I’m thinking…you, a super hot red-blooded regular hetero guy who doesn’t subscribe to my rare (read: old-fashioned) belief in saving sex for marriage, and has probably had any woman he wants for most of his life…you are telling me that you would be prepared to date me or more and not try to shag me before you’d decided to commit pretty much the rest of your life to me in marriage? Ummmm…I’m not saying anything, but I’m thinking, does he know what he just said? It’s my turn to hear something I didn’t ever expect to hear!

I decide not to challenge him on that. But I also decide to expect that he might change his mind at any time. So whilst I’ll take what he’s saying at face value, it wouldn’t be realistic for me to hold him to that. He’s a guy for crying out loud.

I’m so different from any other woman he’s met, he says. So much of what he’s heard and seen of me today he likes, he says. He has to know more. Will I let him take me to dinner some time in the coming week?

Wow. Once he knows what he wants, he doesn’t hold back. He’s not shy about saying what he wants, and going after it.

That. Is. So. Damn. Hot.

I now have this insane urge to slide across the park bench and jump on him.

But I reckon he’d never know. Poker face and all that.

I check my schedule on my phone. All full up with Tinder dates this week except for tomorrow night. Otherwise the week after. He’s like no I can’t wait until the week after next. Can we do tomorrow night?

Sure we can 🙂

Postscript:  Nobody ever wants to be a postscript, but sometimes you are someone’s postscript and that’s how it is…so, what happened to contestant number 11?  About an hour before our date, when I was sitting by the water with contestant number 10, he messaged and cancelled as something urgent had come up.  Which actually was great for me – I got to spend more time with contestant number 10 🙂  Contestant number 11 actually tried to reschedule with me a week or so later, but by that time…my attention had become a lot more focused elsewhere, so to speak 🙂  

How Glo Got Her Groove Back VI – another day, another Tinder date? Well, not quite…

Sunday morning. 10:30am. Sheesh, whose dumb idea was it to meet for coffee on a Sunday at this insane hour of the morning anyway? I should be in bed right now! Oh, wait, my dumb idea. Sigh. Come on down Tinder ‘contestant’ number 10, date number too-many-dates-lost-count-now. I am officially a Tinder dating ninja. I can date with my eyes shut now. No biggie…another day, another (couple of) Tinder date(s) 🙂

So, before we met that morning, I’d already established that this guy was not at all daunted or intimidated by me, my appearance, my brains, my cheekiness, or my career history. He was in a pretty full-on and demanding role in business himself, which is how we’d started trading war stories from the trenches of Planet Corporate via messenger. And he seemed genuinely interested, and encouraging, and even – dare I say it – impressed.

Gasp. Well, this was new. A man who I didn’t feel I had to ‘dumb down’ for so he’d be comfortable with me and wouldn’t judge me or label me as a ‘career woman’ or feel intimidated by me?

So on that count alone, he was different even before I met him. But even then, I can’t say I’d expected him to be any different from the other Really Nice Guys who made up my Tinder Family on my phone.

Waiting. I’m early. A little bit. In walks this guy. He’s right on time.   Good for him because I have another Tinder date with contestant number 11 after this. Chop chop petal.

Same face as on Tinder. Salt and pepper hair. Nice smile. Sweet smile. Gosh, such a sweet smile. Handsome. Tall. Taller than I’d expected. I’m 5’10”. He’s at least 3 inches taller than me. I like tall. Not swooning on the inside at all. Oh alright then, yes, I am completely swooning like a crushy schoolgirl on the inside already, OK? Keeping my composure quite nicely though I think. I do a great poker face, fine-tuned after years at negotiating tables the world over. He’d never guess. Nobody is swooning here today, honest. I’m cool. I’m good. All good. Aaall good.

I get up, we trade social kisses on the cheek in greeting, he asks me what I’d like to drink. Long black please. Evidently a woman drinking long blacks is unusual. He drinks them too. We discover that we both hate mornings and have surprised ourselves being out this early on a weekend. We agree that weekend mornings are for sloth. That is all. He’s so relaxed. So easy to talk to. And he seems to be easily matching my smart-mouthed cheekiness. No mean feat. It’s so nice to meet someone who’s chilled and not the least bit anxious on a date.

Within the first hour, we discover that we have some surprisingly unusual things in common, in our respective backgrounds and upbringings. Not superficial things – quite significant things. Things that not everyone has in their ‘life logbook’ of experiences.

So I’m sitting across a table from this man who for all intents and purposes looks like just another coffee-drinking brunch-doing comfortable-living good-looking city-fringe urbanite. In fact, to the untrained eye, we both probably look like a couple of coffee-drinking brunch-doing comfortable-living good-looking city-fringe urbanites. To anyone who might just judge by appearances.

But it’s clear there is much more to this man than meets the eye.   There is an openness about him that is disarming and engaging in the most beautifully guileless way. He shared, and he made it safe for me to share. No one has ever done that before. We’ve just exchanged war stories on something that is not superficial. Our common backgrounds were not benign – they were challenging and potentially extremely harmful.

And, without saying it, we know. Those things could have destroyed us but we didn’t let them. We’ve both had to fight hard to push past those things to the point where we are able to be café-lolling on a sunny Sunday morning as a couple of pretty convincing coffee-drinking brunch-doing comfortable-living good-looking city-fringe urbanites.

But we can both see it. That there is much more to the person across the table than that.

Click. Connect.

Oh, my. What just happened?

I have totally forgotten about contestant number 11. Contestant number 11 who?

This guy just got a whole lot more interesting.

Well, this was going to be a different Tinder date…

How Glo Got Her Groove Back V – it’s like riding a bike, this kissing lark

So, I’ve been getting quite a bit of feedback about this whole How Glo Got Her Groove Back series…and it’s been completely, 100%, positive and encouraging. No detractors, no critics – well none that are saying so anyway.  Perhaps they’ve all gone away and stopped reading!

So, thank you, guys and girls! Your encouragement means a great deal to me. It’s enough for a girl to keep her writing dream alive. Having said that, it has been a while since my last post. I have no further comment at this time…except to say that I will write about different things when it feels like the right time 🙂

Suffice it to say, the learning did not end with the breaking of the nigh-on-unbelievable – even to me, and I lived it (!) – 23-year kissing drought. Actually, the learning still continues to this day. But more on that later.

So – the guy who broke my kissing drought. Let’s call him Kissing Drought Killer (KDK for short). Umm, yeah, nah, he wasn’t A Thing. Actually, at the time he kissed me we had already agreed that we would not be A Thing. So it was literally just a kiss. OK, maybe a few kisses. Just to make sure that kissing drought got the Kicking it deserved, you understand. I mean, you can’t blame a girl for being curious after more than 2 decades of no one coming near her lips like that!

But KDK must have decided maybe we could be A Thing, because he seemed much more ‘engaging’ post-kiss(es) than pre-kiss(es) – messaging me, telling me I was amazing, asking when he was going to see me again etc.

But he had previously told me he was only interested in a casual shagging arrangement.   Which was and still is totally not my thing. It sounds crazy to most people I know, but I am in all honesty, saving myself for my Future Husband (Future Husband, you’re welcome, you lucky, lucky, lucky sod).  KDK knew that, but maybe he didn’t believe someone like me actually existed for real in 2014. Who would?  But I do. Yep. I totally – unabashedly, unapologetically, unashamedly – do.

Goodness me Future Husband, I hope you’re worth all the ridicule and incredulity I regularly face for my wildly old-fashioned view that you are the only man who I want to Have Me. And, oh my, are you going to Have Me.  Just saying 🙂

So anyway, meanwhile KDK was starting to be a little tiresome with his repetitive yet erroneous insistence that I was really just That Kind Of Girl, and that he just needed to ‘bring it out in me’.  So, applying the all the good stuff I’d learned so far, I decided to set a boundary. Not a wall, but a boundary. I’ve learned there is a difference, and that is pretty damn cool. That there is a difference, I mean.

I told him that I would be happy to be friends, but if he wouldn’t respect that (i.e. if he would try and get all kissy and the rest etc), then I wouldn’t see him again. To his credit, he said that he would try to push my boundaries and I should just accept that. Big ups to him for honesty. But um, actually, no, I don’t have to accept that. I can choose not to spend any more of my time with you. Goodbye. *smiling sweetly* *hairflick*

Gosh. This realization that I have rights, that I have a voice, that I have choices, that I can say no – it’s awesome!  Almost intoxicating.  But God be keeping His girl’s head level on this wee learning journey, thankfully.  Balance in all things…

And I still learned. I learned that a 23-year kissing drought is not long enough to make me forget how to do it. Yay!  Apparently it’s like riding a bike.  You never forget how to.  So ahaaa, there is hope for the old girl yet…

I also had learned how to detect – and politely, respectfully reject – advances from guys whose intentions were misguided at best and disingenuous at worst. They were everywhere on Tinder!

What I had not been expecting – this being Tinder after all – was to meet someone whose intentions were heartfelt and sincere.

But then again, I had been repeatedly told that I was not anything like the other girls on Tinder either. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Just goes to show…best we leave our pre-conceived ideas and expectations at the door…because then, anything can happen 🙂

How Glo Got Her Groove Back IV – Kicking that pesky dating drought into the middle of next week – so to speak *hairflick*

And so began the wee adventure that was my dating drought-breaking Tinder ‘dance card’.

For the first time since returning to New Zealand, I actually had something that looked a lot like a social calendar…even if it did consist mostly of guys who I was meeting for the first time!

Being such an old-fashioned girl, I never asked any guys out – but if they asked me to meet up I usually said yes, and it was always in a public place during the day. There were a couple of times when I declined, usually because I wasn’t getting a good vibe from someone’s communications…but I was always polite about it, and I didn’t cower to anyone trying to make me feel bad for saying no.

At first, turning down someone asking me out was quite stressful. It was really new to me, actually saying what I did and did not want. Actually saying no. I hated saying no, I hated the potential conflict that it could cause. Conflict was a major phobia for me, and often made me physically ill.

I also realised that for my entire life up to that time, I had subconsciously believed I had no rights in any of my relationships, even in my friendships. That I should be grateful for any time and attention that anyone, particularly any guy, was going to throw my way. So I’d better not mess it up by bringing my needs and wants to the table if they didn’t fit perfectly with the other person, or if I didn’t assume the role in a relationship that the other person thought I should.

By saying no when my instincts were telling me something was off, I learned that I deserve to be listened to, especially by myself. I learned that I do have rights. I have a voice. I have every right to say what is and is not good for me. By not doing this my whole life, I had effectively abandoned myself. I had treated myself as though who I was and what I wanted was irrelevant. I had shown myself the ultimate disrespect. I now know why I had felt so disrespected by men for so many years. How could they respect someone who had so little regard for herself?

So I began to honour my instincts and faced down my fear of disappointing or displeasing someone by just being me. No fear. No apology. Just me. Meeting new people and shooting the breeze about everything from obscure words (pulchritude, rambunctious, anyone?) to what the off-side rule really is and why should we care to worst dates ever to making a case for why teetering around in 5-inch heels all day and still smiling at end of it is a genuine indicator of a delightful nature and good character in a girl. And enjoying every minute of it.

Every date, every person I met, had something wonderful about him. Being laid back. Being cheeky. Being super bright. Being super sporty. Having a vocabulary that (almost) matched mine. Being a motorcycle nut. Being a go-getter. Having a sense of humour. Wanting to save the world. Being amazing, devoted fathers. So much about each of them that was awesome. I realised that when I relaxed about being myself, and forgot about myself, it made space for me to see the person across the table so much more clearly. And with no judgment, just respect. I met some really decent guys.

And something interesting started happening.

These guys kept asking me out again. And again. And again.

After a few weeks I had in my phone what I called my ‘Tinder family’. A sweet collection of lovely guys who were great company.

And that is just from talking to them, cracking jokes and hanging out and being a bit of a smarty pants, which apparently, I am when I’m comfortable and relaxed. No kissing, none of the physical stuff. It had been a long time for me on that front so I wasn’t kissing every boy I met or anything like that at all.

Until I found myself sitting across a table from one guy who, on a second date and after several hours of diverse, engaging, entertaining conversation, challenged me to break my 23-year kissing drought.

Ummm, yeah. Let me think about that for just a minute.

The girl be growing up. At the ripe old age of 43 🙂

How Glo Got Her Groove Back III – The Epic Festival of Eye-Openers

Oh, my. Talk about an eye-opening experience!

For the uninitiated, the way Tinder works is when you like someone’s profile you swipe right on their picture, and when you would rather pass, you swipe left. If you both ‘swipe right’ then you come up as matches for one another, and can start talking. And take it from there.

Apparently (and I say apparently because prior to Tinder I was pretty much an online dating virgin), this is much better than traditional online dating sites, where anybody can message you (or harass you, if the attention is unwanted!). At least on Tinder, the only people who can talk to you are the people whose profile you have liked.

Which means that you know you kind of like each other before you chat online.

But the whole swiping thing took a bit of adjustment. It seemed kind of shallow, to swipe left or right on someone based on photos and a brief profile. And I actually felt kind of bad about swiping left on a person. And a bit nervous about swiping right. I mean, these were people right, real people – not just some nameless anonymous photos.

One of my galpals said to take the nervousness out of it, treat it like a game of ‘Hot or Not’. Like just swipe one way or the other and don’t worry any further than that. If you swipe left, they won’t know so they’re not going to feel rejected or anything like that. If you swipe right, they won’t know unless they also swipe right so again, nobody gets an obvious thumbs down.

So off I went, within an hour of joining Tinder, swiping left and right with reckless abandon and without putting much thought into it.

And within a few hours a series of eye-openers ensued.

The first eye opener was how many men there are between 35-50 who are single. I had no idea! In New Zealand where I live now, there’s long been a much-publicised ‘man-drought’ (http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/love-sex/9598458/Man-drought-leaves-many-lacking-romance) but I have to say, erm, nope. Not on Tinder anyways!

The second eye opener was the response to my profile. Within an hour of playing ‘Tinder swipe’, I had no less than 20 matches. I was astounded – no, overwhelmed – at the rate that matches were coming through. I hadn’t been on the receiving end of that kind of male attention since before I became a Christian 22 years ago! I didn’t even realize that I’d swiped right on that many people…

The third eye opener (which shouldn’t really have been a surprise) is that there is definitely a dodgy, crazy element on Tinder. The younger guy immediately offering to be a toyboy. The married man being very up-front that he is looking for a lover. The American guy ‘passing through town’ and asking me where I am and suggesting we ‘meet up’. And later on, the obviously very troubled guy (who I never actually met) who stalked me and said so many inappropriate things that genuinely scared me, that my burly protective brother had to contact him and tell him in no uncertain terms to Leave My Sister Alone.

The other thing that I realized with each of these individuals, was that these men were often behaving the way they did out of past experiences (good and bad), conquests, baggage, hurts or loneliness. And often, it was clear that many of these men did not know any other way to approach, pursue or interact with a woman.

In the 35+ age group in particular, I realized that men often have years, or decades of patterns of behaviour in relating to women in a certain way – whether through relationships, dating or one night stands. And just because they meet someone ‘really different from other girls’ (more on that later), even if they wanted to change those patterns to win a different kind of girl, said patterns are almost impossible to change, especially later in life. As a Christian, I believe that the only way people can change patterns for the better, is through a God-breathed transformation of the heart.

It was a revelation to me to realize that being spoken to in a particular way by men, was not a reflection of me or my worth at all. It said more about where they were at than where I was at.

And I didn’t judge them for where they were at. We are all often a composite of our experiences and our responses to them – it takes a lot of hard work and conscious effort to be otherwise. I really understood this, and even when they sometimes freaked me out a bit with how forward (or, yes, creepy) they were, I always tried to let understanding rule my responses.

This idea that their approach to me was not an indicator of my worth or value – it sounds so obvious, and so many friends have said this to me over the years.

But finally, there in amongst being bombarded with everything from ‘hey baby, you’re gorgeous’ to ‘I must say you are hot’ to ‘would you like me to teach you how to <<name of sexual act here>>’ to ‘when do you want to get married’…it finally, finally clicked.

I don’t need to take on other people’s stuff and infer that I’m somehow less valuable because of the way they treat me or the damaging words they might try to speak over me.

I’ve spent my whole life doing that. Believing that the treatment I received from men – from anyone, in fact – was a direct function of my value, or lack thereof.   Believing that I didn’t deserve any better from men than to be spoken to like I was nothing more than a plaything, a fantasy. Not a real person.

But I am now learning that can’t control what other people think of me, good or bad. And it says nothing at all about who I am in God’s eyes and the insanely unconditional love that He – I now understand more than ever – has for me.

I’m not sure why it took me getting out of a church setting and into the jungle of lust that is Tinder, for me to really realize this.   For this to finally become something that I could internalize, that could take hold and anchor itself in my heart, and which could finally settle into me as truth. A healthy truth.

So anyway – the morning after I joined Tinder, I realized that I had to be very, very, very clear on my bio. So, for the removal of all doubt, I updated it to say ‘I’m not here for swipe-to-shag, so if that’s your thing please move along :-)’…note the smiley face!

The smiley face was important – because one thing I had resolved to do in all my interactions with people on Tinder, was as far as possible, to always be kind. So even if I had to say something ‘difficult’ I always tried to say it in a way that was not destructive to the other person, but was still clear and firm. I didn’t always get that right – I found this easier said than done at times!

The updated bio went some way towards mitigating The Crazy, but not entirely…I realized that many Americans don’t know what a ‘shag’ is!! And perhaps some of the non-Americans who still ‘tried it on’ just simply couldn’t read 🙂

Eventually though, matches on Tinder started to ‘stabilise’ as I learned how to filter and manage conversations in such a way that both parties were respected but everybody knew where they stood from the get-go.

And after a few – sometimes very entertaining – conversations (there are some really good value guys out there, I have to say), the dates started happening.

And that’s when the Tinder learning curve really ramped up!

How Glo Got Her Groove Back II – what’s a nice person like you doing on an app like THAT?!

So yeah, Tinder.

How did a nice girl like me find herself on an app like that? Erm, long’ish story.

But one where I learned that sometimes in life we need to let go of our little judgey-pantsy prejudices and preconceived ideas and open our narrow squished-up wee minds.

So in addition to my passion being to help young women realize how precious and valuable they are, one of my other self-appointed missions in life (perhaps presumptuously) is to help young men become the Real Men they were born to be. Whatever that may be for them.   Especially in the area of relationships and how they perceive, treat and relate to women. Funny that!

I guess, when I see young men who are really nice guys – who I can see would make amazing husbands or partners and fathers one day – I just can’t help myself. I just have to encourage them (I do try not to be pushy!) to envision a life for themselves beyond the short-sell that popular culture is constantly trying to pitch to them.

It’s easy when you’ve got the Big Sister thing going on. Younger guys (for me, those in their 20’s and early 30’s) don’t see me as potential relationship material and vice versa. So there’s not really any of That Complicated Stuff in the mix. And I genuinely love the energy, the enthusiasm and the passion with which many of the young men I know just go at life – with the world at their feet and their lives ahead of them. It’s awesome!

So anyway. I was working recently with one such young man. A really nice guy, but insisting that he didn’t want or need to get involved with a girl, he didn’t want to be in a committed relationship. Totally his call, and his prerogative. But I had a feeling that, if he met the right girl, all that would change for him.

So I just started, you know, hinting that it would be nice for him to meet a nice girl. That it would be such a pity if he missed out on meeting the right girl if he were otherwise occupied with Not Looking Out For Her. I did it in a nice way, in a non-judgey way (!), but in a way that I hoped would help him to see the life he could have, with the right girl.

He would smile and say ‘nah’ or give some other reasons why he wasn’t ready for a relationship at the moment, so I thought his mind was made up. So, end of Gentle Encouragement Process 🙂

What I didn’t realize, was that what I’d been saying to him had actually gotten him thinking. And without saying anything to me, he decided to go and do something about it. He joined Tinder.

So a couple of months after I ended the Gentle Encouragement Process, he told me that he’d met a really nice girl on Tinder. I was, to say the least, excited out of my mind! She sounded lovely and I begged to meet her. Talk about a Fairy Godmother complex 🙂

But wait, what? Tinder?! You mean, Swipe-To-Shag?

I screwed my nose up at the mention of Tinder. Dude, like, what?! Seriously?! Tinder is where people hook up! Ewwww…

And now it was time for this young man to return the favour and teach me a thing or two. His words seared my uptight little conscience.

“Well, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”.

Part of wanting to dole out sage words of wisdom (haha) is that you gotta be able to take them as well. And I knew, at that moment, this time, I was the one who had to do the taking on board, and the thinking.

A couple of days later, a galpal of mine messaged me asking about a Facebook friend of mine who she’d started talking to on Tinder. Again, I was like, what? You – sweet Christian galpal of mine – are on Tinder?! It kind of blew my mind. Again, it got me thinking.

A couple of days after that, in church one Sunday night I asked another galpal what she thought of Tinder. Turns out she had been on it. She hadn’t met up with anyone, but she had chatted with people. Again, another really nice person on Tinder. She said it wasn’t too bad. Maybe it wasn’t the Swipe-To-Shag it was made out to be.

So third time’s a charm. She talked about it a bit more, and I thought, what the heck. So, sitting in church on a Sunday night (yes, I know, I know – don’t judge) I downloaded the Tinder app onto my phone.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

I was not even remotely ready for what happened next.

How Glo Got Her Groove Back – fear versus desire and rampant drought-breaking

So it’s been an interesting few months…yeah, ummm…I’ve broken a few ‘droughts’ – the dating drought, the online dating drought, the letting-guys-pursue-me drought, the kissing drought, the being-in-a-relationship drought.

It’s been good, bad, fun, hilarious, educational, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes guilt-inducing.  It’s challenged me in so many ways, it’s forced me to evaluate a whole bunch of stuff about how I see the world and how I live my life.  And it’s been a huge personal growth phase.  Quite the ride.  And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

And now that I’m on holiday for a few weeks, I’ve got some time and space to review the experience.  So will probably make a few posts about How Glo Got Her Groove Back – and maybe some other long-term singleton girls might find a wee bit in there that resonates – even if parts of my history are, to put it mildly, unique 🙂

So, anyway.  We begin.  About 3 or 4 months ago, I decided that 23 years was quite long enough to go without being in any kind of real relationship with any guy, or being kissed, or having any man come near me for anything more than a sister-hug.

In those 23 years, some people had been conceived, born, raised, educated, maybe married and conceived children themselves…that is a pretty freaky thought to say the least.  Almost unbelievable.   To the point where pretty much anyone who met me, didn’t believe me if I answered their probing questions about my lack of a man in my life.  Apparently, I seemed so ‘normal’!

For years and years and years (and years), part of me was out in the big wide world slaying commercial dragons and striding 5-inch heels into boardrooms from New York to Tokyo, and another part of me was in hiding.   Lots of reasons why.  None of them unique.  Most of them pretty standard as the human condition goes.

What was a little extreme, however, was my response to those reasons.  I basically went into Relationship Lock Down for more than 2 decades.  I guess I was, ummm, a little less resilient than others have might been.

It was really easy too, as a Christian girl, to hide behind this ideal of waiting and praying for my husband to come along and ‘sweep me off my feet’.  To use that to keep everyone out and away from me.   To give off an unmistakably unapproachable vibe (through thinly veiled politeness) to any guy silly, brave or arrogant enough to consider coming anywhere near me in that way.   I was ‘waiting for God’s man’.  All of ‘this’ *waves hand from head to toe* was my future husband’s property, thank you very much.

I didn’t want to waste time and emotional energy on a relationship with any guy unless I knew it would for sure go somewhere.  Well that’s what I told myself and everyone else around me.  I didn’t want any guy even holding hands with me unless I knew he was serious about me.  Like really serious.  Like, marriage serious.

Which of course, I now know, is completely unrealistic!

I realized that whilst this idea of ‘saving myself completely for my husband’ for more than 20 years was apparently an inspiration to those around me, especially to other Christian women who were also single…actually, I owed it to myself and to them to take a good hard look at what that was really all about.  And what I had to finally admit to myself was that my primary driver for that decision, was actually fear.

Fear of relationship. Fear of trusting another person with my heart.  Fear of getting hurt.

And as with any significant change, it often comes when our desire for change overcomes our fear of change.  And finally, at the age of 43, my desire had outstripped my fear.

But in order to get anywhere near being even remotely ready to be in a relationship, I had to firstly talk to guys. Not in an I-am-running-this-meeting way, or in an I-am-schmoozing-you-at-this-business-breakfast way or in an I-am-your-big-sister-Glo way.  In the other way.  The being real and open and (perish the thought) vulnerable way.

A scary thought, after more than 2 decades of hiding. But I knew things couldn’t stay as they were.

So, baby steps.  I clearly needed a little help to get the whole Talking To Guys In That Way thing started.

And so began the Tinder experiment.  Yes, you heard me right.  Tinder.