I last wrote about three really awful guys I dated.   debbieweissauthor.com/run-from-these-three-guys/  So, these next three aren’t as bad, but since I was still feeling rancorous, I mean, since I still had more experiences to impart, I thought I’d share. Besides, I’d like to be known as the bitchy widow with the bad judgment. I’m trying to get a book platform together.

The Self-Serving Advice Giver

One fellow, a politician involved in climate change, e-mailed me that because I‘d never been divorced, I wasn’t “broken like the rest of us.” He was urbane, in touch with current affairs, a bit chubby with graying hair and a wonderful professorial voice.

But once we started dating, he seemed to think that being a widow meant that I was a time traveler from a more innocent and idyllic time. Or maybe he just liked telling people he didn’t know very well what they should do with their lives.

He kept telling me I should pull up my roots and get an apartment in Paris adding, rather patronizingly, that I probably didn’t have an adventurous enough temperament to do so. I finally realized he wanted to travel to Paris (when his kids were with their mom on school break) and wanted a free place to crash. But I didn’t want to move someplace where I don’t know anyone. In terms of feeling isolated, being a widow is enough.

He suggested that based upon my sheltered past, thirty-two years with my late husband, on-line dating would damage me. It hasn’t. (It has probably embittered me). I came to realize his advice to me was in his own best interests: move to where he wanted to hang out, don’t date other guys. I, on the other hand, was too tactful to say that his parenting ideas sucked and he should relinquish his children to a pack of compassionate wolves.

I learned not to take dubious advice. But that was never really my problem in the first place.

The Really Cheap One

I was crazy about Max, a rangy guitarist with green eyes, spiky dark gray hair and high cheek bones. When we first got together, I was transported by the time we’d spend just lying around. So this was chemistry!

Then we started fighting about money. Max is a frugal anti-foodie. He wanted to split the cost of things equally so when we’d go out, I’d hear “isn’t it your turn?” But Max had picked the restaurant, and it was yucky. Plus, when I added things up, I wasn’t so sure they were turning out equally. He didn’t seem as frugal when he was on my dime.

Romantic weekends weren’t going to work. He didn’t want to pay to stay somewhere nice, and, honestly, I wasn’t up for picking up the slack to go to what he called “my kind of place.” We had a major blow up when he complained about paying for my glass of wine after he offered to take me to dinner after winning some money gambling.

I truly hate to say this, but I learned that attitudes about money are hard to change once you’re a bit older. Even if you have passion and get along well, having different ideas about discretionary spending can be deadly. Max’s values weren’t that bad, but I didn’t like feeling that I was only worth being treated cheaply. (We can chat about his gambling another time).

The Little Boy

For a few months, I dated a tai chi instructor. He was slender, well-muscled, truly sweet and oddly passive. He’d send me these charming notes, but rarely suggest that we see each other. I”d be the one to invite him to meet up in person.

When we did we’d usually watch movies at my house, stretching out together on my sofa, but it felt like we were children at nap time, Peter Pan and Wendy. I liked him very much, but didn’t see where it could go. He as so diffident and careful. And maybe a bit confused.

I offered to help him decorate his new apartment, but he ended things shortly after that,saying he had felt too much for me too quickly And that he thought I needed someone more like my late husband.

Once again, I learned to trust my instincts. He had seemed sort of withdrawn and childlike, actually fawn-like. I should have known there was no future. Damn, I have nothing snarky to say except that I hope he found happiness.

Ok, blogging is a lonely sport. Lately, I’m resorting to putting #Kardashian and #erectile disfunction in my tweets. Please offer any comments, questions or concerns below.