I’ve been launched helter skelter into the dating world again. There’ve been some changes. Either that, or there were things before that I was simply unaware of. In either case, I’m stumbling around like an epileptic in a mine field and causing shit basically everywhere I go.

First of all, I haven’t really been paying attention to eligible men for quite some time, do to the fact that I was…I dunno…MARRIED and not looking. I had been living under the misconception that I was happily married and therefore had a nifty set of blinders on. So since my ex (we won’t name him) decided to become a douche guzzler (the french bastard) and start some freakish on line relationship with a married mother of five(We’ll refer to her as festering bitch) in Alabama (I’m not making this up, and we lived in Canada) I went thru what one could call a personal Armageddon. A full cycle of batshit crazy followed by the joy of councelling and medication. The resultant title of my (now permanent?) condition is bi-polar. Its nifty. But apparently I’ve retained my sense of humour, so that’s something.

About 3 months into my descent into bedlam a weird little woman I met thru friends ended up staying with me over the weekend as her plans had fallen thru. Well, we’d gone to karaoke. Harmless enough. And she’d said I should bring my camera. She needed some new profile pics. I assumed she was referring to facebook, I was wrong. We went, had a decent time, took some pics. I had uploaded the pics to my computer and left her to post at will, taking my sedated little butt to bed. Throughout my blissfully ignorant sleep, she’d gotten a wild hair up her ass and decided I needed to get out more. Her reasoning was sound. I wasn’t going out, was barely eating, and was basically on a thought cycle of “How did this happen???” however her radical idea was somewhat of a surprise to me. I woke up to her music. Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person? Cause I’m not. I’m more likely to shoot someone for waking me than to arise with a smile. And her music was country. She was pretty much hitting every nerve I had before I even opened my eyes. So as I stomped toward the offending noise and threw the door open I probably looked a lot like the medication wasnt working.

Well my gifted and brilliant new friend had been diligently working on throwing what was left of my life into complete chaos. She’d created a dating profile for me using the photos we’d taken the night before. When she confessed this, I almost laughed, thinking no one uses those things. 2 years later….I’ve deleted and recreated accounts multiple times. It’s the fast food menu of our time. You can order in. You can browse the menu. You can dine n dash…it’s a different world.

One of the most startling things I discovered, and discovered quickly, was that the term I’d thought of as insulting and seedy had had a change in definition. Cougar. In my world a cougar was some night skulking creature that stalked on the fringes of groups looking to pounce on a young man in a desperate state or situation. Nay, nay!! The cougar is apparently the experienced and no bullshit older woman that many fit and handsome young stallions seek out. When the FUCK did that happen???

At first I was shocked, then suspicious, but over time I just became…well..relieved! Cause while I’d had my fancy little monogamy blinders on most of the available men in my age range had become somewhat paunchy, they’d developed jowls and bags under their eyes and what I can only refer to as ‘fat head syndrome’. The rest of them seems to be in ok shape, but somehow they’d managed to gain 5-7 lbs strictly in their faces. Or they’d lost teeth. Or they’d become raging alcoholics. Or…they were married! So, sweet mary mother of jesus, thank you for making the cougar attractive.

At first the goal was just to get out more, in a platonic way. I was stymied by the fact that the site where she’d created my profile would allow you to say you were only looking for friends, but wouldn’t allow you to list “everyone” as a target group. It made you chose. Male or female. Well, with my somewhat crass humour I’d always had a lot of guy friends, and since I was still being harassed by ‘the festering bitch’ I had limited patience with females. So I opted with men. I naively thought that friends meant friends. When in fact it means friends with benefits to a large portion of the population.

Instance #1
I went to watch a movie with a dude. He was somewhat religious. I thought that meant I was relatively safe. He had aspirations to heal me by the laying on of hands. I was about as happy about that as a badger with hemorrhoids. He then took exception to the fact that I was wearing a star ring. It wasn’t actually a pentagram, but the only reason it wasn’t was that I couldn’t FIND one. So he started preaching. Now..see…I’d been relatively calm for a few months at this point. Coulda been the councelling. Coulda been the meds. Either way I was quite enjoying my neutral state. And then he had to start that. I could actually, physically FEEL my blood pressure rise. He was all “You people are all lost, empty inside”. My brains thinking things like “Is that what you were trying to do? Make sure I wasn’t empty?” But my mouth remained shut for a total of 2 minutes. And THEN he pulled out the book. Yes. THE BOOK. Leather bound, with about 300 little coloured sticky notes poking out from all sides. (By the way, if someone has their bible bookmarked in a zillion places, you probably don’t want to know them.) And started pushing it at me. I laughed. A wise man might’ve heeded the slightly maniacal tittering sound to it, but Dopey there wasn’t too smart. He tried to challenge me.
“Ask a question, and open the book. I gaurantee you’ll find the answer to your question there.”
Ok, Jim Jones….My response? “Holy FUCK. They really modified the magic 8-ball!”
He took great exception to that. And started to tell me that my ring signified that I worship…At this point my words came back. All of em.
“Dont say the Devil, idiot. Cause the Devil doesnt exist.”
He looked like a 4 year old being told that the tooth fairy wasn’t real.
“It’s not the devil. It’s YOU. You get horny and try to get your dick wet. YOU get greedy and try to lowball someone for their goods on kijiji, and take advantage of their hardship. YOU get envious of other peoples lives, wives and status. The devil’s just the scapegoat for your own greed and desires.”
Well…..
Dopey was stumped for second. His response was “Then why are you afraid to touch my bible?” Sheer brilliance.
“Oh you ass…I’m not afraid to touch the book, I’m afraid I’m going to beat you to death with it, and you weren’t even a real date!” With that I stalked out, not even putting my shoes on. I drove home barefoot. It was still winter.




There are so many stories and musings to be shared. Stay tuned for the next tirade.
The Cougar Confessor.
Jacklin Hyde