Monthly Archives: July 2025

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Love Language

I’m not sure when these became all the rage… Maybe in the 2010s decade?

My ex-wife and I agreed that gifts are mostly dumb.

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately as I’m rounding the corner on 11-months with my girlfriend too. Also, they’re on the middle portion of most women’s dating profiles.

Hands down, I am a Physical Touch person. I think that it’s how I receive all input.

As a brief aside that’s what has been so troubling about my blowing out all the cartilage behind my left knee cap. I can’t move like I want to and it’s very depressing. It’s odd too because I don’t talk to my members of my bowling or kickball teams anymore. Just slightly related to that is that both of those sports involve alcohol, so that is probably what they’re doing socially when they’re not playing.

I love having my hand held. I love an arm around me. I love all things related to sexual intimacy.

Secondary to that is that I need and crave Quality Time. And mine is a tall order. The time spent shouldn’t be casual and should rather be involving interaction, cooperation or some manner of incredible conversation wherein I am learning.

I know that I’m best at Acts of Service. I just think that’s being a Virgo. I can see the holes, quickly analyze them, and then fulfill the need. And, I don’t want those to be reciprocated. When I’m helping someone, I just know that it’s the right thing.

I do not like gifts.

I also don’t like Words of Affirmation. In fact, when someone is way into that as a love language expression, I recoil. They feel like disingenuous bullshit. Or, especially in the case of when my son does them, I know that he wants something from me. It’s usually money.

I am NOT a one-off person. When I love, I love HARD. I don’t want to put that on my dating profile though because I agree with my friend who’s an author that you should walk into love.

Hahaha. Can you tell that in 6-weeks I have a birthday?

What’s your love language for receiving? Is yours different than what you have for giving? Do you think that these are important to discuss with romantic partners?

I took this picture on my 50th birthday in The Met

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Dating

I have been out on three dates since I have been on the app. I had plans for six, and two were not happening. One because the girl was a tease and maybe side hustling for money and the other because I wasn’t positive if I’d be back in town on time and also got a flat tire. She asked someone else.

The other one was cancelled by a woman who has had the best DM game that I’ve read since May and we had an easy and fun conversation on the phone before we made date plans. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t super disappointed in her cancellation. I won’t text her because she said the time wasn’t right and she is presently maxed out socially, but I’ll hope that she texts me someday in the future.

Dating kind of sucks.

I am having my fourth date today. And it’s with a woman whom I’ve gone out with one time before.

We talked on the phone in May before I left for Lake Michigan. And it was hard to hang up. She can really talk. I mean that. I thought that it was maybe because she was nervous. Well, our date was like that too and I told my therapist last week that she asked me one question, and the question was defensive.

People feel some kind of way when you work in mental health.

She asked, “Do you ever have the ability to turn it off given that you provide mental health?”

I talked about what I had suggested for her son when she was talking about him and she qualified the question. She was making sure that when I meet people I don’t look for pathology.

I told her that people who don’t see their role in lack of compatibility with previous partners have red flags for me. I think understanding attachment is important. I also think that it takes two to fight and have conflict. Now that I’m not having stress of cohabiting, I can see that I’m able to resolve conflicts. I don’t have enough skills or desire to fix problems when you have to see the significant day in and day out. I’m glad that I know that about myself now.

Those things didn’t scare her off.

However, she really didn’t stop talking. They were long stories too–albeit all interesting–and sometimes I didn’t have to use attending behaviors or anything. She just talks.

So, I called it out. At the end of our date I said, “I hope that you learn some things about me when we get together in two weeks.”

My GF turned bright red when I told her that over our dinner last Saturday.

I said, “That’s mean? I meant it. She LEGIT asked me one question, and I don’t want to date someone if she doesn’t want to get to know me.”

My girlfriend said that she would be profoundly embarrassed and ashamed if I said that to her.

I told her, “You ask me questions all of the time. The first time we texted, you asked me all kinds of questions. You’re interested in me.”

My therapist thought that was a good question to see if she knew that she had dominated the conversation.

Regardless, I’m curious today if she and I have chemistry. That’s such a difficult thing. You have it or you don’t. I’m going to go to the gym now and then get ready for my date. We shall see.

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Date

My current GF has a three-year-old. That means that this child is really her whole world. I hope that because she puts every ounce of herself into her child that will yield a securely attached person who can fit into the world.

That’s also meant that I make plans for all of our dates.

I’d like that to shift completely.

We went to an interesting talk on July 9th and out to dinner. I had fun. My GF paid for the babysitter and our dinners. The talk that we went to was related to her industry and she’d heard about it via someone she works with and a person she met at a work conference. I thanked her for the date plans and she laughed and said it wasn’t really a plan.

At the end of last year (12/31/24) she partially planned a date, and it included her best friend. She bought NYE concert tickets. I paid for parking, transportation, the babysitter and wound up tacking on dinner that night which I paid for as well. Her best friend showed up at the end of our dinner so we could transport together to the venue.

I think that last Saturday was the first full date that she planned and paid for over the course of our ten-month relationship.

She picked me up, we drove to another city, we took a stained glass class, we walked around an art fair and then had dinner together. She paid for the babysitter too.

We had a pretty tough conversation over dinner too. I feel like there were seeds planted that will continue to sprout going forward. However, the whole night yielded a net positive and we will likely have some more balanced experiences going forward. I really liked the date. I thanked her for it several times and it made me feel special.

Tonight we’re going to a theatrical rerelease of a film that I wasn’t able to see in the theater. It came out when I completed my undergraduate degree and was beginning my first round of graduate school. I’m not sure what time the babysitter will get to her, so I don’t know if we can get food before. My GF doesn’t do any carbohydrates for the most part and no sugar, so movie food isn’t an option. Worse case scenario is that we grab local burgers on the way home.

I’m a great date. I’m a great planner of dates too. I don’t take any time that I have with a beautiful woman for granted. I don’t believe in falling back on default responses or not engaging in meaningful experiences.

I hope that she knows that I want her to plan some dates for us.

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Psilocybin

I’ve been dosing psilocybin for 7-months. You can have the drug and use it in 7 states. It’s been being studied actively by the Food and Drug Administration since 2023.

I think that ever since the documentary about mushrooms became wildly popular, folks have been given pause regarding using it to change their brains. I’ve been taking non-psychoactive mushrooms since 2012. I was recommended a TED talk by an employee at a grocery store and wanted to strengthen my immune system overall.

I’ve not had an ounce of alcohol since 12/30/24. When I started micro dosing, I didn’t want anything to be interfering with my serotonin production. Thus, I quit drinking at the end of 2024. A couple of nights ago I was thinking about a glass of Red Zinfandel and my stomach felt like it was on fire. I don’t miss alcohol. I was definitely what you’d consider a consistent beer drinker prior to this year, and La Croix is a great substitute for it.

I suppose that I will occasionally drink again. I don’t want to right now. Maybe after February 1st 2026. I think that I’ll be an occasion-only person.

I smoked some pot for a few years. I had a horrific experience in a bathtub wherein I didn’t think that would my brain would ever rebound, so I’ve never touched it again. I know that despite the genetic modifications, it makes me beyond paranoid. I have no desire for it.

The same thing is true with cigarettes. My Mom had me take a drag off hers when I asked when I was 4 and I threw up on the floor, so I have never been a smoker.

I didn’t want to anxiously ruminate on things that happened at work or when the natural progression of friendships end. I started psilocybin.

I can tell you that I’m way less in my head than I’ve ever been. I can tell you that I don’t experience very much anxiety at all. I also have been able to grow with others having tough conversations wherein I need to be flexible and change.

I don’t know what generic psilocybin the FDA will approve. I don’t know what big pharma will package. I can tell you that each strain interacts with people differently, and I am reasonably confident the generic drug will be dilute, but will have some psychiatric benefit for most people. There are many different strains and geneticists study all species.

I think that I’ll have permanent lasting changes in my brain by the middle of next winter. I don’t see myself as needing to micro dose long term. I’ve been grateful for the impact that psilocybin has had in my life.

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Neighbors

I was walking home after a concert with the author last night and she asked me how my girlfriend and I are doing. I told her that we are doing well for the most part and that sometimes she gets emotional, which is unique for her, as she’s not particularly emotionally triggered by anything. She is a crier, and often has tears in her eyes, but is never angry and rarely irritated. We haven’t had a major disruption in the force because I’ve only kissed one woman who’s not even practical to date. However, things are brewing generally and we’ll see how it shifts.

The author and I were talking about this super young girl who was texting me pictures yesterday. I’ve been matched with her on the app since I got on the app. I’ve never met her.

She started that up about an hour before the author was to be at my house and I texted, “You’re a tease. If you want to go on a date at some point, let’s schedule.” I also told her later in the evening that I would block her if she doesn’t show on Friday.

Anyway, who knows what will happen with her on Friday? I mean it when I say that I’ll block her number. I’ll look at two pictures of her for awhile and then block her if she doesn’t show up. Purportedly, we’re having a negotiation conversation. That’s not anything that I’ve done before and the idea is appealing.

I was talking about this woman and a date that I had on Saturday and various other things when I heard, “Is that _____ ?” Oof. A neighbor. Listening to me talk about this young girl and my dating.

I also thought it was a different neighbor and introduced her to the author with the wrong name. After a bit, I realized that was the only thing that I was embarrassed about. I texted back and forth with her and she remarked about how funny the author is, and I sent her the author’s website. She basically said, “Good for you,” and wished me well. I only apologized for using the wrong name.

I guess that I don’t care who knows that I’m Solo Poly.

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Car

I had a really scary Chevette in 1991. My Dad was generally an intense and angry person and he didn’t want to work per se, but did. When he bought a newer car (new to him, as it was used) he gave me his Chevette, which he used previously for commuting to work and errands. There were holes in the floorboards which would shoot geysers up when torrential rain would gather on the streets. He hated driving and literally pushed holes into the bottom of his car.

Some asides about my Dad: I think that his preference would have been to live abroad (He did for many years, and his mother did some power play stuff to get him back to the states.) in a commune working collaboratively. He was also a Marxist and well-read and he believed in a specific philosophy of Marxism. He didn’t want to be married and certainly didn’t want to be a father. He did, however, give me his Chevette when I was 17 and my Mom wasn’t driving me to school any longer. I don’t have a car to give my son and because my brother is now gone, I can’t get help with navigating this experience with my son.

I have only used a Car Broker for cars that I’ve bought. There just doesn’t seem to be a quick turnaround with Brokers these days.

I’ve put a ton of parts into mine in the last three months. I’m going to drive it two more years and then I’m going to research and get something new. I don’t know that I am going electric. I had thought that they were more ecological because the batteries don’t need to be replaced, which isn’t true. I’ll spend some of the summer of 2027 researching cars before I get mine. I have only had 6 different cars across 50-years. I never drove my ex-husband’s cars and only drove the four that my ex-wife leased a handful of times across the nine-years that we were together. I don’t think that I’ll drive my son’s car either.

We test drove two cars yesterday and now I have to go back to the lot by 2:00 or so. I’ve researched exactly what the car is worth. The nice thing about it is that the one that he prefers hasn’t been in any accidents. However, it did spend a few years in Minnesota, so I’m going to have my son take it to a mechanic who owns a muffler and radiator shop to look under it. If there is rust, we won’t keep it. We have 90-days to return it.

Now it’s time to pay closer to what the value for the car is actually, which is super unpleasant.

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Women

I had a nice date with Mountain Girl and the turn off was marijuana. I totally get that it’s legal, but it grosses me out. It’s too adjacent to smoking cigarettes. She also lives really far away and I don’t want to hustle. I got in her Volvo two Saturdays ago and it smelled like pot smoke. We had fun, and she clearly likes me. I just don’t think that this is the situation that I’m pursuing.

I had a cancellation for a walking date and changed it to a phone date with different woman. I know that it’s all intermittent reinforcement and am hoping that something will materialize in the next month.

  1. Travel partner
  2. Mostly sober
  3. Physical intimacy