The Tug

By Barbara Smith

Dating? Over 50? Come on...you want to feel it again, right? That tug? Gulp! You were pulled in this direction and now you’re here...almost ready to start your next adventure! Read this description, peek inside. How was that? Not bad, huh? Now, turn the page and repeat.
Barbara Smith’s story isn’t unique...she isn’t a celebrity, she’s attractive but not necessarily pretty and fully appreciates the thrill of anticipation. All the unforeseen possibilities hinge on just showing up. The glow, the wonder and the unexpected delight, will be worth the price of admission.
It is, after all, simply a cup of coffee – not a marriage proposal. It is a meeting, not a date and, as Barbara cautions in her profile, “If we enjoy one another, there’ll be plenty of time to pamper me the next time we meet”. Now, it’s just an interlude in the day. So, order that decaf vanilla latte, glance up expectedly, and say “Hello, I’m pleased to meet you”.
As Barbara’s tales unfold, you’ll laugh, ponder, learn and imagine what your story might hold. Her hilarious, heartwarming journey will allow you to, perhaps again, believe in love, laugher, the value of honesty and of being available for another person seeking the comfort of companionship. It is simply the desire to share – your story, your time and your heart.
So for now, as you read this book, forget that latte and pour yourself a big glass of wine, cozy up on the couch, and begin reading about Barbara’s incredible, humorous, joyous and unexpected adventures. She encourages everyone to take this chance on finding love...just open the virtual cover and turn the first page of your book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Smith
• Release date: Mar 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370695942

Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith has always enjoyed observing people. Ever since she was young, she has been fascinated by their small moments, habits, and triumphs. When a new mall opened in her town, she and her father enjoyed people-watching instead of shopping. She seldom meets a stranger. It was only natural that when Barbara entered the world of online dating, she would view it as an extension of this curiosity. She found those she met online unique and fascinating, and she wants to share her hilarious, heartwarming journey with readers. Barbara’s belief in love, friendship, and happiness is infectious. Readers will find themselves encouraged and more hopeful as they read her romantic advice. In addition to recounting her own adventures, Barbara gives readers tips on having fun and keeping safe in the world of digital dating. From creating that first profile to gracefully ducking out of a dull date, Barbara shows you how to always remain true to yourself. She wants everyone to take that first chance on true love. It may be only a click away. Pour a big glass of wine, cozy up on the coach, and begin reading about Barbara’s incredible lust for life.

Book preview

the tug

…you gotta feel it

Barbara Smith

Copyright © 2016 Barbara Smith

All rights reserved.

Distributed by Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 1534680934

ISBN 13: 9781534680937

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016912168

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

To Jeff…

who has always been my best audience and continues to support me in life and in love

Preface

As I recall, I never consciously decided to write a book. I did decide, after my second divorce, to see what was available in this frontier of online dating. As I was perusing the matches, I stumbled across a picture of a physician I knew hiding behind sunglasses but undeniably there - looking for love. I found humor in the fact that he was a very successful, good looking man in a profession dealing primarily with women … plastic surgery. Seriously? Even he couldn’t find someone to allow a contented sigh? I smiled, then laughed out loud, and just had to let him know I had discovered his presence.

I found that in order to do that, I needed to join - ah, well, how long could that possibly take? As it turns out, a little time, a little writing, and a lot of soul searching. Did I want to put myself out there, as he had, trying to swim gracefully in a fishbowl of strangers? Would anyone be interested in me and my simple but comfortable life? Did I really want to jot him a note? Hey, all I wanted to do was say Hi! I could do that, after all, in our professional lives which crossed frequently.

The answers to these questions was yes and so with another sip of wine, I signed up to enjoy the company of strangers online.

After a year or so, I found the experiences entertained my friends and the retelling of my adventures brought tearful laugher and personal insight even after the least enjoyable meetings. I decided to save some notes, fine tune the criteria, value my time and continue to enjoy each opportunity these moments allowed.

This collection has evolved over years of dating strangers that became friends. The old saying about people entering your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime, stands true. These strangers supported me through challenges, bliss, and heartbreak, shed insight into their beliefs and allowed me to listen to their life stories. The pleasure was mine.

I hope this book will allow you to be open … to possibilities and the kindness of strangers. They became my friends, my shoulders, my lovers and my keys to finding love - finally and forever.

Acknowledgments

To all my girlfriends…

boyfriends…

paramours…

and suitors…

who laughed and encouraged me to continue the process.

With special thanks to Lee and Mike Perry, who said, after finishing a Tasmanian pinot noir,

Go forward…and so I did!

What Do You Want?

He said, I think what I want right now is to write now and then, talk now and then, eat now and then, and make love/have sex/fuck now and then—not necessarily in that order. I probably also want you to be wonderful, understanding, sexy, available, not too demanding, and, me, to be whatever I want whenever I want. That sounds close. Maybe not attainable, but close to the truth.

She said, Should I even attempt to tell you what I want with you? It changes with my whimsy. Today, I want the security of someone's arms around me. I would love to be a bit selfish just now. I want you when I want you, and I want you to read my emotions…I want to be a woman, and I, above all else, want you to be a man in every sense of the word. I want to remain separate enough to laugh at our differences and remark on the good fortune of knowing one another. I want to be old friends and new lovers…I think I want you to join me 'now and then' along the way. I want tearful laughter and discovered thrills. Just now, tonight, I'm unable to want much besides a little glance, a knowing touch, and maybe a shoulder to lean against as I fall asleep.

…and so the tug begins!

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

What Do You Want?

Introduction

Chapter 1: It Has To Be You

Chapter 2: Immaculate Reception

Chapter 3: Full Disclosure

Chapter 4: Amuse-Bouche

Chapter 5: Come Fly with Me

Chapter 6: Freewheelin’

Chapter 7: The Sea of Love

Chapter 8: We Are Not Alone

Chapter 9: Clicks, Ticks, and Other Things I Missed

Chapter 10: The Roads Less Traveled

Chapter 11: Holiday Havoc

Chapter 12: You Can Go Home Again

Chapter 13: Imagine

About the Author

Introduction

As I write this, I have just finished sipping a DuMol Russian River chardonnay, which accompanied my poached salmon and sautéed spinach. I am just home from a day at the beach and dangerously tanned. I'm clothed in a T-shirt emblazoned with an arrow pointing directly at a red heart, identified in print as heart, with low-slung khaki shorts and French-tipped manicured toenails complementing my bare feet…all in all, a pretty good package. Although over fifty, I find a delightful and peaceful freedom in my age. I am content, although I question my being drawn to a T-shirt that so overtly points out my heart! Ah, well, still, I am comfortable in my sun-blushed skin!

Watching 60 Minutes this Sunday night, waiting for the phone to ring, I decide it is clearly time to evaluate and perhaps (just perhaps) disengage myself from this web with which I've chosen to associate myself. As I begin to write, I realize one cannot date (at times three or four nights a week), maintain a full-time job, and write the great American novel (well, OK, novelette)!

I'm sitting in a small room at the end of my kitchen on a velvet leopard-print split couch with mocha walls and appropriate art lighting. John Lennon's words to Imagine are laser-carved into stainless steel, and a Robert Weil Sausalito beach scene brings New Yorker characters into my kitchen. Diana Krall was paused to allow TV to distract me as others bemoan the fact that gasoline prices remain volatile and somehow our government is to blame! Vampires are being replaced by reality TV and I question, Whose reality? My life more closely resembles The Big Bang Theory than the Housewives of Anywhere, USA. Internet dating is a far better escape. This is reality at its finest.

I should tell you, as my profile tells the World Wide Web, I lead a very comfortable lifestyle. I do not have children. I own my own home. I am without debt, and I feel I am emotionally and psychologically grounded. I thoroughly enjoy entertaining with creative cuisine, and the menus, chosen with careful thought, are plated with whimsy but also precision. A wide variety of music complements cleaning, meals, and gardening. The maple floors in my home allow dancing during and after dining, and all the lights are on dimmers. The garage is filled with tools that I can and do use, and the 5-Series BMW it houses was paid for with cash. The garden, at the end of my living room, serves as an additional piece of original art, and the lit fountain provides a soothing score for after-dinner coffee.

I'm only interested in someone who will enhance this life I live—Ah, therein lies the rub! Is it possible to find this prince? Am I really as content as I claim to be? My license plate reads MPAMPRD, and I am! I believe it's not so much what you may earn in income, but the amount you are able to keep. I manage to provide for myself in a comfortable manner. I live a life that, in the opinion of most, is enviable. Why then take on another's profile? Well, the allure of the tug is exciting, and as you embark on this journey, the thrill of the unknown, the untold adventures and the anticipation of hope, I believe, is worth the ride!

You will find travel becomes not so much a hassle as an anticipated thrill. When I completed my first marathon, I realized that finding thrills—really discovering exhilaration—is a unique experience at any age but certainly over forty, fifty, and sixty! If you don't have children, you will delight in their antics, which you'll be able to watch for a brief period of time without a lifetime of responsibility. If you have a palate that yearns to be taught, there are chefs just waiting to feed you. If you are willing and available, you will give yourself permission to embrace photography, adventure, art, exercise, and, yes, sexuality. If you want to live…be vulnerable and understand it is, indeed, all about the journey. After all, the destination has already been determined!

Before we get to my profile, let me mention that a couple of years ago, I was counseled, with regards to this writing, by respected (and published friends) to "fictionalize the heroine, punch it up, elaborate and exaggerate the tale. No one would be interested in the adventures of Barbara Smith. You aren't, after all, JLo. You don't spell your name like Barbra Streisand, and you've certainly never been on the cover of Sports Illustrated (sport or swimsuit issues)! Who cares?"

Granted, my dear readers, you've never heard of me—and that's the point. We all live our journey, and we all have a story to tell. This is mine! It is thrilling in its truth. The stories really happened. The realizations came as I took the next steps. I find everyone's story interesting, and that is the beauty of Internet dating. You are simply meeting new friends and with each cup of coffee, glass of wine, or elegant meal, you will learn more than you knew before meeting. Isn't that nice? I recall someone saying, Success is largely showing up. And if you do, you will be pleased. Yes, I promise.

Stop reading this and consider for a moment how many of our friends live the same life each day. Well, I chose not to, and it is evident in my smile and verified by those around me who have lived (vicariously) through those dates and heard the stories as they happened.

As you and I wander and search for that tug, trust me, you will feel it. You will be drawn like a magnet toward the attraction of steel. Allow yourself to appreciate the thrill of the tug; be honest when it ceases to be there, and be kind to others who experience the loss of it. It isn't always reciprocated…ah, but it is there, as my mother used to say, when you least expect it. It is intangible, it is miraculous, it is unexpected, but once you feel it, there is no denying you want it. And you know what? You do deserve it. Do not accept less. After all, this is your journey, and until I come back to share the excitement of my next…this is it.

So, you don't know me, but I am you. I am a grain of sand that has value, and between these covers are some of the people who taught me what my parents always knew: our journey is special, the lessons are for our understanding, and life is for the living.

Join me. Live it. Feel the tug.

Chapter 1

It Has To Be You

There must be a beginning to every story. In the world of Internet dating, you must tell a story about yourself—your lifestyle, your attributes, your hopes and desires. It is typically called a profile—not in the Criminal Minds kind of way, methodically gathering clues in order to eliminate behaviors that would not be consistent with the suspect, but in a technological kind of way to eliminate inappropriate suitors.

You should try to be everything your parents taught you to be—and not to be. You must be honest, in my opinion, above all else. Certainly, post attractive photographs of yourself, but be reasonable with your choices. If you have a Botero sort of roundness, don't be shy with showing it off. I use the terminology owning it often. If you aren't happy with who you are, change that—diet, exercise, color your hair, change your clothes, get your teeth bleached. It is you! If you are happy, show it and be proud. Be confident in who you are and all that you bring to the table. When you meet someone, you should both be aware of the honesty you've put forth in your biographical image. Likewise, if you reveal your boudoir photograph, don't be surprised if he expects to see your boudoir. As an aside, the boudoir was by definition a sulking place and that, dear heart, is the last thing you want going on in there! Show your attributes, your sparkle, your athleticism, your interest, and, of course, your smile.

Speaking of which, it might be helpful to mention that, typically, people enjoy being with people who are happy. They also run from those who are not. In this economy-driven climate, it is easy to get caught up in the troubles of our day—the bills that may be due, the political angst of an election year, the stresses of our profession, and the woes of being unable to meet someone who will distract us from all of the above. You have this moment with someone who may be interested in sharing his or her life and life story with you. Enjoy it.

If, in an initial phone conversation, you're not feeling enlivened or happy because of the chat, it is OK to say, I'm sorry…I'm not feeling the tug. It is always OK to be honest. It will be difficult, initially, because we don't want to bruise someone's ego, but it is kind. At a cocktail party, if we become entangled with someone who is b-o-r-i-n-g, we simply say, Excuse me. I have to _____ and we leave! Feel free to do the same thing on the phone. You will find it is even easier because, after all, you aren't face to face. You simply open your front door, push the bell, and say, Oh, I'm so sorry. One of my neighbors is at the door. See how easy? Or, if you are like me, after a zillion conversations, I say, I just don't think there are enough commonalities for us to meet. I usually save the tug line for after I've met and am not feeling the tug.

I digress…back to the profile. So, you've shown you're happy, and you are smiling and available. Now, be honest with your lifestyle, the ways you choose to spend your time. If you are somewhat athletic, mention doing something together that might ease the awkwardness of meeting—take a walk or a bike ride. If you enjoy art, meet at a museum and have your cup of coffee there. If you enjoy golf, perhaps go to the driving range. If you allow the choice of venues to help define your personality, you will allow the other person (and you in return) to evaluate the entirety of the person with whom he or she hopes to begin a relationship. In all probability, if you only care enough to drink a glass of wine with the person, there may not be enough glue to move forward. However, alcohol does allow us to relax through what may be an uncomfortable chat.

Speaking of alcohol, I do enjoy wine, cocktails, and creative pseudo-martinis. Having said that, if I meet someone and know immediately I'm not attracted to him, I don't drink. What I've noticed is that even though it makes him seem more entertaining for the thirty-minute meeting, I act all girlie, flirty, and giggly, sending the wrong message to him. My body language changes, and if I watched a hidden-camera rendition of the meeting, I'd be mortified. Did I actually flip my hair? Did I nonchalantly place my hand on his arm at the bar? Are you kidding? I laughed at that comment? Seriously? The awkward parting is strained, and inevitably, I'm left writing the I just didn't feel the tug… note. Honesty and kindness are my mantras in this adventure, and alcohol does take away some of the honesty of, at least in my case, my more genuine behavior. If the first date is filled with alcohol and expensive cuisine, the second more insightful date of bike riding will delineate the truth. Yikes…and the truth will set you free. In this case, you'll be free to read the next profile.

There are many people who state in their profile that they do not drink. Some are recovering alcoholics, and some just prefer not to drink. I have toyed with the notion of not drinking but do enjoy it. I keep chilled martini glasses and pilsners in my freezer, mix interesting and playful martinis with girlfriends, keep both red and white wine refrigerators stocked, and appreciate the complement of my dining with them. I think I would prefer to be with someone of a similar palate. Although it seldom bothers me if people don't drink, I feel peculiar ordering a second glass of wine, suggesting time before dinner for hors d'oeuvres and a cocktail, or taking a bottle of wine to a restaurant to share with the waiter when it is only half enjoyed with the meal. There are plenty of times when alcohol isn't a factor, but for each of us, we must evaluate the times and their importance when it is. My former husband, who seldom drank, would take a sip of wine, make a face, and immediately announce, I can already feel that! Needless to say, in that situation, I'd rather sit across from someone who might appreciate the subtle apricot nuance of the Viognier, accompanying the mussels. If you don't, fine, but please don't make a face.

Age is a huge factor in these self-written profiles. There are search engines and brackets, determined by the websites, that allow you to delineate the perfect age range for your prowling. I have always stated my accurate age in my profile. I just think if someone is intended to find me, he will. I have found most people will tell a white lie about their age, weight, and images. Should you choose to do that, you will have to retract the tale, at some point, and hope it won't deter the person's interest. In the meantime, doing the math—on graduation, favorite songs, year of marriage—will be challenging. Lies always are!

The delineating decades (forty, fifty, sixty) seem to be huge psychological milestones, so many people will place their age at slightly under that in order to be included by a wider variety of searchees! Psssst, we all know people do that. I search for men fifty-eight to sixty-eight, figuring most will be sixty-two to seventy or so. Unfortunately, I am approached by people in their late seventies or early eighties because they suspect I must be in my late sixties. Ah, the games people play…but, innocently, they do. Some will deny their transgression in their written profile, absolving themselves of their sin. I've been with healthy men in their seventies and unhealthy men in their fifties—read between the lines of age perimeters and choose wisely. I'd take a balding seventy-year-old over a fat-bellied fifty-year-old any day! But maybe that's just me attentively listening to my medical alarm system!

Religion? Just like professions, this is a factor worthy of consideration. Many people place priority on their religious beliefs and cultural background. If you don't, own it…If you do, own it. The option on some websites of spiritual but not religious casts a wide net. Ask what that means. If the person was raised with traditional doctrines and dogma (Judaism or Catholicism), as I was, and hasn't questioned the wisdom of his or her spirituality as an adult, you may not be suited. If you find the person seems to be comforted by strict guidelines, has rules, and appreciates delineated plans, he or she will be counting those beans while you are experimenting with seasoning them.

In politics, the system offers middle of the road. Again, ask. If he or she doesn't have an opinion, why not? How can you be middle of the road? Either you are leaning toward conservatism or liberalism. I have no problem asking who people voted for in the last election and who