After 15 years of marriage my wife passed away unexpectedly.  My life was turned upside down that day.  I had no idea what I was going to do.  My wife and I had discussed this very thing.  We both thought she would be able to handle things much better if I died first, than I would if she died first.  As it turns out we were right.  When my wife died, I was suddenly on my own.

The first year-and-a-half things went pretty well.  I had all of my in-laws, my children, and people from church that I could visit and do things with. I didn’t think about falling in love again.  I just didn’t think anyone would want me.

Then the pandemic hit.  Once again, my world was turned upside down.  I could not visit with my children, friends from church, and my in-laws.  I was alone. At first things weren’t too bad.  But the isolation and the loneliness set in after a couple of months.  I began to think about dating and finding someone to love and that would love me.

Prior to the pandemic I was having lunch with a friend of mine.  I told her I thought I was ready to start meeting women and dating.  She said the way to meet people these days was online dating.  Online dating?  I wanted to meet women.  I wanted to have someone to do things with, like go to dinner, see a movie, or just hang out and listen to music.  You know, become friends, and see where it leads.  I had never done online dating before.  I didn’t know the first thing about it or how to go about.  So, I took my friend’s advice and signed up on a certain online dating site.  What a disaster!

I got so discouraged because none of these women would talk to me or respond to my messages or initiate conversation with me.  The only women that showed interest in me were from out-of-state.  I found out later, the hard way, that many of these out-of-state women were scammers.  I thought the women on this dating site were snobs!  Why wouldn’t they chat with me or even tell me to buzz-off?  Instead, I just got no response at all, of any kind.  So, when my subscription was up, I did not renew it.  I was offline for several months.

I don’t know how or why, but I decided to give it another shot.  It was still a disaster.  I changed my profile picture.  I changed my profile.  I updated all of my information.  I thought this might help.  No such luck!  Then I came across another dating site.  These women seemed more interested.  But, again, most of them were out of state.

I finally found a few women that would chat with me.  I’ve made a couple of virtual friends (if I can call it that).  We chat online mostly.  There is one woman that I talk to on the phone now.  We also send text messages to each other.  This is huge progress for me.

The biggest difficulty for me is to know how to go about doing all of this online stuff.  How does it work?  What do I say?  What do I do?  How often do I send them messages?  How often do I call them?  I can’t ask them out on a date because we’re all isolating ourselves due to the pandemic.  Nobody wants to risk catching this dreaded disease, including me!  I fall into the high risk category, so I have to be extra careful.

So, how do I find love during this pandemic?  It’s so completely different than when I was single 15 to 16 years ago.  I will have to go about this in such a different way, but how do I figure it out?  YouTube is no help.  The advice they give is for younger single people.  What they propose, at least in my opinion, falls into the category of “playing games.”  I don’t play games.  Love is a serious matter.  There’s no room for playing games in my book.  Besides, I’m no good at it.  I’m too straight forward and honest.  I’m not going to tell some woman what I think she wants to hear.  I’m going to tell her what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling.

I’m telling you right now!  Love in this era, during this pandemic, is tough!