The other day I sent my daughter a text message to let her know I chose her to be the custodian of my Facebook account in case something happens to me.  Her reply was “Is that even a thing?”  I’ve been hearing this phrase for a while now.  I laugh when someone says it.  I’m wondering if, being 61, a widower, and single is a “thing.”  I guess it probably is.

Recently, I have been working on embracing my singleness.  It wasn’t my choice to become single again.  I would much rather still be married to my wife.  Since that isn’t happening, I have no choice but to do my best to live my life happily without a spouse.  The blogs I have been posting are about what it’s like to be single after 15 years of marriage.  It’s tough!  Adjusting to single life is no walk in the park.

I have already talked about the online dating scene.  What a farce!  I have also been looking for “Dating Advice for Men over 60.”  This has been a real challenge!  Most of the advice they provide is for women.  Here are some words of advice they are giving these women: “What do Single Men Over 60 Really Want,” “Dating Over 60 – 3 Tips to Give You Confidence,” and “5 Questions to Never Ask a Man When Dating over 50.”  I even watched a video about how a woman should flirt with a man.  I thought dating advice for men was complicated.  But this is overwhelmingly complicated.  Apparently, many women think “older men” want a younger woman.  What!?  I have no idea why a man would want to date a younger woman (I’m thinking he’s 50 and she’s 27).  What in the world would they have in common?  For example, music is especially important to me.  I would like to meet a woman that is close to my age and is at least familiar with my kind of music, which happens to be “Classic Rock,” rock and roll from the 60’s and 70’s.  I guess you could include some music from the early 80’s if you wanted to.  Yes, Classic Rock is a thing.  Movies are also important to me.  I would like to meet a woman who knows what “Wayne’s World” is.  I don’t think that’s asking too much.  It’s not like I’m asking them to understand all of the nuances of Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (yes, that is the real title of the movie – look it up).

There are other aspects to being single, you know, the “thing,” that I would like to discuss.

Since becoming single, I have noticed that some of my behaviors are changing.  For example, I find that I talk to myself.  A lot!  Out loud!  I especially find myself yelling at the television while watching football.  I also make rude comments during television commercials.  Yes.  Out loud with no one else in the room or even in the house.  More recently I have started talking to my computer.  I do not mean voice recognition or anything like that.  I mean talking to the women that appear on my online dating sites.  If only these women could hear what I am saying to them.  Wouldn’t that be something?  Then, I just laugh at myself.  I think, “This is crazy!”

These changes started to occur during the past few months.  I have no idea why this is happening.  Maybe it’s the pandemic.

I do not know if this is related, but I have also started singing out loud while listening to some of my favorite music, especially while driving in my car.  My wife and I used to “scream sing,” that is what we called it, to some of our favorite songs, like “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” by Warren Zevon (the guy who wrote Werewolves of London).  We used to scream sing to that one in the car a lot!  There are a lot of others that we also sang.  I guess it has just carried over from that.  Honestly, I don’t even know most of the words to many of these songs.  But I sing them out loud anyway, with great vigor.

I said in one of my other blogs that I like having free reign of the remote control.  I do not know how much of a change this is, but I have only recently become aware of feeling this way.  I guess I used to just take it for granted.  The challenge now is trying to operate multiple remotes.  Thanks to “streaming,” I now have a remote for my satellite, one for my television, one for my sound, one for my Blu-ray player, and one that I’m not sure what it does.  I know “streaming” is a thing now, but it didn’t used to be.  I remember black and white television with rabbit ear antennas and tin foil wrapped around the top.  So, you can understand why It took me a long time to even figure out what “streaming” was.  Now I’m signed up for Disney+, Amazon Prime, and a few others.  I guess that’s what “streaming” is.  I think there are other kinds of “streaming” that I’m not familiar with.  I have to have my 13 year old nephew explain it all to me.  It’s not his fault that I still don’t understand it all.

Another change I’ve made is keeping a journal.  I started writing in it at the beginning of September 2020.  I did this not so much to keep a record of what I have done, but to write down and keep a record of my thoughts and feelings about being single and what it’s like trying to date again.  This is important and is a thing.  It has been a good release for me because of living alone and not having anyone else around most of the time.  Hey!  If can’t talk to myself, who else am I going to talk to?

Okay, full disclosure, which is also a thing, it’s difficult keeping up with all these “things,” I do have a 13 year old nephew and he has tried to explain stuff (notice I didn’t say “things”) to me.  But I exaggerated earlier about to what degree he helps me.  I’m usually so baffled by technology, current verbiage, and streaming I have to just pretend like I understand what people are talking about. I am incredibly grateful that, at the very least, I can operate my computer well enough to write my blog and post it on Facebook, so people know that it’s out there.  So being single and trying to navigate the current culture is most definitely a thing.