52 New Friends

I did it.   I did the thing I said I was not going to do.   I don’t know if it was because Valentine’s Day was coming up.   Maybe I just ran into one too many happy couples…but the old, lonely hole opened up in my heart reminding me I’m a single.   And then I got the itch to want to shop the dating sites.   I tried to resist.   For hours, I begged the television to entertain me but the pull was just too great.   I’d done a very good job at deleting all of my information on the dating sites so I didn’t have access.   It took some work to put up a new profile with no photo, no description, just meant to look, but moments into the process I realized…I wasn’t missing much.   I was just about to log out when I noticed someone had sent me a message.   It was harmless enough, just a question about the screen name I chose.   I looked at his profile.   It said he was open to making new friends so I figured…why not?   Here’s a guy willing to take a chance not even knowing what I look l

My condo complex had our annual board meeting last weekend out by the pool.   I know it’s February but this is Phoenix, folks, so it was seventy degrees.   When I arrived, there was a small gathering of homeowners milling around the donuts and coffee.   Most of the people had brought lawn chairs.   I plopped mine next to a dark haired woman and said, “Mind if I sit next to you?”   And that’s how I met Sherrie.   In the short time before the meeting, I found out Sherrie was from Canada, she only lives here during the winter months, and she and her husband own a bunch of businesses in Canada.   Once the meeting got under way, I realized Sherrie knew a lot of people in my complex.   Apparently, she and her husband are well established in spending the winter months here.   We call those people snowbirds in Phoenix and as the meeting droned on, I thought:   I don’t know any snowbirds.   The purpose of this blog is to meet people who are different from me so after the meeting, I asked