Zone1 Meeting your mate late in life.

[iamwhatiseem]

We just returned from visiting Bonzi's mom in NC.
Her brother gave her a DVD he made from a collection of old home movies from their childhood.
Watching them, particularly those from when Bonzi was a teen and older, I kept feeling a profound sadness.
Almost like a death of someone - a loss.
I thought about this, and I believe I know why I felt this. I wasn't there.
Bonzi and I met here in 2016. At age 51 and 52. We are now 58 and 59.
Seeing her young puts an exclamation point to the fact we didn't get that time. All those years of youth. The children we didn't raise. The many memories of holidays, vacations... they do not exist.
On one hand, obviously, I am extraordinarily grateful that we have met, as she is. And yes we are building memories now. But still... man... seeing her young and so full of life that you are when you are young... not easy to see.
I wonder if there are others who experience the same.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

Look at it this way. You avoided divorce and endless custody fights.

 

[Moonglow]

Look at it this way. You avoided divorce and endless custody fights.

They are saving that for their seventies.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Look at it this way. You avoided divorce and endless custody fights.

We have spoke of this.
As everyone above the age of 50 knows - you are totally different people at different times in your life.
Who you are at 40 is not even close to who you were at 20. Or 30.
There is no way of knowing whether we would have made it had we met 35 years ago rather than 7.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Congratulations to you. May you continue to maintain your bond.

 

[Gracie]

I remember when you two hooked up. I'm glad Bonzi is happier now. And that you found your soul mate.

You are one couple I know of that met here at usmb and got married. Sheri and welfarequeen are the other.

 

[luiza]

I wonder if there are others who experience the same.

Suggest you research the more likely view of Time in the context of Universe and your many past and future energy transformations .

It all becomes completely irrelevant and without any meaning greater than the flicker of your eyelid within Eternity . imho .

Live only in the Moment.

 

[frigidweirdo]

We just returned from visiting Bonzi's mom in NC.
Her brother gave her a DVD he made from a collection of old home movies from their childhood.
Watching them, particularly those from when Bonzi was a teen and older, I kept feeling a profound sadness.
Almost like a death of someone - a loss.
I thought about this, and I believe I know why I felt this. I wasn't there.
Bonzi and I met here in 2016. At age 51 and 52. We are now 58 and 59.
Seeing her young puts an exclamation point to the fact we didn't get that time. All those years of youth. The children we didn't raise. The many memories of holidays, vacations... they do not exist.
On one hand, obviously, I am extraordinarily grateful that we have met, as she is. And yes we are building memories now. But still... man... seeing her young and so full of life that you are when you are young... not easy to see.
I wonder if there are others who experience the same.

"mate" seems to imply mating, which seems to imply producing children.

 

[Gracie]

Damn, people. He is happy he met Bonzi, even late in life, and wished he could have met her sooner. In other words, this is a NICE thread. Don't pick it apart.

Mate means producing children, eh? I wonder if your missing sock in the washer is trying to mate with underwear? And you know in what context he meant. MATE. As in partner, as in love, as in team of two.

mate1
noun

1. 1.
   each of a pair of birds or other animals.
   "a male bird sings to court a mate"
   
   • 
     
   • 
     
2. 2.
   a fellow member or joint occupant of a specified thing.
   "his tablemates"
   
   Similar:
   partner
   
   
   husband
   
   
   wife
   
   
   spouse
   
   
   lover
   
   
   live-in lover
   
   amour
   
   
   significant other
   
   
   inamorato
   
   
   inamorata
   
   
   companion
   
   
   helpmate
   
   
   helpmeet
   
   
   consort
   
   
   other half
   
   
   better half
   
   
   hubby
   
   
   missus
   
   
   missis
   
   
   old man
   
   
   old lady
   
   
   old woman
   
   
   old dutch
   
   trouble and strife
   
   verb

1. 1.
   (of animals or birds) come together for breeding; copulate.
   "successful males may mate with many females"
   
   Similar:
   breed
   
   
   couple
   
   
   copulate
   
   
   copulation
   
   
   copulating
   
   
   coupling
   
   
   sexual intercourse
   
   
   intercourse
   
   
   sex
   
   
   procreation
   
   
   pairing
   
   
   breeding
   
   
   union
   
   
   coitus
   
   
   coition
   
   
   sexually active
   
   • 
     
     
     
     2.
     connect or be connected mechanically.
     "a four-cylinder engine mated to a five-speed gearbox"

 

[Gracie]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Thanks Grace... there will always be trolls.
I genuinely wondered if others here who have met a partner in life, late in life, experienced this same effect of seeing their old videos/photos.
While I do not regret staying in my first marriage while raising my children, I very much lament the wasted years on a personal level. It was not easy staying in a dead marriage for many years like that.
So perhaps the sadness and feeling of loss, stems from that also.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Thanks Grace... there will always be trolls.
I genuinely wondered if others here who have met a partner in life, late in life, experienced this same effect of seeing their old videos/photos.
While I do not regret staying in my first marriage while raising my children, I very much lament the wasted years on a personal level. It was not easy staying in a dead marriage for many years like that.
So perhaps the sadness and feeling of loss, stems from that also.

Tell me, how did you move on? I am a broken man. She knew me. Understood me over time. That is very difficult to replace even though she was very abusive to me (especially after she lost at slots).

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Tell me, how did you move on? I am a broken man. She knew me. Understood me over time. That is very difficult to replace even though she was very abusive to me (especially after she lost at slots).

Sorry, I don't understand. How did I move on from my first marriage?
That was not super difficult. It was a loveless dead marriage. We knew for years that we would split once the kids were grown.

 

[SweetSue92]

We just returned from visiting Bonzi's mom in NC.
Her brother gave her a DVD he made from a collection of old home movies from their childhood.
Watching them, particularly those from when Bonzi was a teen and older, I kept feeling a profound sadness.
Almost like a death of someone - a loss.
I thought about this, and I believe I know why I felt this. I wasn't there.
Bonzi and I met here in 2016. At age 51 and 52. We are now 58 and 59.
Seeing her young puts an exclamation point to the fact we didn't get that time. All those years of youth. The children we didn't raise. The many memories of holidays, vacations... they do not exist.
On one hand, obviously, I am extraordinarily grateful that we have met, as she is. And yes we are building memories now. But still... man... seeing her young and so full of life that you are when you are young... not easy to see.
I wonder if there are others who experience the same.

Wait hold on wait hold on. Wait. Hold on.

You met your lady love here????



I did not know this. I'm a hopeless romantic. Siggghhhh that's so amazing.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Wait hold on wait hold on. Wait. Hold on.

You met your lady love here????



I did not know this. I'm a hopeless romantic. Siggghhhh that's so amazing.

Yes we did.
She pretty much quit posting here back in 2017.
We talked here in PMs for about 4 months, on the phone also.
The first time we physically met was at the airport picking her up to stay here forever.
All we saw was photos.
The story how it all went is pretty awesome actually.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

CONGRATS

 

[leftwinger]

Why bother if your crank dont work no more? Yawning.



Open it frances.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Wait hold on wait hold on. Wait. Hold on.
You met your lady love here????

Yes we did.
She pretty much quit posting here back in 2017.
We talked here in PMs for about 4 months, on the phone also.
The first time we physically met was at the airport picking her up to stay here forever.
All we saw was photos.
The story how it all went is pretty awesome actually.

A more modern version of how my wife and I met.

In 1994, the Internet existed, but most of the general public didn't know about it, much less have any kind of access to it.

Computer nerds of the time, who didn't have access to the Internet, communicated over a much more primitive medium known as a Bulletin Board Service, or BBS. In its simplest form, a BBS was run on someone's computer, hooked up to a modem an a phone line. You'd call into it with your own modem, from your own computer, and you could leave messages there, and read messages that others had left there. Most BBSes were set up with multiple forums or “rooms”, with discussions taking place on different topics.

Think of it an extremely primitive form of the sort of forum we are using here.

The more sophisticated BBSes were organized into loose networks. During a designated time of day, instead of taking calls from users, the BBSes would call each other, and pass the messages around, so that a message that you posted in one forum, on one BBS, would, over the course of a few days, propagate to all the other BBSes on that network that carried that same forum.

Now, most of the users of these sort of systems were pretty much stereotypical computer nerds—intelligent, socially-awkward young men, desperate for female companionship. At the time, I was probably one of the more extreme examples of such. So, on an occasion when a user identified herself in one such forum as female, and expressed dissatisfaction with the dating prospects in her home area, she attracted a great deal of attention to herself.

Miraculously, it was I, among all the desperate, lonely nerds, who managed to draw her attention to myself, and convince her to consider me as a possible prospect.

No reliable private-messaging facility really existed, then. FidoNet had a crude, unreliable form of private messaging, that did not work very well. So most of our communications took place in the open, in that forum, in front of all the other participants there—very much off-topic, but nobody really seemed to mind.

After some months of this, Seanette came by Greyhound, from Reedsport, Oregon, to meet me in person in Santa Barbara, California. We figured this would be a visit of a few days, and if it looked like anything was going to come of it, we'd figure out future visits, her to Santa Barbara and/or me to Reedsport. Once we met in person, things moved alarmingly fast. We were engaged less than a week later, and made one trip to Reedsport and back to retrieve her belongings. We were married a year later, and in less than two weeks from today, we'll have been married for twenty-eight years.

 

[Vastator]

Damn, people. He is happy he met Bonzi, even late in life, and wished he could have met her sooner. In other words, this is a NICE thread. Don't pick it apart.

Mate means producing children, eh? I wonder if your missing sock in the washer is trying to mate with underwear? And you know in what context he meant. MATE. As in partner, as in love, as in team of two.

mate1
noun

1. 1.
   each of a pair of birds or other animals.
   "a male bird sings to court a mate"
   
2. 2.
   a fellow member or joint occupant of a specified thing.
   "his tablemates"
   
   Similar:
   partner
   
   
   husband
   
   
   wife
   
   
   spouse
   
   
   lover
   
   
   live-in lover
   
   amour
   
   
   significant other
   
   
   inamorato
   
   
   inamorata
   
   
   companion
   
   
   helpmate
   
   
   helpmeet
   
   
   consort
   
   
   other half
   
   
   better half
   
   
   hubby
   
   
   missus
   
   
   missis
   
   
   old man
   
   
   old lady
   
   
   old woman
   
   
   old dutch
   
   trouble and strife
   
   verb

1. 1.
   (of animals or birds) come together for breeding; copulate.
   "successful males may mate with many females"
   
   Similar:
   breed
   
   
   couple
   
   
   copulate
   
   
   copulation
   
   
   copulating
   
   
   coupling
   
   
   sexual intercourse
   
   
   intercourse
   
   
   sex
   
   
   procreation
   
   
   pairing
   
   
   breeding
   
   
   union
   
   
   coitus
   
   
   coition
   
   
   sexually active
   
   • 
     
     
     
     2.
     connect or be connected mechanically.
     "a four-cylinder engine mated to a five-speed gearbox"

Points given for "tryhard"; but in the end, the hash tag wins it; #Dyingalonesucks...

 

[iamwhatiseem]

A more modern version of how my wife and I met.

In 1994, the Internet existed, but most of the general public didn't know about it, much less have any kind of access to it.

Computer nerds of the time, who didn't have access to the Internet, communicated over a much more primitive medium known as a Bulletin Board Service, or BBS. In its simplest form, a BBS was run on someone's computer, hooked up to a modem an a phone line. You'd call into it with your own modem, from your own computer, and you could leave messages there, and read messages that others had left there. Most BBSes were set up with multiple forums or “rooms”, with discussions taking place on different topics.

Think of it an extremely primitive form of the sort of forum we are using here.

The more sophisticated BBSes were organized into loose networks. During a designated time of day, instead of taking calls from users, the BBSes would call each other, and pass the messages around, so that a message that you posted in one forum, on one BBS, would, over the course of a few days, propagate to all the other BBSes on that network that carried that same forum.

Now, most of the users of these sort of systems were pretty much stereotypical computer nerds—intelligent, socially-awkward young men, desperate for female companionship. At the time, I was probably one of the more extreme examples of such. So, on an occasion when a user identified herself in one such forum as female, and expressed dissatisfaction with the dating prospects in her home area, she attracted a great deal of attention to herself.

Miraculously, it was I, among all the desperate, lonely nerds, who managed to draw her attention to myself, and convince her to consider me as a possible prospect.

No reliable private-messaging facility really existed, then. FidoNet had a crude, unreliable form of private messaging, that did not work very well. So most of our communications took place in the open, in that forum, in front of all the other participants there—very much off-topic, but nobody really seemed to mind.

After some months of this, Seanette came by Greyhound, from Reedsport, Oregon, to meet me in person in Santa Barbara, California. We figured this would be a visit of a few days, and if it looked like anything was going to come of it, we'd figure out future visits, her to Santa Barbara and/or me to Reedsport. Once we met in person, things moved alarmingly fast. We were engaged less than a week later, and made one trip to Reedsport and back to retrieve her belongings. We were married a year later, and in less than two weeks from today, we'll have been married for twenty-eight years.

At that time I worked for the 5th largest media company in America. Newspapers/TV/Radio.
Newspapers were getting into providing dial up services. As we did. I still remember we had a large room that had shelves and shelves of modems. So I had access to the internet very early. And I was a member of several BBS's. Mostly tech related with subrooms.
Newspapers had the opportunity to be at the very forefront of the internet. But they were owned and managed by folks who thought the internet was a fad. And just like ours did - they sold off their ISP services to telephone companies. And in doing so, doomed their existence.