During my year and a half of being a thirty-something divorcee, I bounced from guy to guy, situationship to situationship and rarely did they develop into a bona fide relationship. I just had to keep one foot out the door each time.

My best friend pointed out my “one foot in, one foot out” behaviour and suggested I put both feet in, with the guy I was seeing. I gave it some thought and made attempts to dive further in and at that exact time, he started pulling away. He’s a story for another time or maybe never, as I have no fond memories of him.

But where it led, was me making the decision to swear off men for six months. That’s what I said to myself and my best friend. No more men for six months. Though I’d had no problems with step-children up to that point, I also decided I would only go for men who’d had no kids.

In my spare time with no trysts in my life I began to think of all the men I knew who were single and had no kids. That’s when Dave entered the picture.

I knew of him and had chatted with him several times at different functions. A consummate bachelor, he’d never been married and had no kids. We were about the same age. For some strange reason I decided to reach out to him on social media and put it out there that I’d be interested in getting to know him. In six months.

I’m sure this odd message that came from out of left field was completely puzzling to him but he played along well. I didn’t know a lot about him but I knew he was a very comical guy. That was really attractive. Also, the no kids thing was another tick mark on the “pros” side of the list.

We chatted quite a bit right from the start, DM’ing each other and then later texting. After a few weeks we decided there was no point in waiting the six months, it didn’t take much for me to break my own rule.

He was funny, he was intelligent, he had a good career and he was white collar. Which was something different for me. I had never been interested in or dated anyone who didn’t have a blue collar job and the lifestyle to match.

The first time he came over I made pancakes from scratch and he brought his homemade peanut butter to slather over them. We had some wine and he made me laugh continuously.

Of course eventually we ended up in my room and had sex. Good sex. I felt really comfortable with him. He made me feel sexy and I felt very confident in bed with him.

From then on we saw each other whenever our schedules would allow it. Always at my place when the kids were at their dad’s. He was aware that I wanted to keep my private life as private as possible and he felt the same about his.

At some point I decided that we should take things a step further and go out of town together for a weekend getaway. Nothing crazy, just doing what we were already doing in different scenery. Something about the idea spooked him. He could never really articulate why, or maybe he just didn’t want to articulate why but after bringing the idea up to him several times and getting a consistent and hard no, I bowed out.

It wasn’t like I was anywhere near ready to introduce him to the kids or anything, but in my eyes a weekend away, two consenting adults, would be fun times. Possibly in his eyes, it was a step towards getting more serious and committed, and so he refused.

I broke things off at that point, more out of frustration than anything. I was also annoyed.

A few months down the road he texted me and tried to start a conversation. I flat out told him I was not interested in talking to him and that was that.

Another one bit the dust.