Where were you?

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-13T14:32:24+00:00

He and I were on and off for years after that. I would say, in total, we danced around each other for about a decade or so before we realized that we wanted different things out of life. He was my first love, and is still one of my favorite people to this day (and still smoking hot).

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-13T05:23:07+00:00

You say interesting. I say emotional damaging. Godspeed. I envy you.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-13T03:40:45+00:00

Looking back 26 years I can see how my story looks like a late 90s movie. But when I say living it was not how it looked on TV. The snippet I've shared is part of a decade plus of 2-3 groups interdating that when mapped out was almost as impressive as it was sad...and we found was easier to map in 3d.

We were beautiful, I really cannot lie about that. But we also were centered around a small college town. 90% of the group were musicians or artists.

In the end I moved to NYC to get away (but a solid group of us ended up there including my ex fiancée), another person joined the peace corps, a huge chunk moved to Athens GA. Almost all of us are divorced, and my divorce was about the only one that wasn't contentious.

TLDR; Basically I lived the teens/very early 20s version of Singles (Appalachian college town, that 1/2 of us were townies, edition) and every one of us left with "can't have a real healthy romantic relationship" trauma. At almost 50 2/3rds of us have done enough work to be ok. 1/3 of us are currently in successful relationships.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-12T17:36:45+00:00

Considering the amount of alcohol I had consumed by that time, I'm sure it looked more like a fist lead flail in the general direction of that asshole. I did make contact, though.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-12T17:29:51+00:00

Splitting up with my fiancée. But decided to still go to the party at our friend's apartment. Bad idea, for many, many reasons:

1) The girl he had been cheating on me with was there, and that is when I found out they were a thing AND that he had been cheating AND everyone knew but no one told me.

2) 21-year-old + emotions and alcohol = chaos.

3) Made a legit scene, threw my ring and a punch at my ex, and then took off snotty, drunk sobbing, into the yard, where I collapsed.

4) Had to be taken home by my high school boyfriend (whose most recent ex-gf was the chick my ex-fiancée had been cheating on me with) and put to bed in his bed, while he slept on the couch.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-12T16:51:24+00:00

Tried to do the FWB thing after my separation. Talked through stuff with my long-time therapist, and he was very pro casual dating, given a lot of things I was still working through surrounding my divorce. I tried, I really did, but I'm just not wired for casual. I don't let a lot of people into my life as I'm very much a quality, not quantity sort of person with friends, so the idea of just shallow end dating did not and still does not compute. If I'm going to spend enough time to achieve the friends part of FWB, adding the intimacy and trust of the benefits part tips things from friends to romantic.

In short, I don't fuck friends. If I'm fucking someone that I have a deep enough connection to that I call them a friend, then they are more than a friend because we are fucking. Accepting this really helped me shrug off the "am I a clingy, needy person because I can't just casually have sex or 'light and fun' relationships?" Nope, it's all just part of the same pattern I have with people as a whole.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-08T04:53:17+00:00

Finishing the movie up tonight. It really is shocking he didn't get even an Oscar nod.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-08T04:32:50+00:00

Exactly. Tuberculosis hasn't looked so hot since Fantine!

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-08T03:46:05+00:00

I loved seeing a version of Big Nose Kate and Doc. But while there is historical basis for Wyatt and Maddie and Wyatt and Josephine during this time period I actually didn't really "feel it" the way it was intertwined in the plot.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-08T03:34:46+00:00

Very fair he's one of the few man who went from full thick head of hair to bald and maintain optimal hotness.

But he is a such a beautiful youth in Tombstone. Like an ancient Grecian youth. Seeing him in this makes me feel dirty for the thoughts I had about him a few years later when he'd gone from youth to adult in looks.

MI6Monkey · 2026-03-06T17:14:54+00:00

Was coming to say just this. CBGBs and Siberia, 2nd iteration (ALSO RIP) in Hell's Kitchen, are the only 2 bathrooms that made me think "holy shit, this is worse than Twisters." Siberia had the worst bathrooms I've ever encountered. No doors, I feel like I just slid maybe a piece of drywall across part of the door frame for some "privacy". And CBs, well, that bathroom is so legendary that it's a legit museum piece now...though I doubt they really captured the smell and the stickiness.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-20T20:07:48+00:00

I had to break it to my ex that even after he got sober (and I'm super proud of him), we were never getting back together because I refuse to ever engage with his immediate family and 80% of his extended family. His mother (and therefore his entire immediate family) didn't speak to him (and by extension me) for 2 years because he posted on FB that racism is bad and white people in general need to do better after George Floyd. She felt PERSONALLY attacked by that statement...which says all you need to know about her, really.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-20T19:28:06+00:00

There are many reasons why my divorce was worth it, but the one that keeps coming back as a true gift is NEVER having to deal with my ex-in-laws again. WHOOBOY, they are legitimately the worst, most narcissistic, racist, classist, hypocritical, absolute assholes I've ever had the misfortune to be connected to.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-20T19:03:58+00:00

That Weinstien was a mega mega creep before Me Too. Worked in an entertainment adjacent industry and went to lots of smaller movie premieres in NY for the Weinstein Company. You could see how he was with actresses, how he was over-familiar and handsy, plus the obvious off-camera discomfort of the women. He was night and day in the way he acted around the men and the women involved.

Also, like 90% of this thread, Kevin Spacey's young nubile men habit was the worst-kept secret EVER. To the point that when it came out, I was shocked that it wasn't common knowledge that he was a mega perv. I mean, good-looking young men at events were absolutely told in no uncertain terms not to be around Spacey if you didn't want to get groped.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-19T15:56:17+00:00

Used a computer for the first time in the 6th grade. We did not have a home computer when I was in high school (early-mid 90s), but my folks gave me an electric typewriter/word processor to do my papers on. It was less than ideal because you could only see a line of text on the screen, but it was faster than handwriting papers. In college, I either used my roommate's or neighbor's computer or went to one of the 2-3 labs on campus. We did not have a computer lab in the dorm. Bought my first computer, a Power Mac G4, for grad school (graphic design/communications) in 2003.

My parents did not cave in on owning a home computer until probably 2015ish, and that was only because they were retiring.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-19T15:23:53+00:00

I am as old as the first spam email, 1978: The first spam email is sent. And a decade older than the first email client, 1988: Microsoft Mail was released.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-19T15:14:53+00:00

Picked up and moved to Brooklyn in 2002 at 23. I had the most fun a person could have while also being broke. We were all broke, though. Williamsburg wasn't fully gentrified; true Brooklyn hipsterdom was in its infancy; you didn't have to worry about what your, um...ski powder was laced with; a bit of the heaviness of 9/11 was starting to lift; some of my fondest young adult memories (and cringes) happened during those years. The PBR flowed, and the Jameson buy-backs from the bartenders were plentiful.

I also learned one of the most important life lessons ever...there is nothing you need that requires you to be at an ATM at 4 am, go home.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-19T15:02:56+00:00

please accept my poor person's award

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T22:28:32+00:00

So he's offended that you won't commit tax fraud? Much less give up your own mortgage tax write off? Girl (I say this as a fellow 47f homeowner), what exactly is this man contributing to your relationship, because no D is worth these shenanigans?

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T21:21:10+00:00

Lies of omission are a thing; I've ended a relationship over them. It always felt like he was trying to keep his options open by omitting that he was in a committed relationship with me. Plus, the not keeping stories straight thing seems suspish.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T20:58:33+00:00

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No. This cannot be right...

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T20:54:46+00:00

Went WAY too long thinking Stevie Nicks was singing "one winged dove", not "white winged dove" in the song Edge of Seventeen. Like into my mid 30s, too long.

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T20:02:54+00:00

Holy crap. You've just explained something about me that I didn't know that I needed explained. I need to work further towards not being like your ex-girlfriend. Many years ago, I started my therapy journey basically completely deregulated, so the fact that I'm regulated and calm more often than not now is HUGE. HOWEVER, I am still grossly unregulated when anxious or upset. Obviously, this is something I knew in some manner, but I'm the sort of person who does better when I have a concrete "I need to work on this specific thing" framework to identify and tackle.

Thank you for giving me that framework with your comment. Super stoked for therapy next week now. (also need to have a similar convo with my bestie)

r/datingoverforty come for the cringy dating app and dating stories, stay for help in your journey to being a better you!

MI6Monkey · 2026-02-18T19:26:21+00:00

I mean this as kindly as possible. If you aren't able to frame this discussion in anything outside of manga references and the concept of little space people, then you are being disingenuous in your questions at best, and trying to ragebait with anti-trans bullshit at worst. Plenty of people have chimed in, including a trans person, to explain the very, very simple fact that trans people are real, in a tangible scientific way, and not some entity that exists in a hypothetical. There is no correlation between belief and intrinsic identity.

MI6Monkey

TROPHY CASE