This is my journal entry from December 14, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
What a fun day today was. I got up and saw the kids first thing this morning. After that I went to play tennis with my tennis coach and a friend. From there I went straight to yoga at my yoga studio with a yoga instructor. Then I went home, made a salad, cleaned up a bit, and got myself relaxed and in the right headspace to go see the life coach. I met her for coffee at Sumitra. Within the first ten minutes of talking with her I brought up that I was interested in dating her. She told me she wasn’t interested in dating me, and she also mentioned that I was the fourth guy in the last month who had asked her during a life coaching session if she wanted to date them. I told her that was probably because she’s attractive, she has a cool personality, and people respect her with the life coaching work she does. I joked that if she were fat or ugly nobody would be asking her to date them, so she should probably appreciate the attention because it means people take her seriously.
It ended up being a perfect segue into what I actually wanted to talk about in the life coaching session, which was dating itself. I wanted to talk through it and kind of discover things about myself. It was a chance to practice and put into action the things I’ve been thinking about. You might think it would be awkward to sit there and keep talking after she said she wasn’t interested in dating me, but it really wasn’t. I noticed different feelings coming up inside me. There was a little bit of disappointment like, well that’s too bad. But there was also a feeling of relief, like the adventure is still open. I’ve only been single for a short time. The divorce isn’t even final yet. It will be official on Wednesday. So I’m actually enjoying this period of being single and figuring out what I even want.
The truth is I don’t know yet. I don’t know if I want a monogamous relationship right now or if I’m interested in something more open. I don’t know if having more kids immediately is something I want or if that could wait. Maybe it would even be fun to be in a relationship for a while with a woman a little older than me and not have to deal with the question of kids for a year or so before eventually meeting another wife. There are so many unknowns right now. The one thing I do know is that I don’t want someone taking up my time and space if I’m not genuinely excited to be with them. If that’s the case, I’d rather just stay single and keep meeting women and having conversations.
I asked the life coach about the girl from the AA meeting yesterday and told her I had asked that girl if she wanted to date. I wanted to hear her analysis of that approach. She explained that the idea of “dating” can mean something different today than it used to. She said it’s sweet that I have a more classical idea of dating as simply going out with someone and getting to know them first. But in today’s culture, when you say you want to date someone, it can sometimes sound like you want to jump into sex immediately. She suggested that it might be better to focus on being friendly and doing things together without labeling it as dating right away. She said that in modern hookup culture, once the word dating comes up people often assume the expectation is sex quickly.
She also said that most men start in what people call the friend zone by default. There might be exceptions, but generally you’re not having sex with someone the first time you meet them or necessarily even thinking that way right away. I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on all of that. But more than anything, the whole conversation made me proud of myself. I was proud that I asked her directly if she wanted to date me. And I was proud of how I handled her saying she wasn’t interested. Being able to sit there, hear that clearly, and still have a really nice conversation for over an hour afterward felt like a big step for me. That’s the kind of man I want to be.
Fortunately I had the Tantra speed dating event right after that. I drove home first and cooked some sweet potatoes, including the one the life coach gave me earlier this week, along with a carrot she had given me today from a box of produce she shares. I cut everything up and cooked it in the stainless steel pan my mom bought me, adding a big tablespoon of coconut oil and throwing some seasoning on top. That ended up being my dinner.
After that I went to the Tantra speed dating event at Nexus. The last time I went, I ended up leaving because there were way more guys than girls. There were fewer girls signed up to begin with and then some of them didn’t even show up. This time it was the opposite. There were actually more women than men. As soon as I walked in, I recognized both hosts because I knew them from a local spiritual community. I went in and sat down on a couch where there were three women already sitting. There was an attractive woman there I met that night. I noticed her right away. Instead of sitting directly next to her, though, I deliberately sat a little farther away so I could engage everyone at once. I asked everyone their names and started a conversation with the whole group together. In my mind I was intentionally setting the tone that I was confident and comfortable there. I was putting some of those pickup artist ideas into practice.
I ended up talking a lot with a woman I met at the event, the one sitting next to me, and we had a really sweet conversation. After everyone arrived, we went into the main room where there were pillows set up around a small altar in the center. Surprisingly the tantra event was actually really good. We started with some simple icebreaker exercises where we paired up and talked for about a minute at a time. The prompts were things like saying what you’re ready to release or let go of. I remember saying something like releasing the need to always be right. We went around the room doing that with different people.
After we had rotated through everyone once, the exercises got a little deeper. There was some light massage work and then some longer hugs. That part actually felt really good. There were a few women there who were attractive and it felt nice to just hug someone and feel that physical closeness, breathing together and taking in their scent and presence. It gave me this rush of euphoria that felt really good.
At the end there was a matching system where the women could drop a bead into a pouch if they wanted to connect with someone afterward. I think the woman I’d met put a bead in my pouch because I remember hearing something drop in there. I definitely want to follow up with her. She was also at the a local spiritual community event the night before. I remember seeing her dancing there and walking around, but I didn’t end up talking to her because I was busy talking with a lot of other people that night. Now I’m interested in talking with her more.
During one of the exercises, I got to massage her lower back, which honestly felt like a treat. While I was doing it I was thinking how funny it is that if I had stayed in massage school just a little longer, I would have learned more techniques for that exact thing. From a random guy she probably wasn’t expecting a professional massage anyway, but part of me was thinking I would have been better at it if I had stuck around in school another week or two.
After the tantra event I went straight to my AA meeting, although I got there 15 minutes late. When I walked in the guy doing the lead was still talking. The lead is supposed to be about five to fifteen minutes, but this dude just kept going and going. He would stop for a moment like he was finished, everyone would kind of prepare for it to end, and then he’d start right back up again. The chairperson clearly felt bad interrupting him, so he just let him keep going. In my head I was getting more and more ridiculous about it. I kept smiling and laughing because the thoughts running through my mind were getting so toxic. The guy even said at one point he was praying for something in his life to stop, and I’m sitting there thinking, man, I’m praying for you to stop talking right now. My mind was running away with increasingly ridiculous, impatient thoughts about how badly I wanted him to wrap up. I was laughing to myself the whole time because I could see how absurd my thoughts were while also appreciating the guy for getting up there and making the effort to share.
Finally, around 7:30 the guy paused again and one of the guys sitting next to me jumped in and said “Thank you.” I was so relieved. I turned to him after the meeting, gave him a big hug, and told him he made my day by ending that. Then I realized that honestly I should have been the one to do that ten minutes earlier. I should have just said thank you and closed it out. It was funny reflecting on how the whole room could feel that everyone was ready to move on, but somehow the guy speaking didn’t seem to pick up on it. Maybe we all co-created that moment together.
After the meeting I talked with my sponsor for a bit. I also talked with the girl who had come to the 4 p.m. meeting earlier in the week, and I was glad I hadn’t tried to pick her up because she has a long-distance boyfriend. That made me realize how important it is for me to talk with women long enough to know whether they’re single before I start trying to spend more time with them. If someone is single, then it makes sense to build a friendship and get to know each other better. But if a woman already has a boyfriend, there’s no reason for me to be trying to go on walks in the park or invite her to yoga. It also made me think about the woman from yoga, who said her situation was complicated. That made me question why I had asked her to walk at the park in the first place. Still, people make mistakes all the time. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t need to apologize for every little imperfection either. It’s just a reminder that next time I can find out if someone is single before trying to move things forward.
Talking with the life coach earlier was also a good reminder that I want to get to know women as well as possible before anything physical happens. Once you get physical with someone it becomes much harder to stay objective. It’s harder to break things off if you realize it’s not right, and it’s easier to get pulled into situations that aren’t actually good for you.
Meanwhile I was noticing there were a lot of attractive women at this meeting tonight. At one point there were three really beautiful women sitting next to each other in a row, and I realized I hadn’t even introduced myself to them yet. I’m thinking I’ll get around to that eventually. I like the idea of just being there, letting people see me, talking with the people I’m naturally interacting with, and letting things unfold. One day it’ll line up perfectly and I’ll walk over and start a conversation at the right moment. There are already plenty of people to talk to, so I’m not in a rush. Eventually it will happen naturally.
Like the girl who came to the 4 p.m. meeting earlier this week, someone I’ve known casually for about a year now. It worked out perfectly that I got to talk with her today. I held her hand for a moment during the prayer and it felt natural and relaxed. Then my sponsee came over and started talking with her too, which gave me a smooth way to wrap things up politely and let her move along without anything feeling awkward. After that I connected with two people who had recently moved down from up north. I talked with the guy for a while, which was nice, and the man gave me his number so I could stay in touch with both of them. She seems to be the social planner in that pair, which made sense once we talked a little. It was still good to get his number too and spend a little time connecting with him.
Then I went back inside and started talking with the guys again. We were talking so much shit that honestly I don’t even know if half of it belongs in this book. These entries get pretty graphic sometimes, but the conversation got even more ridiculous after we started joking about the guy who wouldn’t stop talking during the lead earlier. It just kept escalating from there, and I definitely contributed to pushing it further. But what I noticed most was how much I laughed today. I was cracking up over and over again. It was one of those days where everything just kept lining up to be funny.
Earlier in the day I was excited about the possibility of dating the life coach. When she told me she wasn’t interested, I realized I didn’t even care about the reason why. She explained that her heart is still healing from her last breakup and that it’s very fresh for her. That made perfect sense to me. If she needs that time, she should absolutely take it. The interesting part is that I don’t feel like I need that same healing time after my marriage. I’ve been mentally preparing to be single for at least a year already. The space I’m in now feels natural. I’m ready. Being single feels exciting.
I shared briefly in the meeting tonight, making sure not to go on forever like the guy who spoke earlier. It made me laugh because I caught myself thinking he had gone on way too long, but at the same time I remembered that last year I did an entire fifty-minute speaker meeting at that same group by myself. The difference, at least in my mind, was that I actually killed it. People were still engaged after fifty minutes. I remember feeling like the room wanted more. When I speak, it feels alive. The guy tonight kept saying his life was unmanageable, and I found myself thinking that if you’re sober and working the steps, your life should become manageable. That’s the whole point of the program. Our lives have become unmanageable in the past, but they don’t have to stay that way. Sure, I have off days here and there. Anyone reading some of my recent entries could see that. But most of my days are actually awesome. I have fun living my life.
I’m proud of how I handled the conversation with the life coach too. I didn’t even interpret it as rejection. I simply had an idea that dating her would be great. She didn’t agree with that idea. Once she made that clear, we were on the same page. There’s no reason to keep holding onto the idea. If she doesn’t want to date me, then that’s settled. I can move right along.
Now I’m curious about the woman I met from the tantra event. I’m looking forward to getting the email confirming whether she dropped a bead in my pouch so I can reach out to her. I did see her afterward near the front area, but I had to leave for the AA meeting. One of the things I’ve taken from No More Mr. Nice Guy and from Dr. Robert Glover’s dating advice is that I need to have my own full life. I had already spent three hours at that tantra speed dating event. I had a good eye-gazing session with her, gave her a back massage, and had some good moments there. After that it was time for me to go. I had other things to do. That’s the kind of life I want to live. A full life where I’m moving between things I care about, meeting people along the way, and letting the connections happen naturally.
I realized there’s one thing I forgot to mention earlier. I got my first match on Hinge this morning, and it may also be my last. She matched with me and she was cute. She recognized my yoga studio and thought she might have taken a class with me before. What I appreciated most was that she had clearly read my profile and addressed something important right away. She said she wanted to be upfront because she’s a regular marijuana user and she definitely does not want kids, although she said she’d be happy to accept mine. I told her honestly that it probably wouldn’t work for me. She was attractive, but that combination of things just doesn’t line up with what I want.
That interaction reinforced something I’ve already been thinking about. I don’t really want to do online dating. The amount of time spent swiping and messaging just doesn’t feel like a good use of my time. Maybe the apps can help if you already live close to someone or happen to match with someone on the same wavelength, but I’m starting to see that it’s much more natural when things develop in person. Like putting yoga mats down next to someone at my yoga studio and slowly getting to know each other. Let the tension build a little. Let the connection happen naturally instead of forcing it through an app.
The life coach also mentioned today that from what she sees among her friends, most people use the dating apps primarily for hookups. Often, they’re having sex on the first date. I’ve done that before myself, so I know exactly how it happens. But I also know that it’s not something I want to do again. I don’t want to sleep with someone and then realize afterward that if I had been thinking clearly I wouldn’t even want to see them again. I want to be clear about who I’m spending time with. I want women I genuinely have a lot in common with, women I’m truly attracted to, and women I actually want to build something with. I don’t want a situation where two people are just horny, sleep together, and then realize it wasn’t a great idea.
What I like more is the idea of getting to know someone slowly. Like slow playing a hand in poker and then going all in when it feels right. At the same time, I’m still exploring what I even want. I don’t know yet whether I want monogamy again or something more open. I know that eventually even the most attractive person becomes familiar over time, so these are questions I’m still figuring out.
One thing that did feel good reflecting with the life coach today was realizing that even though part of me was disappointed she didn’t want to date me, another part of me was genuinely happy that the adventure continues. If she had said yes, I probably would have skipped the tantra speed dating event tonight, and that ended up being a really good experience. One of her friends had actually suggested she go to that event as well, but it turned out to be easier for me that she wasn’t there.
There were plenty of women at the event, and it was fun being in that environment. I’ll admit I felt confident being there too. One woman there stood out to me right away. She’s very slim and really attractive, and I notice that I tend to be drawn to women with a similar body type to my own, athletic and lean. When you’re around people in environments like a local spiritual community and sober social spaces, there’s also a good chance you share certain values and habits, like not being heavily into drinking or drugs. That alone makes it feel easier to connect with someone.
And now as I’m dictating this, I’m realizing something funny. I’m going on just as long as the guy from the meeting earlier tonight that I was complaining about. That thought alone makes me laugh. All right, that’s probably a good sign it’s time to wrap this entry up.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.