Rekindling an old flame?

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Vaya con Dios.

My trip from Florida to New York has been delayed, due to "complexities" at both my end and hers.
I hope to make plans to get there in coming weeks, though.

I hope it works out for you man

While I wait to see if my ex in upstate NY is able to figure out where she wants her life to lead (she's giving her substance-addicted ex a chance to prove that he's a different person while "12-stepping" his way to permanent sobriety (Umm, YEAH...)), I decided to muck about on Tinder here in Northern Florida.

As it was a year ago while I was down here, it's a depressing look at where dating has gone for at least some mid-life humans. Three "hits" on my first lap through the pool, but as is usual, I aint paying to unhide 'em, so either they message me first, or I don't see who I "matched" with. These hits happened despite openly admitting the Autism in my profile.
Not sure if anyone even reads those, so the "right swipes" may have been based solely on my primary photo (and/or my 99.9th-percentile listed height?)

It's interesting in any case, to get a narrow-angle snapshot of how so many hook up (or, in my age category, are looking for more serious relationships) on such a superficial means of connection as Tinder.

Heh- one of the hits that fully "matched" ended up being what appears to be an obvious catfishing expedition.
It will be interesting to see what the "spiel" will be...

From here in north Florida, I just spent 4 hours on the phone with Aousda Toir up at her place in upstate New York.

With her expert assistance taking a final deep dive into the diagnostic criteria, I now have a much better understanding of what I went through in my failed 13+ year relationship, and why I often felt the way I did throughout it all. I now have a much more solid understanding of the source of the intense feelings of unease I had throughout those years.

Thank you much,
my dear friend!

I'm still in the East, and in a holding pattern. I'm in Florida again now, visiting family, after having been in the Northeast for several weeks, visiting two groups of friends up there. I had a great time up north, but it was stressful, given what my friends are going through in their own difficult, neurodivergent lives.

All five of the friends I visited up there in January are now in the middle of various forms of relationship difficulties, ranging from difficulties with a housemate to an imminent divorce after a 15 year marriage.

After working on me for a year, my dear friend Aousda Toir finally convinced me that I likely have ADHD, in addition to my previously diagnosed ASD Level I. I resorted to some "reverse engineering" to prove this theory, and it has been proven to my satisfaction, and resoundingly so. I have since introduced my 78-year old mother to the idea of ADHD, and it seems that she, too, is very likely ADHD, in addition to her previously self-diagnosed Autism.

I got involved in a brief (two and a half weeks or so) online "relationship" with a woman in the Hudson Valley of New York, that I met on Match.com. We ended up skipping RIGHT over some "getting to know you" stages typical of a new relationship, before meeting, or even speaking on the phone or in a video chat. This nascent, and yet quite intense relationship ended once the necessary reveal of my current status in life was fully divulged. I have no regrets over this loss, and was expecting that it would be likely. It was my first "real" attempt at making a new connection since 2008, and was a very valuable learning experience, both to see where I'm at, emotionally, and also check in on the whole world of dating, after all these years being out of that world.

As well as my ongoing (but minimal) online dating attempts, I am also rather intrigued by a certain woman who lives six doors down the street from my parents, here in their 55+ gated community in North Florida. She ("K.") has been described to me as "taller than you are", single, lean, "busty" and gorgeous. I was just under 6', 6" tall at age 30 (I may have shrunk since then?), so if she is indeed taller than me, she'd likely be in the one in 5 million category for female height. She's 56, and I'm about to turn 55 in mid December. I've seen one blurry photo of her, from behind, taken by chance by a Google Street View camera, while she was standing in front of her white Cadillac SUV at her previous home in Florida.
I know almost nothing about her, so the likelihood that we'd be anything like a match is extremely low. And yet I have this desire to, for the first time in my life, make a (nearly) cold approach to a woman. This should be a fascinating "experiment", if nothing else, and I look forward to knowing what it feels like to attempt a personal connection without the benefit of filtering and written contact before meeting someone new, as has always been my previous practice, since I first started online dating at age 30, in late 1999. The quite profound improvement in my emotional state, clarity and attention while on ADHD meds makes me think that I can really do this, and just walk right up to someone and initiate a conversation with such potentially (though admittedly very unlikely) high stakes.

I am also about to have to make a very important decision regarding where the next months of my life will lead.
A year ago, I was informed of a study at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, by my ex, and after a false start, was almost all signed up to be a lab rat, with the last step being the simple one of having my current medical clinic / provider sending my physical health records to NIH, to confirm that I'm eligible for the study. But I was still mired deep in demand avoidance at that time, and couldn't quite bring myself to follow through, and asked the clinicians at NIH to be put on standby until further notice.

A few days ago, I resumed contact with them, and got them caught up on my current status, over two phone calls. Today (Monday), a meeting will be held where new patients are evaluated for their suitability for the various studies. There are at least 4 studies that I'd likely be eligible for, all using functional MRI brain scans to evaluate medical treatments or measure brain response during certain states of mind. I should know very soon which, if any, studies I'm eligible for, and the potential time frame. All are in-patient studies, with a range of perhaps 5 weeks to 3 months of being in the facility 24/7. I'm fully prepared for this, as my current life status gives me essentially unlimited freedom to pursue being an aid to scientific research of the brain.

It will be interesting to see if my brain does, indeed have "dark spots", given that I was born two and a half weeks late, with my umbilical wrapped around my neck, and my skin blue. I spent the first 24 hours of life as a 9-pound baby in an incubator meant for preemies. So, the neonatal hypoxia may well have killed parts of my brain, and I'll be fascinated to see this damage visually, if it turns out to be true.

Darron

Wow, just wow!

Life has taken some very strange and wonderful turns...

After a series of unlikely events, I learned that "K" was indeed interested in meeting me, with each of us knowing essentially nothing about each other, other than we were both very tall.

So, on November 30th, just HOURS after starting a very interesting conversation with another Wrong Planet member about the possibility that we might connect in some meaningful way (you know who you are, and I will be writing more to you in our PM conversation very soon, I hope!), and while on a walk, I was told by a neighbor that K was receptive to me simply walking up and knocking on her door...

So, I dashed back to my parents' house, where I have been staying while visiting the East. I made myself presentable, and walked right back to K's house, and rang her doorbell. This was a rather surreal experience, having never before in my life having tried to make a connection "in real life", sans the initial filtering and preparatory communication that occurs in online dating.

When she answered the door, neither of us had ever laid eyes upon each other, and yet we very quickly developed a rapport that was astoundingly intense. Out first task was to compare stature, as one might assume under the circumstances (She was 6', 5" in her younger years, and is now 6', 4", while I'm an inch or so taller than her.).

She invited me in, and we spent the next 4 or 5 hours telling each other our life stories. Daily conversations since then have made us each realize that we connect, emotionally, on a level rarely if ever achieved before. Among many other spooky parallels in our lives, K has a non-verbal grandson, nearly age 4, named "Darren" (I'm Darron) who has a Level III ASD diagnosis. Upon hearing this from her, I revealed my ASD diagnosis, which she found astounding, given that her knowledge of Autism to that point was largely confined to more "obvious" presentations in children, it seems.

In the coming days, as we discussed the subject of Autism, she became more and more convinced that her life experience seems to indicate that she's quite possibly on the Spectrum, too, something that she had never before considered. Quite amazing!

A couple days into this new relationship, we both attended a dance here in the community, and for the first time in my life, I danced in public, with a partner. This was FAR easier and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. At a couple points, we were the only couple on the dance floor, in both fast and slow dances. And yet with perhaps 40-50 old folks there, most of whom were no doubt fixated on watching the oddly tall couple on the dance floor, I "felt" the presence of no one else, and my attention was entirely fixated on K. Quite an amazing, peaceful and joyful experience!

K's off at her daughter's townhouse now, helping out there with the grandkids, after Darren's Adenoid surgery of yesterday morning. We're both sick, too, with me just testing positive for COVID this morning, for the first time (I may have had it before). K's symptoms are the same as mine, and started just before mine. She's (knowingly) had COVID three times previously.

In other news, I have since been fully approved to participate in the clinical trial at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, and will be doing so from Mid March through Mid April. Apparently, I will be the SOLE participant in the trial, during this period, anyway. I will be living on campus there the whole time. The trial is "The Neurobiology of Suicide", and will involve multiple functional MRI scans of my brain, IV Ketamine infusions, sleep studies and interviews. This should be very interesting!

The photo below is from right after I did my first-ever at-home hair-coloring. I'll be 55 next week, and wanted to find out what it feels like to have the "gray be gone"...

Darron

Me and "K", and a neighbor, "E", who is 4', 8" tall, outside the local Moose club, just before we went in for chicken wings (and before I did the dye job on me ancient noggin...)

I'm back in Nevada, now, for three weeks, working on tying up some more of the many loose ends from 14+ years of life out here.

Then I'm heading back to Florida, to help K move, as her current rental house's landlord has turned out to be incompetent to a huge degree. Fortunately, she found another, larger, better, cheaper rental house 11 doors down the same street! And to top it off, she can start moving into the new place on Feb. 1st, and doesn't have to be out of the old one until Feb. 15th, so we have two weeks to make the short move. Hopefully, this will happen with as little stress to her as possible, as she's overwhelmed right now by what life has been throwing at her.

I very recently got an ADHD med prescription (Vyvanse) from my psychiatrist, and it's working wonders for my state of mind and functionality, so far! I sure wish I had known I had ADHD MANY decades ago, but I'm not going to indulge in that sort of dangerous "what if?" rumination. My 78-year-old mother also very recently got a Vyvanse prescription, and it is working similar wonders for her!