A strange turn of events this week.

A week ago, I signed up for a new dating site recommended by one of the women on my Yahoo Group, Coming Out as a Married Lesbian or Bisexual.   As I mentioned in a previous post, the Personals have ceased over this past year to be a productive means of meeting other bisexual women, and I’ve blamed that on my “over-the-hill” age of 52.  I’m sure that it puts me out of the age demographics of the folks who are cruising the sites.  50 is about the maximum age you’ll see listed as a search parameter unless the person doing the looking is 50 or older herself, and there are few of those in relation to the 18-40 year olds on these dating sites.

Anyhow, if it’s free to post a profile on a site, what’s the harm in trying?  You never know when someone interesting might come along and strike up a conversation!

Probably within 24 hours of posting my profile, I received a response from a local woman.  During the course of exchanging a few emails over the next several days, it came to light that she was at that BECAUSE conference last weekend.   Due to that commonality, I shared with her what had happened at the conference that Friday evening which resulted in my not returning for the full day of the conference on Saturday.  I gave her the link to this blog so she could read what I had written about it.

Along with having a traumatic time dealing with the conference, I also had misgivings about getting involved with activities that the Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP) here in the BiCities hosts for fear of who I would end up in the same room with.   My new acquaintance suggested that we go together to ”Chic Chat,” the girls-only night of food, beverage and conversation held at a coffee cafe close to the University of Minnesota campus on the first Saturday of the month.  With a companion for the evening, I felt comfortable giving it a whirl and agreed to go.

I had a very nice evening at the cafe.  There were 10-12 women there for Chic Chat.  The young woman sitting at the next table was also attending her first Chic Chat after being at the BECAUSE conference last weekend and we found we had our professional background in common.  Suddenly, acronyms such as BSL3, DNA, HIV, FDA, PCR and other phrases unique to our laboratory professions were flying back and forth.  I stopped at one point and laughed.  “You know, we’re talking a foreign language to the other guests here tonight!” I said. 

And I found out that BOP has a beading morning coming up on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks from now.  Yes, indeed, I’m thinking about going to that!  What could be better than a fellowship of bisexual women who like beads?  Not much, I’m thinking!  I’m on it!

My downfall of the evening, however, was not sticking to decaf coffee like I told myself I was going to before I left.  I don’t typically drink any caffeinated beverages after 9:30 in the morning on weekdays; a little later in the morning on weekends.  I’ve never been a coffee, tea or soft drink imbiber later in the day unless it’s decaffeinated.  I know what it does to me: I’ll be up all night!

I did not heed that advice and had a tall raspberry mocha latte or something like that last evening.  I got home about 10:30, completely wide awake.  At 1:30 when I went to bed, I was still completely wide awake.  Dave woke up when I came to bed and we talked.  He was awake and I was awake, and it was 2:30 at least before I managed to fall into a fitful sleep.  I slept off and on until about 9:00 this morning and then got up.  I am still tired and have a vague headache.  I can hold my liquor but I can’t hold my caffeine!

I’m pleased that the supportive circumstances came together for me to give BOP another try.  Fate has been kind to me this week!