Relationships (cont'd)

Living on my own in the big city...OK, Yellowknife isn't that big, but this was a new experience for me. I was very busy with work at the Travel Agency as well as my contract with the hospital and I settled into a bit of a work rut with the odd golf game thrown in during the summer. I dated a couple of times locally but it scared me because I felt that women in my age group were looking for some kind of committed relationship and anyone who knows me, knows that committment is not something that comes easily. Actually, I shouldn't say that but it wasn't quite time to settle into another relationship at this stage.

OK, I'm not going to get into any gory details (after all, children may read this one day) but since I travelled a fair amount, my thought process at the time was that it would be nice to meet and get to know women that did not live in YK - that way I could enjoy their company and still be at a safe distance. I was home alone many evenings and up late doing medical travel issues and this is where I discovered the internet and the doors that it could open for me. I listed a bio on a "Personal" site in Edmonton and 'lo and behold, I actually was contacted by a few women. I met some of them in person over the next little while, and I found out that there were many other lonely people out there just like me. They were just looking for someone to spend time with, possibly start a relationship and most of them were very nice good people. I started to feel pretty good about myself as I had experienced grave doubts about how I would react or handle myself in any kind of new relationship. It had been a long time as I had been alone for many years... even when Benj was with me the last ten years or so lacked any form of intimacy and I think that finding out that I could actually go out on a date and be able to handle whatever consequences arose from this gave my ego and confidence a great boost. I was having fun, I was free, and I was safe.

One day I received an email from a lady in Minnesota... ahhh.. Minnesota - home of such wonderful blond women of Scandinavian decent (I was to find out later that women from Minnesota would be my achilles heel when it came to relationships *grin*). Cheryl had come across my bio somehow and out of the blue, contacted me. We hit it off right away and really enjoyed the initial online relationship. We exchanged photos, we talked on the phone, and we eventually met in person. Everything seemed to click and after a year or so which included several trips to Minnesota, she came up to YK to live with me. I realized fairly quickly that although I felt I was really ready for a committed relationship, that either I wasn't ready, or it was wrong (probably a combination of both). As I stated above, there are no gory details to be hashed and rehashed other than the fact that a weak relationship got much weaker with the stresses of running a business together that was doomed to fail. Reflections, our restaurant/gift shop/hell hole would eventually break us financially and affect my physical and mental health. Our relationship ended at my choice. It was the first time that I can remember where I actually had the balls to address an extremely personal and tense situation and in this case, force the issue of seperation. I am not proud of myself over my relationship with Cheryl although I feel that we both grew from it and although she hates me, she is probably much stronger as a result of the short time we had together.

Anyways, it was time to cool my jets and park the relationship train for a while... or so I thought!