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Published by Nancy Gelinas at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Nancy Gelinas

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to

Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

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This is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One – Uh oh!

Chapter Two – The Rogue

Chapter Three – The Chado

Chapter Four – No One in Particular

Chapter Five – What You Fall For

Chapter Six – The Static Cling

Chapter Seven – Repeat

Chapter Eight – The Homebody

Chapter Nine – Mr. Right

Chapter Ten – Online Lines

Chapter Eleven – The Do's and Don'ts

Chapter Twelve – Cat and Mouse

Chapter Thirteen – Summer Love

Chapter Fourteen – Me, Myself and My Self-Respect

Chapter Fifteen – Island Warfare – Bob

Chapter Sixteen – Better Late...

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Sometimes I'd rather be wrong because being right seems to take too long. That was my way of thinking for ten years. Can you imagine a decade of not knowing whether you're coming or going? A decade of trying to convince yourself that you're not lonely when in reality, you're lonelier than a flea without a dog?

Maybe that's not the best way to describe wanting a man's touch. And by that, I mean the touch of a man who actually looks at you with more than lust in his eyes.

Lord knows I haven't lived like a nun over the last decade but even that gets old after a while. No matter if the man knows what he's doing, if he's just another means to an end, is it really worth anything in the end? Well, you can answer that for yourselves, but for me, it's not enough anymore. I doubt it ever was, but we live and we learn.

Anyone that cares about you will tell you that you have to kiss a few toads before you can get to the prince. Or at least get to the not-so-bad frog. At some points though, I've thought of settling for the toad itself.

It seemed simple enough all along. All I was ever asking for was one man. Just one man that can hold a special place in my heart, one that wants to be there. One that can be open to love.

I often wonder why men and women are attracted to one another at all. With all of the complications, complexities and challenges that dating involves. But really, ladies and gentlemen, what exactly is, dating?

One thing I thought I knew for certain was that fiction and romance went hand in hand. After all, isn't that mostly what sells these days? Fiction romance novels? Or movies?

The genre is closely linked to comedy, in my opinion, because it more closely describes the reality of romance.

Ask anyone around you, and they'll all give you very different opinions of what romance is to each of them because it is different to each of them.

I started out my adult life a firm believer that I would find my prince charming and that I would be the one to complete his life and he would complete mine.

Through my twenties however, I learned that in order to find such a prince, you must believe, and I mean really believe, that you are a princess!

You may look like the green Fiona herself, but you have to acknowledge your own worth before you can be complete at all and only once you've managed to do that, will you appreciate what someone else has to offer you.

There's no such thing as completing another person, but there is such a thing as complementing someone.

Maybe it's also just managing to live with another person and not feeling so annoyed you keep wanting to cause them bodily harm.

Now, in my young thirties, I've started to think that maybe being wrong is alright. I mean, wouldn't you rather be wrong if being right took you thirty years? It all depends on the day, and where I am in life. The answers are the same for all of us. At different times, in different places.

So where are you, you might ask. Well, I'm there. You know, there. That mystical place that everyone describes differently. That place where romance and reality actually do go hand in hand. That place where my prince should be – and although he may be balding, or growing rounder in the middle, I'm hopeful that he'll take notice of me soon.

Preferably in this lifetime please and thank you!

You see, I don't care about the big house and the dollars or even the ever after. All I care about is the the now because listen, it's all we are sure we have, people!

Our past is over for a reason, and our future has yet to be shaped. Some people go on as though they'll live forever, and because of that, they fear the most beautiful emotion that ever existed.

Love.

Here's hoping that we'll find one another soon. Maybe together we can build some kind of ladder and get above it all. It'll be up to us whether our time together is a happy one.

As long as my parachute opens, all should be well for a very long time.

Maybe even for the ever after.

Chapter One – Uh oh!

Key: System Requirement

I don't really remember how it was I heard about it. I think it was from my friend Joel, probably because I'd said I was becoming a tad frustrated about being single.

He had been with the same girl for nearly eleven years and thought himself content. Two children and new employment, I thought, there's no way Joe would steer me wrong because he's my best friend.

Well I'm glad for the sake of our life long friendship that he didn't steer me wrong because I'm conscious that I did that on my very own, like a big girl.

And even wronger than that my friends!

I came home that evening, after having our regular three pots of coffee and set to making a profile for the online dating site he said was all the rage. There were no delusions on my part for what to expect but I'll admit that the world of multiple – and by that I mean thousands, –of users was a bit of a shock to my good-girl sensibilities.

I'd come from a different world it seemed and I don't mean outer space folks, I mean that it was like an entirely different world because back then, men were men and actually spoke to ladies they were interested in.

My husband had actually asked me out, can you imagine that? And although he has turned out to be my ex-husband, I'd still give anything – right arm included – to be back in that time when men had, um, enough, um, guts, to talk to women.

They took the lead and the purpose was a relationship. Something that had potential for marriage, family, and nothing less.

These days, it's become a joke. The importance doesn't lie in the quality of the relationships you have, it lies in the number of relationships you manage to have.

Actually, let me rephrase that, crudely, but in the real terms that sadly, most of us know, – it's not the quality of what you could have with someone, but the quantity of people you can meet and sleep with. But more on that later.

So here I was, sitting at the computer desk and clicking that mouse like the house was on fire. I was being asked to answer questions that I had no clue could ever make a difference in the initial dating life I was hoping to get to, but then again, what did I know?

At this point, I'd been single for longer than some people stay married so I answered the questions the best I could.

Do I want my kids to speak English? That was one of the questions. Now if any of you know what that has to do with anything, please enlighten me because it doesn't strike me as having much, if any importance on my 'wannabe dating radar.'

Oh and one can't forget whether I'd want to spend a holiday backpacking in another country. Now that, says something about me, doesn't it?

Of course, the reality is bleak and even morbid at times but shouldn't they ask questions that have some bearing on regular people and daily life?

You see, if I could afford to do such a thing, as backpacking in a foreign country and the like, I would surely not be creating a profile on a free dating site. I would have bought a husband! Alright I'm kidding, BUT, I suppose that I could go to Italy, and meet some guy named Umberto, or maybe Sergio, Antonio, or hell, all three of them. But my reality is that between two jobs and two children, the idea of backpacking in a foreign country is indeed, rather foreign!

I will admit, my friends, that I was almost discouraged from activating my account because of the process.

I didn't know what to expect but it certainly wasn't questions like the ones I had to answer. I don't understand how they come up with them, or how they figure them into their results but they managed to use my answers to slip me into a slot they believed I fit into.

Along with anyone who answered the questions similarly – even though their answers may have been given without much thought.

It's rather eerie to be classified like that. The intimidation started from the first page, from the first results.

I sat there for a minute, after submitting my answers, and lo and behold, this magical website generated a compelling take on what I was really looking for. Which was, apparently something I hadn't figured out for myself.

It turns out that I had no clue what I wanted, but don't feel badly for me, my fancy computer let me in on it, in detail.

Now, keep in mind that I come from a rather small town, and when I was asked for my postal code, I was a little put off. But alright, they need to know whereabouts I am, otherwise how will they match me up according to location, right? And whether I'm divorced or not, the fact is that I am single and I don't care to remember the divorce itself so I selected single.

Right or wrong?

Do you have children? What if I would prefer not to say that – especially online?

Do you do drugs? I'd be surprised if someone actually selected yes to that question, because whether they're into the hard stuff or not, most people, I have learned, will not state such a thing on their profile. So do you do drugs? No. Simple fact is that I don't do drugs, and I can get drunk from drinking one or two beers so I'm not very practised on those things.

I'm glad of it too.

Education. That's an interesting one. I feel that people can have intelligence on a multitude of levels. Someone may have stopped going to school in grade four but be very smart, whereas someone else may have gone to university, and be as dumb as a stump.

It all depends.

But I see the word education and next to it, it says: If high school, N/A will show as your education level.

So this means that is someone went to high school, graduated