It was always true that most relationships were initiated via meetings at work or through friends. That was always my experience up to and including hooking up with Mrs Woof, I worked with her sister. What has changed since then is the advent of internet dating.

I initially regarded this as smacking of desperation but now I'm not so sure. My friend has recently split from his wife of 25 years, as they are both financially independent and their kids have all left home he has walked away relatively unscathed. He's now pursuing a healthy relationship with a nice lady criminal defence lawyer who is in a similar situation. She lives an hour's drive from him, close enough, but not too close. The point is, she is someone he would never have met in the normal way of things.....what's not to like?

I freely admit to being full of contradictions. What I mean by intimate, I don't necessarily mean sexual. I'm just too secretive to be in a typical relationship. I don't even want them to know what I am reading. Or what I ate. Where I am going. Or whatever. I'll share, but it has to be my choice.

Not really. My mother was akin to a Spartan. It was well known that my parents did not want to hear my problems. If I had problems and went to them, the response was always "get over it". I learned to keep to myself very well. They do love me and there are far worse parents out there, but they sure fucked up my ability to interact with people in anything but structured situations.

It has its advantages. I am not an emotional weakling. I am indifferent to my conditions. Totally self-reliant and independent. But it has left a lot of blank spots. I'm uncomfortable around people in settings that are not structured and they, sensing my discomfort, are uncomfortable around me. If I am just expected to listen, I do well. If I am expected to share things, I am at a loss, at best, and highly stressed at worst.

Every day I used to buy my coffee from this one store. I always had the exact amount ready. The guy always had the coffee when he saw me walk in. I liked it because that gave little time for anything other than a straight up business transaction. One day he asked how I was and may have remarked on the weather. I've never been back.

Thank you, sir. Good to be back. Hopefully, I can resume my position as Jim's water carrier without a hitch.

Be careful 007, my father after 32 years of marriage ran off with his PA. The mid-life crisis can strike at anytime and manifest itself in various forms.

Only yesterday, I bumped into an old colleague of mine, who told me of an Accountant we both knew who bought a Harley Davidson, grew his hair long and became a grizzled biker with a chinese girlfriend. I am not sure what the chinese girlfriend has to do with anything, but becomming a Harley Davidson biker in middle age, out of the blue, certainly does.