1. Decision to divorce/death of a spouse

2. Nausea, crying, PTSD and Xanax

3. Loss of identity (and possibly your home, half your assets, friends, lifestyle, dreams and plans)

4. Grieve

5. Heal

6. Think about what to do next

7. Notice that a lot of time has gone by

8. Decide to search for new partner

9. Realize you’re old and wonder where the hell are you going to find a new partner

10. Check out online dating sites

11. Realize there are a million sites, browse for hours, get tired, close laptop and go to bed

12. Go on dating sites again and decide to do the free trial

13. Realize you have to put your age and you don’t want to put your age

14. Realize that you have to post a photo and write a profile, just to browse on the site

15. Search your photos and realize you’re not in any of them

16. Search your photos and realize you only have ones with your spouse

17. Search your photos and realize you only have ones from 5 years ago

18. Close laptop and go to bed

19. Try to crop spouse out of photos so you can use one of them

20. Take a selfie, decide you look awful and try another one

21. Delete both selfies and try to figure out how to get some good photos of yourself

22. Ask friends if they have any pics of you/ask friend to take pics of you

23. Feel like an idiot

24. Stare at blank screen for 20 minutes where it says “tell us about yourself”

25. Close laptop and go to bed

26. Sweat bullets trying to figure out what to say about yourself

27. Be very proud when you finally have something written

28. Realize that next you must answer questions about who you’re looking for

29. Close laptop and go to bed

30. Answer some questions about who you’re looking for and finally get access to the site

31. Realize what you wrote sounds exactly like what everyone else wrote

32. See a bunch of faces of old people you don’t think you’d like

33. Read some profiles

34. Realize 3 hours have gone by while you’re doing this

35. CL & GTB

36. Check dating site and see that there are some messages

37. Get excited

38. Read them, look at their pics and profile and get discouraged

39. Decide to write to a person who looks and sounds interesting

40. Stare at the blinking cursor for a while, trying to figure out what to write

41. Write a message, delete it, start again, write another message, send it

42. Wait for reply

43. Wait some more

44. Notice that some people have “liked” you and wonder what that means

45. Notice that the site has selected some matches for you

46. Look at those options and get discouraged

47. Check to see if the person you sent a message to has responded yet

48. Realize they are not going to respond

49. Search some more

50. Find another interesting person, write to them

51. Wait a bunch more days and write to more people

52. Finally get an answer from one and message them back

53. Plan a phone call

54. Get nervous about what to say on the phone call

55. Talk on the phone and set up a date

56. Worry that you don’t remember how to act on a date

57. Close laptop and go to bed