My New Boyfriend

      It’s been nearly 8 years since I’ve had a ‘boyfriend’!! I use the term boyfriend loosely when it comes to my ex husband, because before we got married we were in a long distance relationship for a year. We never really dated and our relationship immediately turned into an engagement when we met in person. Ah!! OK, yes, now that I’ve said that out loud I see how everyone would think it was an arranged marriage. I totally set myself up on one. I’m a strong, independent woman who can arrange HER OWN MARRIAGE! How progressive of me.

I’m now a semi-professional, mostly broke, often hungover, happily divorced, sort-of-a-writer-person living in a world where Donald Trump is the fucking president. So a lot has changed since I’ve had a boyfriend (hereinafter referred to as “bf”, because lazy – and like… lawyer words)

      OK, enough about the 2010’s – we’re fast forwarding the whole marriage thing to where I was single again: my post-divorce year was a hamster wheel of fuckboys, ghostings, mediocre ‘drinks-but-no-food’ dates, and getting left on read. It was an emotional roller coaster of really high high’s and extreme low’s. It felt like a never-ending test that I couldn’t Ace no matter how many times I changed my strategy. It was a trial-and-error of how much of myself to reveal and with every failure, I became more insecure, more cynical, and lost a bit more of my sparkle… At least I gained incredible ninja-like skills of creeping people on social media and became a pro at understanding the anatomy of a fuckboy. If only the metaphorical running-endlessly-on-a-wheel also made me lose weight…

For over a year, I was stuck in the hellish loop of: dating –> telling my friends about him –> being royally disappointed at how awful men could be –> deleting my dating Apps –> feeling lonely –> re-downloading said Apps –> repeat.

      Then it happened!!! Like only 24 hours ago, but it HAPPENED. I’m happy to announce that I now identify as 50% of a couple.

      I met an incredible human being who I am comfortable being 100% myself around (Okay, I know you can smell the bullshit… we won’t know how comfortable I really am until I take my heels off a little too early at a Persian party, dancing all night to old school Iranian music, and drunkenly singing along to love songs at the top of my lungs. And if he miraculously finds that side of me charming, then the hungover-next-day-Toos might do the trick).

      The courting process between my bf and I took somewhere between 3 weeks to 6 months (depending on who you ask) and the foundation of our relationship was a weird mixture of:

 A charity event

Some wine and Cheese

A foreign movie

The Death of an incredibly well-known, A-lister celebrity (RIP Luke Perry)

      “Mom, my new bf is incredibly kind, and sweet, and understanding, and respectful!”  (P.S. my only goal while writing this post was to avoid being cheesy, but I clearly failed. Now it’s out there and you gotta deal with it. #SorryNotSorry)

      “Mhm… OK” – disinterested mom.

      “He’s also REALLY funny – like funnier than me!”

      Phew! My mom was waaaay more impressed by that. Now we just have to work on my mom’s pronunciation of his name – but we’re a strong family and will get through it together. Alternatively, she’ll just end up calling him by his initials because “that’s a thing that white people do anyway”.

      So here I am – on The Married Girl on Bumble’s first birthday: almost completely healed from the pain of my past life in ways I didn’t even know I needed to heal from. Here I am on an exciting new adventure that may or may not lead me down the path of my expectations. Here I am a year wiser, a year more confident, a year happier, and a whole year more grateful that my urge to write wasn’t just a phase. Oh and I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!!!!