Gayliene Omary - Revving Up the Party Bus

 

 

All right, I'm going to start with a little bit of background. I am a 56-year-old divorced mother of two adult children. I was married for nine years, but I have been divorced for 27 years. I built a little wall around my heart using the mantra, “You have to be a damn good husband to be better than no husband at all.” [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause].

 

So, fast forward through a very happy life. My youngest, my son, is graduating high school, going off to college. He is now off to college. I am in a funk for about two years. Not really functioning, yet functioning. I had to get myself out of it. So, I decided it was time for mama to party. [audience laughter]

 

I had to get the party bus going though. It's a little tough, because I'm comfortable, yet I'm lonely. So, I fill out an online profile for a dating website, send it off to the ether with a little bit of hope, but very little expectation. This is where the story begins. I'm contacted by Michael, and he pretty much immediately asks me for my email address.

 

Now, okay, I know what's going on. I have watched Dr Phil. I have seen many an episode of him showing women how they are not real and what happened. So, I know what to look for. So, I send him or I give him my email address. We email back and forth for about a week. He's a great communicator. And then, he asks for my phone number. So, I'm like, “Mm, Dr. Phil.” So, I give him my Google voice phone number. Smart, right? 

 

Yeah. So, we start now a daily routine of texting and phone calls no longer than 20 minutes conversations. You know what? His words are kind and they're complimentary. My little walls are breaking down. We share music on Spotify. I begin to write poetry about how I'm feeling, how he's making me feel and I'm sharing it with him.

 

We do this for about a couple of months. And then, it's around Christmas time, and my children and I are going to Panama for the holidays. So, I tell him, “Okay, we can't talk for like 10 days, but when I come back, we'll talk again.” He is insistent that we speak, even though while I'm on vacation with my kids. So, my kids notice I'm texting. They see me step away to take a phone call. Very unusual for me. So, I have to tell them what's going on.

 

After I tell them, I see concern in their face, [chuckles] but I also see hope because they don't want me to be alone. So, they ask questions, “Well, why don't you guys’ FaceTime?” And I'm like, “You know, I'm old school. He's old school.” I honestly didn't even think about it. They want to see his Facebook page, his Instagram. He doesn't do social media. So, then, I announced to my children that in January, because Michael's in Paris, France, working, that in January I'm going to go and see him in person, and it's all by myself. This is when they stage an intervention. [audience laughter]

 

Our last dinner in Panama, they share their concerns. Lovingly, they show me on the internet all the statistic of the women getting killed in Europe, visiting, seeing men for the first time. They share a website that has 12 points to let you know if you're being catfished. I met 11 of the 12. [laughter] I felt so stupid in front of my children. They were the wise ones and I was the fool. So, they suggested, “Okay, let's see if he's for real. Ask him to send you a picture with a newspaper, and that would show me where he's at and a date.” So, I ask him. He goes absolutely ballistic. How could I not trust him? I took his phone number out of my phone. I deleted all the photos that I had. I put his name up to the website as a fraud, and I deleted my Michael playlist on my Spotify. 

 

But I kept the poetry, because if nothing else, this experience showed me that I could feel love again, that I could give love and that this party bus isn't broken. Thank you.