emergency ego boost

when i was in the fifth grade, my 17 year old cousin Betzi moved in to live with my family for a little over a year. i always looked up to her and thought she was the "COOLEST".

when i was in the eighth grade Betzi got married in Arizona and so my family flew out to stay with her for her wedding weekend. Her apartment was really cool and full of random little things here and there. and on her refrigerator was this little card that she had made.

on the outside it said "Emergency Ego Boost", and it had flames on it and had little things like "for emergency use only" and "call 911!" on it, so of course i lifted the flap and looked inside, and inside there was a heinous picture of Courtney Love and it made me laugh so hard!

whenever Betzi hit a wall, felt bad about herself, etc., she'd go over and lift the flap and say "Whew! at least I'm not Courtney Love!" ha!

so in the spirit of Betzi's emergency ego boost, i did something that made me feel better about everything: about the divorce, about the singleness, about the fact that there might be some decent men left in the world.

i made an ad and posted it anonymously on the "women seeking men" board.

the overall gist of the ad was that i was feeling down and wondering if there were any kind, funny, and romantic men left in the world. it was a challenge, if you will, for whatever "nice guys" finding themselves reading my ad, to click on it and send me a message telling me what they would do to cheer me up.

i posted it at about 10:00 pm, and by the next morning i had over 50 new messages waiting in my inbox.

what a serious pick-me-up. some of the men said that they were feeling the same way, some of them said that they'd make me laugh, some said they'd help me take my mind off of it by taking me out on the town, some men were spam-bots and sent randomly generated messages, some men included pictures (some were hot, some were not!), and some sent truly inspiring messages about how life is full of ups and downs and we've all just got to keep going.

i think i'll try to make a "best of" post with some of the best snippets from the messages, because clearly, there are still men out there, men that know how to treat a woman right. men who know how to warm my heart, even if i am just a stranger.