I needed to refer to my old blog post “Mea Culpa” for a quote, but when I looked it up, it turns out I never published it. The post titled “Cover Me” announced “Mea Culpa” for the following week, but I chickened out posting it. It seems so silly now, so I will post it along with a couple of other apologies:

My big mea culpa:

I was never on dating sites. I mean, my profile was on dating sites, and sometimes I scrolled through pictures and read some conversations, but it was never me messaging, swiping or choosing. Never once. I was working with a marketing team and doing research for my book, and they were posing as me, messaging as me, talking as me. They conferred with me daily, providing updates and potential matches. They posed as me on Tinder, Match, eHarmony, Hinge, Silver Singles, Bumble and OK Cupid.

I didn’t do it for meanness. We were testing the algorithms and methodology behind connecting with potential matches on dating sites. What men want, how they speak, how women can catch a man’s attention, what pictures they like, what responses make them interested. You get the idea. If you’ve been on dating sites, you know it’s more of a silly algorithm than anything you take seriously.

The main question we were trying to answer:

Can an attractive, accomplished woman find the same kind of man on a dating site?

I can’t speak for other women, but our final findings ended with a resounding:

NO.

So there it is. My Mea Gulpa. Sorry. Any man who ever thought he was talking to me was talking to a hired marketing professional who was either directed to turn a guy off or turn him on. I got a lot of good material.

Keep in mind that once I gave my team approval to give a guy my phone number (which was RARE), then of course it was me after that. But it was never me on the dating sites. Not once.

A journalist has to do what she has to do, and it’s going to be a great piece one day for the right outlet, and a great chapter in my book. And I obviously would never use real names. I barely remember their names, anyway.

Apology to Expedia:

I blasted them in my blog, in email and over the phone because I thought they were scamming me and not letting me use my flight credits. I had it wrong. I just booked my first-class flights to and from Tampa, and it cost me nothing. And since I am speaking at a conference, my hotel, food and beverages are complimentary, as is airport transportation. So my entire spring break will be free. Sorry I doubted you Expedia, but remember that you still owe me for those unused Hawaiian Airlines credits.

Apology to AT&T:

I hope no woman reading this ever becomes a widow and has to go through what I have gone through getting my late husband taken off of utility bills, cable bills, and cellular phone plans. It has almost been FIVE YEARS, and I think I am officially done.

I hope.

AT&T tortured me the most and the longest. You’ve probably read the posts. It took dozens of trips, appointments and phone calls to set it straight. I begged, pleaded, cried, yelled, argued, to get it set straight. I wrote letters to local, national, and corporate executives, complaining. And it took my local AT&T, just in the next town over, to finally set it straight. Thank you Larry. Our family phone bill is done and settled and figured out.

The apology is for the years of accusations- when you are a widow society does its best to screw you over, in every way. You don’t have anyone to fight for you, so you must fight for yourself. People think you will eventually tire of the game, and give in.

It is tiring, indeed. But Hell hath no fury like a widow scorned.