An Official Goodbye by Tony Mayer

Hello, everyone. For those who don't know me, I'm the Founder of Widow / Widower Dating.

I created WWD on 02 Aug 2007. Since then there have been hundreds of thousands of success stories.

I ran WWD for 14.5 years until I met the new owner on WWD, and I passed it on to her (Bonnie Drowningindoghair) a little over a year ago.

Bonnie and I are engaged, and I moved 1,500+ miles from TX to NY to be with her, and I'm happier now than I have been in a very long time. Possibly, happier than I have ever been.

So, why did I leave WWD? Well, after 15.5 years and putting in well over 700,000 (actual working) hours, I felt it was time that I retired completely, and left things in the very capable hands of Bonnie and her fantastic Admins and Moderators. I guess you get burned out on pretty much anything eventually...

Bonnie has done an amazing job and I'm very proud of both her and WWD.

I didn't say goodbye when I left WWD, so I decided to write this blog entry to do just that. I will miss you, folks! Anyone who enjoys a funny meme that almost crosses the line (hopefully without crossing it) is more than welcome to send me a friend request! (But, please understand that the WWD rules are for WWD, and have absolutely nothing to do with my personal timeline. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074094420494 If you are super easily offended, friending me may not be the best idea...) LOL

I will also write a little about the history and origins of WWD. Continue reading for that.

I lost my late wife, Denise on 30 May 2007. I was completely devastated, and in a surreal "fog", so, being a geek and a developer, I immediately turned to the Internet to find help.

The very first thing I found was a great grief support organization called Widownet. I'm not sure if they are still around, but to say that they were an incredible resource for me would be quite an understatement.

There were many members there who had been there for over a year, and I have to assume that they wanted to find something with a little less depressing raw grief. Grief support groups are an absolute Godsend when you need them, but grief is a tragic event that we were unwillingly thrown into. You absolutely have to deal with your grief, but it's not a good place to hang the remainder of your life on...

The topic of online dating came up, and the members were all saying that they wished there was a free dating organization exclusively for widowed people. The Moderators of the group were some of the people who said that. I asked them if it would be okay for me to post that I desperately needed something to keep me busy at the time and that I would create what they wanted.

The Moderators told me, "Yes, feel free to post in the group about it", so I did. My inbox (this was a Yahoo Group/email community) was flooded when I asked if anyone would be interested. I created the very first part of WWD then. It was exactly what Widownet (the part I was a member of anyway) was; a Yahoo Group. 1,500 members joined immediately, and we have grown exponentially since then. We had our first 30 success stories in the first 45 days of our existence.

So, I guess you could say (even though we have no official affiliation with the great Widownet Organization), we are still an unofficial spin-off.

As I said above, WWD started with a Yahoo Group. I created a chat for us on PalTalk and after realizing that PalTalk was definitely not the best option for several reasons, I created a simple JAVA chat that was completely private and only members had access to it. PalTalk was really bad (at the time at least) about knocking members out of the chat for no reason at all. There was also no way to make it private for just members, so it had to be "policed" 24/7. Random people would show up and say horrible things such as making fun of widowed people. Some even popped into the room and revealed their private parts in a video. Sadly, most members preferred the "bling" and flashy features of PalTalk over the safety of the JAVA chat I had created...

Next, I created an actual dating site with members' dating profiles. This was on a free web host, and the requirements were that you had to log in at least once every three months. I overlooked doing this and lost thousands of dating profiles. After losing the dating website, I thought it over, and decided, "Why rebuild the wheel?". Facebook already has profiles, and dating posts could be made within the completely private (to all but members) groups.

Just a side note, but this was years before Facebook dating existed. That's when I set out to create a global network of groups by location including Countries, States/ Provinces, and Cities. We now have hundreds of groups, and if your City group doesn't already exist, there is a place in the Featured posts for you to list it for future creation.

We now have unlimited group chats hosted on the MeWe social network, the (now extinct) Yahoo Group has been replaced by a Google Group, we have a website and blog (obviously), and for anyone who does still need a grief support group, I created one. It's called Rising From the Ashes, and can be found where everything else about WWD can be found; the Featured posts that all members agreed to read upon joining.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of reading the Featured posts. They will prevent you from getting in trouble, explain how to date here, and much more.

Well, I guess that's about it. I just wanted to say my goodbye to everyone, and commend Bonnie on the awesome job that she has done of turning the "three-ring circus" that I allowed WWD to become into the great dating organization that it is now, and what I had always envisioned it as being.

I may not be around encouraging you with my "Great dating post!" comment anymore, but you keep making those posts on a regular basis! Dating takes a lot of patience regardless of what venue you are on. It doesn't happen overnight, but those of you who don't give up will eventually find your new love!

May God bless you all richly, and may you find peace and joy again by finding the next love of your life here on Widow / Widower Dating!