Debbie Weiss is a former attorney who earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2020. A native of the Bay Area, she turned to writing after George, her husband and partner of more than three decades, died of cancer in April 2013, and she found herself single and living alone for the first time in her life. Weiss’s essays have been published in The New York Times‘s “Modern Love” column, HuffPost, Woman’s Day, Good Housekeeping, Elle Décor, and Reader’s Digest, among other publications. Her award-winning blog, TheHungoverWidow.com, dispenses empathy and advice on grief and dating after loss. She lives in Benicia, CA.

Beginning with Debbie Weiss’s high school prom, George was her one and only. Then, when Debbie was fifty years old, George died of cancer—and she was forced to begin a new chapter.

After George’s death, Debbie first binge-watched Weeds and drank Manhattans; then she became a dating monster. First she went for quality—J-Date, the premier Jewish site—which led to an intense relationship with a much older, rich artist. When that flamed out, however, she went for quantity, joining four different dating sites and averaging two dates a day, several days a week, over a period of months. At one point she was dating four guys at once: a cowboy, a chef, an architect, and a liberal politician who whined about wanting “emotional intimacy” but wouldn’t spend Thanksgiving with her because he didn’t want his parents to know they’d met online. Debbie had gone from respectable widow to the kind of girl you do in your Trans Am but don’t take to the prom—and she suddenly realized she didn’t want to be that girl.

So Debbie went offline and finally went through the grieving process, forgiving herself for George’s death and taking the small steps of an anxious person who needs to move forward. In the process, she learned how to be alone—and became a more confident, centered, authentic version of herself.