I got out of a 17 year marriage last year so I'm really not good at the whole dating thing.

My sister has this friend, we'll call her Stacey.

About 25 years ago I worked registration in the ER of my tribe's main hospital. I worked weekends, 12 hour shifts, 8pm to 8am.

One of my duties was doing the census at midnight. I had to call all the wards and get a headcount.

Stacey worked the desk at one of the wards. She had a really friendly voice and a pretty sexy one, if I'm being honest.

We got friendly on the phone, but not really flirting. I smoked at the time so one night she said she was going out to the front of the ER because there was a bench and ashtray there and I finally got to meet her in person on my break. .

Stacey is a few years older than me, I'd say probably 5 or 6. She's, in her words, a pothead from the 70s. A hippy chick, which is fine by me, although I didn't know about the hippy chick/pothead thing at the time.

We would go smoke together occasionally on our break and I really enjoyed our conversations.

Fast forward 25 years, and Stacey is good friends with my sister and even comes to my family's Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner because she doesn't really have family around here and we've kind of adopted her. .

She friended me on Facebook a while back and we occasionally chat on messenger.

I would like to ask her if she would like to go out to dinner with me sometime, but I don't know if I should just blurt it out or what. My divorce still stings a little and I'm afraid of rejection.

Should I try to gently steer the conversation in that direction? I don't want to be manipulative.

Update

Well, things took a turn for the better. I have a medical Marijuana card and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to ask if she smokes weed. That's when she confirmed that she also has an mmj card and filled me in on the hippy chick thing.

We've been chatting back and forth about it and she said I should check out this place in Dallas that has really nice glass.

I told her I'd love to but i don't really feel comfortable going alone.

Yeah, yeah, I did a little fishing..

Her reply was 'I'll go with ya!".

Unfortunately I'm in the middle of moving into my little cabin, so it will have to wait a little bit

Shes cool with that and I'm sitting here with a smile on my face as I type this.