But when you get grown up enough to get that under your noodle, then you can make a new life. She recalls summer days at the house in West Hampton, when she would see the cars of her friends parked at a party to which she, the ill-fitting widow in a couples' world, had not been invited. The retired Gates says she found her best friends among fellow volunteers in civic and charitable causes. Now her address book is full of people who never met her husband. There are so many opportunities.
Volunteer work is more interesting.
This makes them wary and skittish, so even if you are desperate to get married never, never let it show. Gates says she received almost 1,000 letters when her book was first published in 1990. A FSU degree in accounting and a law degree from George Washington University lend credence to Gates' advice to sort out finances, check insurance coverage and negotiate attorney's fees after a divorce or the death of a spouse. But she tends to the personal as well. She urges women who live alone to have enough phones so they can crawl to one if they fall.