Posted inDating chemistry Real deal or faux beau

Relationship’s fate turns on a single response

Our relationship hung on my response to one question in an IM. Depending on how I responded, I would either end the highly passionate but sometimes frustrating relationship or would save it from sudden death and allow us to continue to explore our connection.

It reminded me of the movie “Sliding Doors,” staring Gwyneth Paltrow. In it we see how her character’s life unfolds both if she catches the subway train home one day and if she does not. Such a seemingly inconsequential event, but the major repercussions are shown in how her life progresses depending on whether she makes it back to her apartment and catches her lover with another woman or not.

Such was a turning point for me with how I answered his question. However, unlike Paltrow’s character, I was clear how one answer would play out, but not certain how the opposite answer would.

Posted inAre you ready for Mr. Great? Dating after 40 Dating chemistry

Sometimes it’s about you; sometimes it’s not

In dating, it’s easy to take things personally if there are problems or hiccups. Sometimes the guy you’re seeing does or says something that is a reflection of his attitude toward you, and you take offense.

But often his behavior has nothing to do with you. It’s harder to realize this when he attributes positive feelings to you that would be impossible to come by after only a meeting or two.

I learned this when a man I went out with once told me he loved me at the end of the date. It happened again yesterday.

Posted inDating after 40 Dating chemistry

Truth in dating

If you’ve dated more than a few men who you learned didn’t exactly live up to the hype they promised, you’ll appreciate this video. It’s a fun parody of the hip-hop love songs extolling the guy’s sexual prowess.

But what if one were to be this honest when dating? Admitting one’s inexperience, ineptitude and insecurities — especially early on when you are really wanting to impress your date? It would be somewhere between sad and refreshing, depending on how it was delivered.

Posted inDating after 40 Dating chemistry First-rate first dates

Clothes make the man

Nearly eighteen months ago a man sent me an email on a dating site where I wasn’t a member. Although he was in the right geographic, age and height range, his pictures showed an unsmiling, sunglasses-wearing, goatee-sporting man in a sports-team T-shirt holding up a newspaper with an unreadable headline. Huh? This is the best picture the man thought represented him to his future match?

Since I wasn’t a member of the site, I couldn’t read his email, but was allowed to send a site-generated “No thank you” response.

A year later he showed up on another site where I could see he’d looked at my profile several times. After several months of seeing his picture appear in my “who’s seen you list” I became curious. He’d posted a few more pictures on this site and he looked less off-putting than he did in the one pic on the previous site.

Posted inCheck him out before going out Dating after 40 Dating chemistry

Assuming privileges

When you talk to a potential suitor regularly for more than a few weeks before meeting, a false sense of intimacy can develop. In flirty or soul-baring emails and/or phone conversations, you can begin to feel a budding emotional connection to the other.

Then when you do meet, there is an odd closeness. You feel you know someone who you’ve not met — essentially a stranger. There is a tendency to fast-forward to physical affection that would have taken longer (usually) to develop if you’d had less pre-meeting phone time.

You may have developed a fondness for the person through what and how he shared. So when he takes your hand in his, it seems an abnormal mix of comfort and newness. You both are more comfortable touching during this first meeting than you would be on a first date with someone you hadn’t talked to a lot before meeting.

Unfortunately, I’ve found this unnatural familiarity leads to behaviors that assume privileges too soon. Strong relationships are forged over time, not jumped into quickly.

Posted inAssessing your assets Dating after 40 Dating chemistry

Is he willing to be vulnerable?

Women typically say they want a guy who is willing to be vulnerable with them, and with whom they can be the same. I’ve dated some men for months who never shared a vulnerable thought, even if I asked about his hopes, fears, dreams and regrets. Nothing.

So I was pleased that a man I’ve been talking to for 3 weeks, but we haven’t yet met, was comfortable enough to cry on the phone with me. The circumstances were extenuating: his mother had just died, it was the day before the funeral, none of his siblings would help with the funeral in any way so everything fell on him. He was stressed over this, grief stricken, getting pressure from his job to return to work. Anyone would have cracked at this — or even less.

Posted inDating after 40 Dating chemistry Multidating responsibly

My boyfriend, whom I haven’t met

fog manA man has been wooing me the last 6 weeks, first via email while I was abroad, then during daily phone calls, emails and/or text messages.

We haven’t met, however, because 3 days after I returned home, he was called to his dying mother’s side 2000 miles away. While the doctors told him she only had a few days to live, she lived two weeks, only passing the other day. This week he’s finishing her burial plans and awaiting the rest of the family’s arrival for her funeral next weekend.

Posted inDating after 40 Dating chemistry First-rate first dates

Playgirl glory

It took five months of occasional email exchanges to finally meet. It was worth the wait.

Why so long? He had been traveling the world for a non-profit project he founded. He was in the States infrequently during the past year, and even more rarely at his home in my area.

As part of getting to know each other, he sent me a link to his project’s Web site where I learned more about him. Armed with his unique full name, it was easy to Google him.

PlaygirlThrough this sleuthing I uncovered that he had been not only a Marine fighter pilot — but also a Playgirl “Real Man of the Month!” Granted, that was nearly three decades ago. During our first phone conversation, I commented on his Web page. He said laughingly, “If you get me drunk enough I’ll tell you some stories that I couldn’t put on the page.”

“Will that include the Playgirl story?” I asked playfully.

Posted inDating after 40 Dating chemistry First-rate first dates

“I’m a nerd!”

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So said the professor with a Ph.D. and several masters degrees. My Google search revealed a page (not written by him) that called him “a famed professor” in his area of study. Other sites also lauded him. So I thought perhaps he was being modest when saying he was a nerd as he pursued me by sweet, thoughtful emails and phone calls.

His initial email said he was from out of state — 2000 miles away — but was planning to relocate to my area. I am a sucker for a man with good writing skills, so I responded and soon a vigorous email and phone conversation was launched.

UrkelWhen I met him a week after his first email, I saw that he was telling the truth. Can you imagine a 56-year-old Steve Urkel? I’m afraid the similarities were scary. Instead of hiked-up pants, he wore an ill-fitting patterned jacket with clashing shirt. His hunched shoulders suggested a form of osteoporosis or some other back malady. But as I stood straighter, so did he, so it seemed more habit than affliction.

He had braces, which seemed to be helping pull in his buck teeth and closing the gap of several missing ones. This also explained, in part, his lisp. His amblyopia, or lazy eye, kept me guessing which eye to address.