Dating-over-40 advice by the Dating Goddess™
He is smart, funny, charming, good looking, worldly, educated, successful, a sharp dresser, good listener and conversationalist. He tells you what you long to hear. He is vulnerable with you and you with him. His kisses and caresses make you feel what you haven’t felt in a long, long time. He tells you how sexy and adorable you are, and how much he misses being with you.
You met through business, not online, so you know he’s not a player.
Yet there are things about him that on paper would be deal breakers.
I dated a sweet man who grew up in an African village. He came to the US at age 19 to go to school.
I loved hearing his stories of growing up in his village, living in mud huts, bathing in the nearby river, gathering water from a pond, making fire from sticks and moss, walking miles to sell eggs and chickens at the market, and other examples of a life I couldn’t imagine. He regaled me with his tribe’s welcome-to-manhood ceremony and other rites of passage.
The phrase “keeping it 100” comes from “keeping it 100% real,” meaning being 100% honest. It’s shorthand for no BS, don’t tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me the unvarnished truth. Don’t hold back.
I decided to try this with a man while we were exploring going from pals to more. His life is complicated right now, uncoupling from a long-term relationship. I wanted to understand his emotional state, goals and desires. I needed to determine if it made sense to become closer during this challenging time, or whether it would be best for all if we stayed pals and revisited becoming romantic after he was fully unencumbered.
A man may enter your life who does not hold the work title or financial status you are seeking. But he’s a good man. He is honest, has integrity, treats you respectfully, listens to you, and is accommodating to your desires.
The “what” is his profession. The “who” is his character, values and behavior.
It’s commonly said that women try to change their man into someone more to their ideal. Men, however, are afraid women will change, as they like what they have.
Not that a man can’t wish a woman was a better cook, was more punctual, neater, or had other habits he liked. But (generally) he won’t hound her, unlike women (generally).
My experience is men won’t tell you when they are fully accepting of who you are, warts and all.
India is so varied it is hard to make a general declaration about “India is ….” Parts were strikingly beautiful, sadly filthy, touching, wrenching, perfumed, stinky, funny, poignant, etc. Most countries have some variety, but India has extreme contrasts. And the volume of people makes the ends of the continuum pronounced.
Here are a few more experiences that stood out for me, along with some more pictures, not necessarily specific to the stories:
• Using your head
A woman in a beautiful saffron-colored sari, working on a construction site, held an inch-thick woven pad on her head. A co-worker then placed a 30-pound rock on it for her to carry to the masons.
• Camel corral
(The pics here are of the City Palace in Udaipur and the Floating Palace. The latter is on an island in the middle of Pichola Lake. Udaipur has about 500,000 residents.)
I entered the Kanika Herbal Beauty Parlour in Udaipur, India not knowing what to expect. It was a 6×10 room with a large mirror atop a counter with two chairs along one wall, several shelves crammed with unrecognizable beauty products, and a sink and bench along the third wall. The fourth wall is the glassed shop front.
The Taj Mahal is on the cover of a book about places you must visit before you die. And here I am in Agra, the city of the Taj.
Our group is to visit it at 10:00, but several gals went the previous day at sunrise and said it was magnificent at that time of the morning. So my roommate and another pal decided to go for it. We arose at 6:00 and hired a tuk-tuk to take us the 5-minute ride. We took off in the dark, down pot-holed alleyways with barely enough light to see the obstacles ahead of us. The driver takes us to the head of a passageway where a few people are walking. We try to get him to take us to the front of the Taj, but he refuses, and then we see a sign that vehicles aren’t allowed past that point. We set off on foot, lighted only by my small pocket flashlight.
Some random observations and stories about my trip.
Tuk-tuk’s eye view
We get around town in the 3-wheeled, motorcycle-engined “tuk-tuk” (pronounced “took-took”) — we surmise the name came from the ever-present horn tooting. The drivers get perilously close to trucks, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, buildings, and cows, but so far we’ve not seen any in an accident. We think they all invest in frequent brake jobs! At stops women beggars thrust their hands inside wanting money for their nearly naked babies.
I’ve sprinkled some tuk-tuk-eye’s view pics in today’s blog.
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Within a few weeks of my ex announcing he was leaving, these four words came to me while I was sleeping. I want to say they were in a dream, but they were so vivid and clear it was as if they were said by someone standing next to my bed.
While I was still in deep grief over the dissolution of my marriage, they gave me a perspective — even hope — that all would be fine once it was over.
On this New Year’s Day 4.5 years after my hearing them, they take on new meaning. Perhaps this year will be one of fresh starts and new beginnings for you, starting now.
I know it’s clichéd. Talking about New Year’s resolutions on New Year’s Eve. Ho hum. How original — not!
But I heard a BBC World Service report that made me think differently about resolutions — especially dating resolutions.
