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 inDating after 40

Edelman pays its coworkers to go on a “date”

EdelmanIs Edelman encouraging fraternization? Helping relieve the stress of single workers trying to find a mate by pairing them with each other? Starting an internal dating service for their nearly 3,100 employees worldwide?

No. They’re using the dating concept with a unique spin.

The new Blind Date program begins this week. While it might kindle some romance, it is designed more to foster teamwork. And since 70 percent of Edelman workers are women, those looking for a man from this experiment might be disappointed.

Posted inCheck him out before going out Dating after 40 Winning at the online dating game

Getting to know a man through Google

A new man contacted me who held some allure so I promptly did a Google search, armed only with his profile’s unusual alias and his city. A wealth of information was divulged.

I read the posting he’d made in public forums so could see his comments were thoughtful, articulate, and had correct spelling and punctuation. I agreed with many of his views. Most of us aren’t particularly guarded when we post something to a forum, especially if using an alias. So the fact that he didn’t curse or call other postors idiots — as others in the forums did — showed me he had a sense of appropriateness and decorum.

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

Do you like yourself better now?

I love me“I like you better now than when you were married,” a professional acquaintance shared recently.

It was a surprising statement from someone I didn’t know well. But it got me thinking. How am I different than I was 5 years ago when my ex left? What has caused the change? Do I like me more now?

As I reflected on his comment and my answers to the questions, I realized I was different. How am I different in ways this colleague might notice, since he only sees me twice a year at our professional association meetings? I think I am more playful and flirtatious. I’m willing to wear sexier attire at our formal events. I think I smile more and am less up tight.

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

Are you angry with him — or yourself?

angerLately I’ve noticed myself getting angry with men I’m getting to know. The causes can be varied: he doesn’t call when he says he will, he doesn’t call for weeks then acts like we talked yesterday, he gets too fresh too soon, he doesn’t honor my stated boundaries, he makes assumptions without checking them out with me.

I hear myself saying — generally in my mind afterward — “You can’t treat me like that.” Sometimes I speak up in the moment, but sometimes I don’t know how to say what’s on my mind without sounding accusatory. Or sometimes I haven’t articulated my feelings or thoughts until after the incident.

It is easy, I notice, to blame him: “How dare he..,” “How could he…,” “How could he think that what he said/did would be acceptable?”

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 inAssessing your assets Dating after 40

Has your guy been metro-ed?

Metro manMetro — as in metrosexual. According to Dictionary.com metrosexual, or metro, describes “a heterosexual male who has a strong aesthetic sense and inordinate interest in appearance and style, similar to that of homosexual males.”
UrbanDictionary.com includes the following description: “Mint (great) guys who are SNAGs (Sensitive New Age Guys) and follow the following rules:

  1. dress hot
  2. wear awesome shoes
  3. have very modern haircut
  4. disgusted with the thought of being with another man
  5. have perfect skin and love skin products
  6. love the gym
  7. own nothing but designer everything
  8. read style magazines often e.g, GQ
  9. know how to make only the best cocktails and if they drink beer it’s top-of-the-line imported
  10. can’t deal with a mess”
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 Multidating responsibly

Review of “The Four Man Plan: A Romantic Science”

The Four Man PlanCindy Lu has written a funny — albeit gutter-language-laden — book about systematically classifying the men you date. So if you don’t like to read language you’d hear in most comedy clubs, you’d best pass on this one. She is an actress and stand-up comedian, which is where this book got its start.

She lays out a plan to always have at least four men in the dating hopper. However, her mathematical formula for how to count each man (some are 1/4 men, others 1/2 men) is convoluted. I never caught on, and I won awards in math in school! (Nearly all knowledge of math is now forgotten due to under use.)

What I like about her philosophy is that she encourages you to juggle more than one man so you won’t be in the position to stick with a guy just because he’s the only one around. When you have more than one to choose from you don’t do those silly things we do when we’re desperate — like sleep with a guy we barely know just because we want some attention or affection.