Dating-over-40 advice by the Dating Goddess™
I’m a gardener. Every year new flora grow in my garden that I didn’t plant.
Some call these weeds. Others call them wild flowers. What you call them depends on your perspective.
While attending to some of these new residents in my garden, it reminded me of prospective suitors who come into our lives.
The term “scotoma” means blind spot. We all have the physical ones in our eyes, and I’d guess that we all have psychological ones, too. It means we don’t see something that is right in front of us or is apparent to others.
In dating, it’s easy to have a scotoma for someone we really like. We can not see — or see but overlook — glaring signs that someone is not a good match for us. But we blissfully act as if those signs aren’t there.
He sent a beautiful bouquet for my birthday last month, arranging for its arrival the day I returned home from SE Asia. He’s accompanied me to dress-up events, donning his Armani tuxedo with pleasure. He’s the epitome of a gentleman at these events, offering his arm to escort me, taking my coat and fetching it from the coat check, holding my chair to seat me, making sure my drink is never low, dancing when I want and schmoozing with my business associates, even ones I know he doesn’t like. He keeps himself buff, is current on world affairs, is respected as a thought leader, is generous with charitable contributions.
So why isn’t he my full time beau?
This phrase doesn’t work in a job. So why do people think this concept will work in dating?
For example, it appears common thinking is:
I recently spent time with a long-married couple. Like nearly all long-term couples, they’ve developed habits they don’t even know they have. One of this couple’s favorite ones, it seems, is bickering over inconsequential details. For example, “We went shopping last Thursday…” “No, it was Wednesday.” “No, I’m sure it was Thursday.” Etc., etc., etc.
It got to the point where I could stand it no longer. I finally blurted out, “It really, really doesn’t matter what day it was.” That got them to move on.
You’ve heard of cops engaging in high-speed chases to catch criminals. Then OJ Simpson made the low-speed chase a new buzz word when he was avoiding arrest. The concept can be applied to dating, although it is not to avoid incarceration. It might be to avoid entanglement, but it also might be a sound strategy for engagement.
When two people get together too fast, the common advice is, “Slow down. Get to know each other.” Yet few of us heed this counsel.
I am in Brunei this week for a client. “Where is Brunei?” you may ask. On the north shore of the island of Borneo. It is beautiful, lush and tropical.
Have you ever been to an amazing place and wished you had a sweetie to share it with you? This is one of those places.
At dinner with 3 other midlife dating women, one asked for input on a situation.
She’d gone out with a man three times. While she said she enjoyed his company, she didn’t feel any romantic attraction. He’d asked her to call him when she returned from a recent trip, which she had that day.
She didn’t want to call him. She said, “What would I say? That I didn’t want to go out with him again? That seems dumb and hurtful. If I don’t call him, won’t he get the message?”
Women know that if a man doesn’t ask to spend time with her, he’s not that interested in her. We have learned some men appreciate when a woman suggests a first date, but what about other communication?
When he said he wanted to fly in to meet me, we didn’t intend for it to be a chaperoned event. But it ended up being one — with two escorts!
