Dating-over-40 advice by the Dating Goddess™
When your friends are all coupled and rarely want to do something social without their spouse, it can be hard to find activity buddies. Sure, there are singles events in many locales, but often they feel like an audition instead of just having people with whom to do things. And other than your all being single, you may find you have little in common with these folks so make few connections.
Sometimes you come upon someone on a dating site who likes to do similar things as you, but you know there’s no romantic interest. Other times the person will say clearly, “Looking for an activity partner.” It takes the pressure off wondering if he’ll try to kiss you in the middle of the first date!
Men often show their connection by teasing and good-naturedly insulting each other. They can make pot shots about the other’s weight, thinning hair, bulbous nose, incompetencies, shortcomings or lack of sexual prowess without taking it personally.
So what happens when a woman — especially a woman he’s attracted to — tries to join in the boys’ club teasing?
A 25-year-old woman agreed to meet — for the first time — a man she’d connected with through a dating site at his house at 9 p.m. to go out to dinner. When she arrived at his door, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her inside. There, a gun-toting accomplice demanded her keys and the two men drove off in her car.
This is a tragic story.
When leaving my exercise class at an elementary school auditorium, this sign caught my eye. It made me think it ought to be posted at coffee shops to remind daters to use their manners!
Why did this cross my mind?
I had another date that left me scratching my head. I checked with a couple of male pals to see if I had too-high expectations.
“What happened?” you ask.
General wisdom is to take some time to be alone after any relationship ends.
The shorter the time in the relationship, the less time it takes to recover. I once heard that most people need 25%-50% of a relationship’s duration before being ready to have another relationship.
After talking for two weeks, a man disclosed that the reason he listed himself on a dating site is that his partner of 7 years died — two months ago.
When I decided to hang a picture recently, I wished I had a stud finder to ensure the nail went into wood instead of just plaster.
Then it hit me — wouldn’t it be great to have a similar tool when looking for a man! One that would guarantee hitting a solid man, not a flaky one. Can you imagine how much easier it would be when you walked into a bar or singles event with one of these devices? It would light up and sound off when a responsible, solid, upright man was found!
We’d talked on the phone a few times but hadn’t met. It was early evening when we talked again and he said he’d love to take me to dinner that night. But he had a favor to ask: his Jag was in the shop so would I drive to his area for dinner?
He lived 45 minutes away in a newly gentrified part of a not-so-great area. It was already dark. I didn’t relish driving to his area after sunset.
A midlife friend recently broke up with his girlfriend of 10 years. The reason he broke up with her is after a lot of soul searching and couples counseling, it became clear they wanted different things.
When I asked how he was doing regarding this, he said he was using this as an impetus to reassess many things in his life.
When you’ve decided you don’t want further contact with someone, it’s easy to ignore their phone calls, IMs, texts or emails.
Perhaps you rise a level to at least send a “we’re not a match” email.
It’s hardest to actually tell the person face-to-face. However, if you’ve only had one encounter, it seems counter-productive to arrange a meeting just to tell the person you won’t be seeing them again.
So a phone call is in order. But what do you say? How do you phrase it to not focus on the other’s deal breakers? You don’t want to stoop to a level of name calling or pointing out the other’s bad breath, disheveled appearance, incessant cursing, bad manners or lusting after you. You want to do this task with class and leave the other’s dignity intact.
You procrastinate making the call because you don’t want an altercation and since you barely know the person, you have no idea how he’ll respond.
But you decide you must act consistent with how you’d like to be treated — respectfully — so you make the call.
A new man started pursuing me and after a few calls shared how much he liked me. I had made no sexual innuendos nor teasing, so was taken aback when he said, “I want to make love to you.” I’ve heard this from a number of men and generally shake it off as they are lonely and horny and socially awkward reentering the dating world so don’t realize how off-putting that can be.
I’ve had others tell me before, during or immediately after a first date what they fantasize our doing together — and I don’t mean going to the movies! They have concocted their own movie of us in their head, one that would receive an x rating!
