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Confronting The Current Dating World At 60 Years Of Age

Raised in a family of fundamental religious conservative capitalists, I spent a lot of my after school time alone, where I learned to write as a vehicle for reasoning, synthethizing ideas, and evaluating the consistency and logic of the rules and dogma I encountered. I've gone through a lot of transitions to become brave enough to live as an anti-theist free thinker, but that's not all... I'm also a democratic socialist, secular humanist, futurist, and an idealist. I tolerate and cooperate in our society, but I don't think much of what we have amounted to as humans, considering how long we have existed on this planet. We show deep, serious trails of repeated violent regressions in our history, that still seriously threaten our future development for the sake of elitism and greed in our controlling bodies, which are primarily economic, not governmental.

Most of our systems are purposely over-complicated because corruptions are more easily hidden in the midst of confusion. I have hopes for humanity, but little expectation. Religion perpetuates irreparable convolutions in the primary thought processes of common people, toward a relatively easy acceptance of minimalism, suffering, and self-sacrifice, but the very rich don't do it - I fully expect most of humanity is heading for another run of the dark ages in the next few generations... probably for the 12th to 15th time.

I have very mixed feelings about trying to date anyone around here, yet I remain open to it, with a healthy ambivalence.

Ambivalence is having simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings toward an object, person, or activity. I believe attraction and dedication, much like trust and beliefs, should be balanced with an eye on reality and a bit of caution and avoidance, in "healthy" amounts.

When we attempt to describe ourselves to others, we think in terms of our ideals. Alone, I seek to find my reasonable, sustainable, truest self. By doing this, I simplify my life, and I find the best, fairest version of myself to present to you, and to myself.

As developing, always-learning human beings, our activities, interests, and goals change over time. Also, different people we interact with draw out different qualities from our total character. Are you aware that the ideas we hold in our own heads about who we really are do not exist anywhere else in the world? No one else we know sees us the same way we do. In fact, everyone we know has a different, fractional view of who we are. This may sound very strange at first, but it is absolutely true.

I spend a lot of time reading the profiles of females on dating websites. As a result of this, I have developed several general perspectives on those females:

As a potential suitor, I cannot make any of you happy. I cannot possibly give you everything you want. Certainly not all the time. Occasionally, perhaps. Frequently? Probably not.

A lot of you want someone to make you laugh – I think you need to date a stand-up comic.

Many of you want “no drama”. I fail to comprehend this - life IS drama. I can only assume you wish to minimize life somehow... at least the unattractive parts. Okay. People have stuff though. Sometimes, we mainly need a good warm hug. It'll be alright... I won't reject you, and self-hugging is okay.

Many of you want to travel, be care-free, and have a partner to do all that with you, everywhere you want to go (drama free?) - good luck with that.

A lot of you seem to feel compelled to say you are NOT looking for a hookup. I wonder what does this really mean about you in the long run? I think you probably never, ever masturbate.

I can say to you honestly that I do not want any kind of cheap, shallow, primarily sexual relationship. On the contrary - I want someone who is very compatible, easily conversant, and very deeply emotionally open and connective with me, and contact plays a natural role in those developments.

I want to be with a woman who loves to fall in love. I want to fall in love... it's not a fake thing - it's a very emotionally open and sharing thing. But, what bothers me is it's also something that is possible for only one person in a relationship to feel, release into, and build and amplify upon.

Some of you are truly cold hearted and you don't allow yourself feel deep emotional love. This is what I fear... that you will use my love to manipulate me and take the things you do want from me, while you feel nothing deep for me. And since I am aware of this, I must KNOW that you emotionally FEEL deep connection and love with me. Otherwise, our relationship will be strange… instead of us loving EACH OTHER... you might just love your IDEAL of the person you invision me to be, but later on, you will just objectively change your mind and dump me, because you do not really FEEL any invested emotional love for me. Or, you might notice how deeply I FEEL about you, and then decide that you do love HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU... but you still don't really love me, because you keep your emotions closed tight, focusing on your truer objectives (whatever you can access from or through me), and you never really open yourself to allow any feelings to carry you away into deep, emotionally invested love.

Why would you do this? Because you fear the vulnerability of falling in love, and your passions have you more concerned with taking care of only yourself. You base your own security only in your independence and self-sufficiency, because you don't really trust in the value or the strength of deep emotional love. So you just use men like me to build your own personal security and independence, then dump us with whatever conflict you can create at the time.

My life isn't impressive. I am just looking for someone to share the best parts (loving, sheltering each other, giving/feeling tenderness, talking/sharing through our deepening understandings of ourselves) in the life I have now. This life will change, of course… it always does, but those changes needn't change the reasons and functions for our relationship, unless it is chiefly superficial. Based on past experience, I’ll have no idea what effects changes may actually have upon us… My problem is, I don't know how open you are emotionally, how honest you are about your fears, motivations, and security, and I don't really know if you will tell me whole truth about any of it. And, I don't really know if you are capable and fully immersive in the way that you FEEL love… or IF you even do.

Romance doesn't just happen between special, gifted lovers... the rich... the perfect... the beautiful. It happens between good friends and functioning families... openly emotional people. It takes a LOT of interactive mistakes, do-overs, and growth - Nobody seems to know how to do that anymore. We all simply cut off and throw people away, myself included... but I question this now. What is the point, if not peace... what is the way if not compromise.

So tell me, what are YOU really about?

Comments, questions, confusions?

CuriosityExtant 7 Apr 11
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8 comments

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1

It seems emotional intelligence is a rare find, and too many are not even aware of what it is, much less the importance of it.

1

WOw. That's allot to think about. I like it. Especially the part about drama. I asked someone recently to define drama and they couldn't tell me what they meant. I have what most people call drama because I live. So what? Life would be boring without it.

@confidentrealm I have also asked people to define what they mean by drama with unsatisfactory answers. I think it might be when you talk instead of listen.

@Stephanie99 I'm not so sure. I recently told someone about a family issue and they said, I don't need drama in my life. I know this person has a family. How can you never have issues with family unless you just don't interact with them?

@confidentrealm Agreed.

I think drama means struggling with troubles. And I agree everyone who is living a life will have troubles and struggles. When people complain about drama I think they are complaining that the other person (with the drama) is sharing too much of it or dumping their problems on their friend.

@dare2dream could be.

0

Also a democratic socialist, humanist, and idealist. Maybe we were separated at birth, lol.

3

I can relate! I too am a democratic socialist, secular humanist, futurist, and an idealist. I was widowed at 65 and thrown out into the obscure wilderness of the dating world without a playbook or compass and not knowing in which direction to go.

I agree with your thoughts on politics and religion. Sometimes I feel like I’m an alien nobody understands. Or maybe everyone else is the alien.

It’s been a very strange journey after my wife died. Most women I’ve encountered are cold hearted, jaded and non-receptive. They make me feel like I have no reason to exist. They tell me they are so very happy being single and don’t want a relationship with anyone. I wonder if they say that to give themselves power and control over guys. Or, maybe they're just shallow people who don't know there is so much more to life when it's shared with someone you really care about. Some women have been downright crazy! But there are some good ones out there too. I just look for anyone who shows an interest, is open and receptive. Those few make all the heart break worth it.

It’s good to make your acquaintance, Adaptable.

I agree with very much of what you've said and I also share your experience, widowed two years ago after a 22 year relationship, 19 year marriage. I feel so alien here in central Iowa where the vast majority of women on Batch seem like they are from a different culture, few of the divorced ones open to dating someone widowed (for whatever reasons), vast majority of them religious and not open to dating someone Agnostic, vast majority of them very family-oriented and only interested in dating a man who has kids, even with his and her kids are all grown adults, because they seem to want the man more as an escort to visit their adult kids and grandkids with than as a partner to do couple stuff with away from family. On top of that add that I am a non-drinker who is very tolerant and accepting of moderate and social drinkers after being happily married to one, but almost no women on Batch my age will accept a man who is not at least a social drinker, no matter what I tell them about my late wife's social drinking. It seems they just have to have someone who shares that lifestyle trait with them, and probably also their friends and family as well. My guess is that all the women my age in Iowa who want a non-drinking partner are all in AA and find their men to date in the program rather than on a dating site.

I would add one caveat to what you said, and that is that the women my age who are widowed are way less bitter, sour, or jaded than the ones who are divorced. I think a lot of that is their armor they carry to protect themselves from being hurt again and few of them have gotten the therapy they should have sought to deal with it. But right now I'm at an age where there aren't that many widowed women to choose from in my age group. Plus, the widowed women tend to be picky also because most of them seem to wait quite a while after being widowed before they try to date. So even tho they are kinder to men, they are usually very settled into being on their own and will be very deliberate and selective about who they will date and how they proceed. Which is understandable and fine by me, I just wish there were more of them in comparison to the divorced women on Batch.

I am indeed a stranger in a strange land......But I've lived in Iowa my whole life and always been an alienated person from the mainstream culture and lifestyle too, for the most part. The thing is, once I met my late wife, it didn't matter anymore at all, until I lost her. The continued support of my several friends help some with that, but it's not the same as having a partner, not by a long shot....

@TomMcGiverin Hi Tom! Thanks for your reply.

Your observations are pretty much the same as mine. A lot of widows remain married - to a dead husband!

I think all we can do is try other dating sites and join more social circles. I preferr meeting people in person, friends of friends, and people sharing a common interest (such as dancing, bowling, hiking - whatever your thing).

@dare2dream I have joined a local Meetup group and am going to hear a band tonite with some members of it and maybe dance. Hopefully I can enjoy some support and encouragement from the group's meetings and informal social events like tonite. Maybe also make a friend or two that I can share phone support with and meet some for coffee or a meal between group meetings. The group is for singles of all types, tho it's called Dating After Divorce, and is open to widowed like me. The vast majority of them are divorced, female, and way younger than me. Also almost all of them are Christian too. So, never going to find anyone to date there out of the 40-50 people that regularly show up at the group.

The group is run and founded by a dating and relationship coach. I am going to work with her as a client for a month or two and see if she can help me some. My friends are all married and they either don't get it as far as the dating struggles and/or don't want to hear about it very much. So I need the support of this group. As far as widows, I must disagree somewhat with you. My experience on Match with widows is not that they are unkind or as closed or defensive as many divorced women. My experience with the widowed women is that they do usually wait quite a while after the death to start dating again and they get pretty comfortable with being on their own. So they seem more ambivalent about dating than the divorced women. I have chatted with several of them thru Match and then they decide to not meet with me or drop off the dating site, saying that after chatting with me and other men they don't think they are ready to date yet. Maybe those women do remain married to their dead spouse, Go figure...

I may try Our Time after my Match membership runs out, because even tho Match has a deeper pool than Our Time, I am starting to see that as I get older Match is beginning to run short of women who are old enough for me and can't come up with enough new matches for me that are my age.

@dare2dream For me, the in person kind of meeting women is probably not going to work. I don't have the confidence or skills anymore to approach women in person. Don't have any friends that could help me as matchmaker, except one friend who won't do it. And all of the interest groups that I already attend do not have any compatible women for me as far as age, being single, and any cultural things in common (being non-religious, liberal, disliking country music, not being very family-oriented, etc.). I need a big dating pool to have any chance of meeting the small number of women in my area that are my age and fellow hipsters and non-conformists.

0

I totally get it and feel a lot of the same stuff. Am also the same age. Trying to date again for the first time since 1995. The main diff between you and me is that I don't feel that ambivalent about wanting to meet someone and date. I really want that in my life, but I also feel pretty hopeless that it's going to happen and really beat down by the rejection and disappointment. I also agree with what you say about a lot, if not most, women on paid dating sites. I have seen the same kinds of profiles all the time and they seem senseless, full of cliches, at least somewhat dishonest, and most of them suggest the person is dysfunctional in their attitudes and personality.

Also, like you, I came from a dysfunctional family, which is why I chose to never have kids or date anyone when I was young that had kids or wanted kids, so I was single until I was in my late 30s. It's also why I am not family-oriented like most people in Iowa and why I have had little contact with my siblings as an adult. With some therapy, I was able to overcome that and have a good and happy marriage with my late wife until she got dementia.

Lastly, I am so fucking sick of how many women on paid sites seem to be full of baggage and resentment or bitterness towards men from their divorces, but don't seem to be aware of it, much less own it, and show some openness and interest in meeting men who are honest, but less than perfect and willing to admit they are less than perfect. Very few women will admit in their profile essays that they have baggage and are less than perfect and interested in meeting men who are the same on that and honest about it. A little encouragement of that sort by women would go a long way with me.

1

I can appreciate your feeling on dating. Between Christians, gay women, transexuals, women who lie about not being married, personality issues, women who might think it is harrassment if you say "Hi"...I just am not even motivated to try to date. The few good women I know were taken a long time ago and are married to good guys. Disappointing, but not the end of the world since I am comfortable.

Sadly, you are right about a lot of the women on paid dating sites, as well as the same for men. It goes both ways. As Literate Hiker said not that long ago, when you get to dating after age 40 or when the prospects are mostly divorced, you are dealing mostly with leftovers who are divorced or never married for good reasons relating to their faults. The better prospects tend to be there when we are very young or at the age where most of the singles are widowed as far as being good quality partners.

0

I wonder where you ever got this impression: "A lot of you seem to feel compelled to say you are NOT looking for a hookup. I wonder what does this really mean about you in the long run? I think you probably never, ever masturbate."

Hello! Of course not. Who wants to go to hell or become blind?

@Reignmond That explains it. Thanks.

2

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

Good luck to you.

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