Dating at the age of 50-Plus!

An interesting walk down the lane of my dating life. It is funny, direct and oh, so true! It is the story that goes with the poem: Mr. Right, Mr. Wrong

If anyone had told me that I would still be trying to date at the age of 50-plus, I would have told him or her that each was "absolutely" crazy. Any woman or man who says these words, “I am trying to date!” -- has uttered -- no truer words. It is most definitely a very trying ordeal not only mentally, emotionally, but physically as well! 

No matter how you look at it, it is a very frustrating venture! It is a test, a game of errors, a learn-as-you-go type of thing; it is a game of the heart and the mind. It is just a game (not to everyone and certainly not to me) that sometimes there is no way to win! Do I stop trying to find “the one”? Is there truly one soul out there that fits my soul? Is there just one person who I can connect with on every level: heart, body, mind, and soul?    

Oh yeah, I give up on love at times, who does not at some point. Sometimes it enters my mind that it is “too bad that I am not into women," but that is just not the way this cookie crumbles. Eventually, though like most of us, I get right back on the horse -- so to speak. I try the dating game again until someone else with a bad attitude and a knack for breaking hearts (for lack of another way to put it) knocks me right off the horse again. He ends up breaking my fragile heart into a million pieces " so, as I once again fall to the ground " I swear to NEVER, EVER AGAIN allow a man close to my heart. That is rather difficult for someone who wears her heart on her sleeve and has more emotions than can be described on most days. Do you know what I mean?

However, here I am in the year 2009, single once again and still looking for Mr. Right only seeming to find Mr. Totally Wrong, Mr. No-Way-in-Hell, and Mr. Are-you-Out-of-Your-Freakin’ Mind. Now, please do not get me wrong, I have made some wonderful male friends during my trip down the dating road; it is just that " none were worth keeping in my life as a mate.    

I’d even bet that a lot of you know the type of man that I am talking about, the forever type man, my happily-ever-after man, my very own Prince Charming. Most of the men who pass through my life (and my heart) are just that “passer’s by," men who for whatever reason on my part or theirs keep right on going down the path to the next woman in their life whose heart; they will probably break just like they did mine. Then, once again, I am single!    

Do I hate it? No, not really, I can deal with it on most days and the nights too. I learned very early in my adult life to be independent and for that I will forever be grateful to all those who made me that way. On the bright side, I am one hell of an independent woman! I am the woman; hear me roar!   

At this age, truly, I am not complaining. I am just going with the flow of being single and independent again. I will always be independent; there will be no change in that part of my life even if a man does drop by and stays for the “forever” deal. I am very flexible and willing to compromise when needed, which is very important when trying to become the female half of a whole couple.  

At this point, in my life, I am not even sure that Mr. Right exists let alone that I will be able to find him any time soon. I have been looking for over ten years now, and I still have not even gotten close to finding Mr. Almost, let alone Mr. Could-Be or Mr. Right.

 In the year 1986, after marrying my high school sweetheart and having two wonderful children, I became a widow my first time around the marriage-go-round. That was quite a shock to someone who was only in her early thirties and a mother of two young children. I was suddenly and irrevocably all alone for the first time in my life with two small children to bring up on my own. My becoming a widow is a long story and another book, but let me just say for posterity that it was a tragedy at the hands of someone else and that it was surely not my idea of where I wanted my life to go at that time. 

When I got married the first time, I truly believed in “happily-ever-after" and true love. Now all these years later, I am finding it so hard to believe in a love of any type, let alone finding someone to share it within the "forever" sense of the word. I used to be very trusting when I was a young girl. I believed in all the fairy tales, and all the happily-ever-after jazz that most little girls grow up hearing throughout their childhood. However, I no longer believe in fairy tales, no way, not this redhead.    

After becoming a widow in 1986 and a brief fling with a co-worker who truly was a womanizer and user, I played the single’s game for almost ten years before getting married again. I will admit (now anyway) that I was settling for something less than I wanted, and I married someone out of loneliness and a fear that there would be no one else. I married him because he was sweet and kind and I thought I would find no one better. I did love him, but I was never “in love” with him. During our time together, we were more friends than a loving couple (at least on my part), and that was even on our best days. I truly thought that we had a chance of making it work, but fate once again intervened.    

Sadly, it was not meant to be that time around either. My second marriage did not work out either, and I ended up just another divorcee. This truly was sad and disappointing for me because I had still believed in love when I said, “I do” that second time around. It was not meant to be, and we were divorced in the year 2000. Just chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and a total lack of communication on both parts and you have the “why” and reason that it did not work out for the two of us. Love has no time or patience for stubbornness on most days, and when it is coming from both sides, as the divorce statistics prove in startling numbers most of the time those types of relationships fail.

All right, I will admit that I have tried MANY of the different dating websites over the past years, matchmaking by well-intentioned friends and family, putting personal ads in the newspapers, and all the other types of dating rituals that usually work for some people, but not for all. However, as you can see, it has not worked for me either; I am still single and alone on this Valentine’s Day. 

Do not get me wrong, I have tried dieting over the past few years, just not with a whole lot of success. I am definitely not good at sticking to a strict regimen of no starches or staying away from other foods that I should not be eating on a diet. I do not have the problem with sweets, so that is a plus, but still I was raised to think that a meal should be rounded out with potatoes or something along those lines. Gee, thanks Mom!

Therefore, I must find a different style of clothing to wear on a fuller body of mine that does not make me look and feel like the Good Year blimp. I need to go into the “fuller figure” part of the stores now. Are you shocked, not as shocked as I am at looking at the sizes going higher and higher each time I go shopping for clothes? Nowadays, I have to check out the bigger sizes in stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart"the plus sizes"now, how did that happen?    

Then, once I enter  this zone of BIGGER sizes (and my shocked brain eases), I must hope that something there on one of those racks or hangers within that part of the store can restore my “sexy” attitude and my confidence in myself without making me also feel fat and ugly at the same time. Is there a miracle out there to help with that part of my conundrum? Gosh, please tell me that there is and send it my way, hurry please!  

Back to my recent break-up with said beau of almost six months… it was not by surprise that he has totally acted like an a*s lately, as he had visited that personality affliction quite often over the past six months or so. time was indeed the last time. I proceeded to bluntly tell him off on his answering machine several times rather LOUDLY, which included some terms that he did not find endearing at all. There were also several e-mails - where it was mentioned by me - telling him that he was a coward and ought to act like a man and tell me what was going on for a change and just why he was acting that way.    

He in return, called me back (on the telephone -- finally) thinking that nothing was wrong to begin with according to him and said that was it, that no woman doubted his manhood, and that it was over and done with no questions asked or needed, thank you very much. Well, I guess that is the end of that dating chapter!    

To be honest about it, this so-called relationship between him, and I had been going south for quite some time. Not to mention the fact that he had been trying to ruin us for months and add to that the fact that I am a stubborn redhead (and live in that state of denial at times); well, I just in my stubbornness refused to let him ruin it. 

Did I mention before that I can be a very stubborn redhead if need be, which is just another thing to thank my parents for giving me! I was also not happy about our arrangement, and the fact that it had been almost six months and still there had been no mention of commitment or love out of his mouth. The only replies that I got out of him at those questions were smart-a*s comments and snide remarks, which had not endeared him to me"so on that part, hey, we were on the same page.    

Therefore, since I was fighting a losing battle almost from the start with his ability at being an anti-social a*s -- and with me being a “social” butterfly -- compared to him, I just said “whatever” and moved onto single hood once again. No, dragging my feet, no way -- not this chick, I said, “bring it on” and stayed the hell away from all men (who were not related to me) for as long as I could possibly stand it, which could be quite a long time. Even then, I stayed away just in case it was only a stupid passing thought in my head that I needed a man in my life to make me whole.    

Do not get me wrong, I was very understanding about giving him time to get his act together regarding us being a couple. Patience is my middle name; did I ever mention that part to you? Yes, just as you have probably read in so many of the self-help magazines, such as Cosmopolitan, “I gave him enough rope to hang himself!” 

Now do not get excited, I did not mean that he did it literally, but figuratively speaking he did just that … he hung himself and the relationship is now over. I believed that he was intentionally acting out --as they, say" just to get me to react badly so he could call things off. However, that is just my opinion and does not matter now. He is a nice person, eccentric, old-fashioned, stubborn as all get out, kind on some days, but just not the marrying type! Lesson learned; next man, please…

Over the years, I have dated different types of men, some intellectual, some not so much, some geeky, some nerdy, and some of my favorite types of men, the bad boys. Why do women gravitate towards the bad boys? Why do we go where our heart will get broken even though we know the outcome before it happens? Have you ever heard that saying, “the heart wants what the heart wants” even when our brain is saying things such as, “Hey, stupid, run?" or “Hey, are you, nuts or something, sure he looks hot, but damn, girl think with your brain?”    

Now, having brought that subject up, a nice man does nothing for me … I need more than Mr. Nice Guy or Mr. kisses-My-Butt can supply in my life. I need him to add some excitement (spice) to my world. This is unfortunately hard for this type of man to do, or so it seems from my experiences. I have found that “Mr. Nice Guy” is rather staid and boring, which is not a good thing if you need something else in your life. Mr. Nice Guy is Mr. Dependability and at times, Mr. Boring-as-Hell all rolled into one.   

In the end, my heart wants and needs more! I want romance, flowers, poetry and a real relationship. I do not mind staying home, watching television, watching a good movie, eating popcorn and drinking some wine, but I do draw the line at staying home 24/7 when I am not working. I guess you could classify this last person as Mr. Couch Potato. Both these men have their good points, but when it comes to staying power, they fall flat on keeping - or EVEN - making my heart beat a little faster. I need love; I need romance, and I need some excitement in my life. Mostly, I need to feel needed by the man in my life not just something he takes down off the shelf and dusts off now and then because he is horny.    

Another man whom I have dated that fits into this category is Mr. Nerd, as I call him. He is indeed boring, has no life, and unfortunately for us girls have no sense of style whatsoever. This type of man usually leaves most women out in the cold even on the hottest of days. I am not putting this type of man down; really, and I am not trying to be cruel at this point in my life. I am just trying to be honest and set MY record straight on dating at my age. I am just saying he is not for me. Somewhere out there, there must be a fit for every person; the hard part is finding him or her.

Well, here it is the year 2010, and I am still working on the dating game. I keep wondering what I am doing wrong. I recently joined a single’s website, no names please! I was chatting with this man for several weeks via the Internet, telephone, and instant messaging. All looked good; he seemed rather nice, funny in a strange, but good sort of way, not bad looking, but in the end, he turned out to be just as much of an a*s as the men before him.

I sent him a picture of me with my fuller figure and my new shorter hairdo, which I thought was rather cute and suited me. Now I never lied to him, I told him the photos of me on the Internet were older pictures, and that I have changed a lot over the past years. I said in many of our conversations that I am a bigger version of myself, and that I would love to lose some pounds, so I never once lied to this man. I do not know what he was looking for, but it was not me. The picture arrived; he all of a sudden became invisible and stopped chatting. I finally after a few days sent him an E-mail asking him (rather politely I might add) what was up and that he should tell me, so that if it was over and he hated my picture that was fine and we could both move on.

Briefly, I heard from him that we should both move on… no explanation, but I could read between the lines. I guess he wanted someone skinny and sexy, I mean " oh my gosh, he is 60 years old, how good could his penis work! I have found out that when men (no matter what age) say it is not about sex for them, well, honey; it is TOTALLY about sex for them. Move on, babe, because all he wants is a sex partner, not a relationship. Do I sound miffed, tainted, one-sided, oh yeah… believe me I am. However, I, on the other hand, do not blame all men for the mistakes of some whom are stupid. You get my drift! My feelings at that point are, YOUR LOSS BUDDY!

I still see the ex now and then, the one I dated for almost a year and both of us more or less said a very loud “good-bye" via an e-mail to each other and moved on. Let us call him Sam. We both finally -- after a few silent months of ignoring and dodging each other in public and at work -- worked it out and remain friends, that is “friends with benefits.” Now, I will openly admit that I had a problem with type of arrangement at first. Now I think, “Oh, what the hell!” Some well-intentioned friends and my daughter said, “go for it," after all, you are both single, consenting adults and able to make up your own minds. This is true; however, I often wonder if either of us knows what we want -- alone -- what each other wants, but as they say, only time will tell.    

To be honest, I cannot say that I have been trying very hard to become a couple with someone (anyone really) because truly I have not been trying much at all. I delve into a real date now and then (you know the kind; he picks me up, pays for dinner, brings me home, maybe gives you a kiss, etc.), but usually it turns out that the man is not at all, what he led me to believe. Do not get me wrong, women can be just as deceiving at times and men could write something like this from their point of view as well.

Anyway, all this game playing and lying makes dating and starting a new relationship a very interesting and somewhat scary goal to achieve. If there is an art to dating, well, then I have not found it yet. I think it is all in how they play the game, unfortunately for this woman; she does not play games.    

Minds become fragile, hearts get broken. Dreams become outdated, and no game of the heart and mind is worth losing all that… is it? Even after all these years, is there such a thing as “happily-ever-after”?  Is there a Knight-in-Shining-Armor out there for me? Is he going to find me or am I going to spend the rest of my life finding Mr. Wrong compared to Mr. Right?    

Hey, I just had a thought…maybe I shall return in my 60s and let you know how my search for love and Mr. Right is working out… Take care and remember; romance is not just for the young and overly hormonal"it is for us old fogies too.

Author's Note

Check this out... it is a true, realistic version of my dating experiences. I find the humor helps to take the sting out of some of my "not" good decisions about men. It just proves, we are never too young or TOO old to learn!

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Oh, boy. You've really had a time of it, as I expect many in your position have. My younger brother died five years ago and his wife (widow) tells me similar stories as this. The game is a daunting one, for certain, but you seem to have the backbone and determination to keep trying. I sucked at dating when I was young and, so they tell me--good-looking, so I shudder to think what a disaster I'd be now. Here's hoping you find that certain person very soon.