Learning to Date at 48: Online Exploits

The post below “Learning to Date at 48: Inner Journey” explains my inner journey in getting ready to start dating again after separating from my husband 18 months before. This one will talk about my dating exploits.

So, if you’ve read my post below you’ll know why I decided to go the online route when I started dating again. I only really started getting out there in March of this year. My goal was to meet at least 1 new guy a week. So, I wrote a profile, took some pics and off I went.

The way my online site works is that, if you find someone you’re interested in you can send them a ‘kiss’ for free. The kisses have one of several pre-defined contact lines. The recipient of the kiss can reply with one of several pre-defined responses (positive, negative or tell me more). If it’s positive the sender of the kiss typically sends an email and the conversation begins. You can correspond for 30 days on that one email (which the sender has to pay for) and it’s totally up to you when you escalate contact to regular email, phone or meeting.

I try to email a few times to get a sense of what they’re like, maybe talk on the phone once and then meet them if I’m interested.

My ratio was about 1/15. I’d meet 1 out of 15 men that ‘kissed’ me. Like I said, I’ve probably had 40 first dates since March. Of those first dates exactly 4 moved to 2nd dates, 3 to third dates and only 1 past that (more about him later).

And after 8 months of this, here are my observations so far. Please men, feel free to weigh in in the comments section...I’m sure women have their own idiosyncrasies, but since I’m not dating women I can only write about what I’ve found with men’s profiles. And fair is fair!

Okay, quick caveat...typical comments I get from people who have never done online dating when I tell them that I’m doing it is, “I’ve heard that people just lie in their profiles, they can’t be trusted” and “Only losers who can’t find dates any other way do online dating” (ouch!)

I have to point out that I’ve met some great men online, and a few have become good friends. One has become one of my best friends in Sydney.

I’ve only had 1 guy outright lie to me (his pics were at least 15 years old and he was at least 3 inches shorter and 30 kilos (about 70 lbs) heavier!

I have, however had men stretch the truth....literally! My rule of thumb is that if I man is under 6’ tall you should subtract 1 - 3 inches from his height.

So, here are my observations:
Men take the path of least resistance. I got far more ‘kisses’ when I was online than I did when I was off. So I used to leave my profile up all of the time just so guys would see me as online. It wasn’t unusual to come home to 20 ‘kisses’ in my inbox.
A lot of men go fishing. They’ll ‘kiss’ you several times and never send an email. I think that’s rude.
If men only have 1 photo and it’s fuzzy it’s old.
If the men are wearing caps in all of their pics they’re bald (I NEVER thought I’d reach the stage in life where a man who still has all of his hair would be a rarity...but I have).
Men do lie about their height (see above).
Men’s interpretations of what constitute an ‘athletic’ body differ...and some greatly differ from my own interpretation.
Men don’t like ‘long email correspondences’. They prefer to meet straight off. This can be intimidating to a lot of women. So, men please be aware of that and women, stand your ground! This works for me though. I’d rather meet than talk on the phone. After 15 years in recruitment the phone to me spells work.
Men in their 20’s LOVE women in their 40’s. I’d say 1/3 of all ‘kisses’ I received was from young, good looking for the most part, guys. But Demi Moore I’m not. They were all declined.

All of the men I met have been interesting on some level. And, even though I may not have wanted to see them again, the hour I spent with them was not wasted in the vast majority of instances. The ones that I was disappointed by I should not have met and I knew that I shouldn’t have met them before I did. But every once in awhile I’ll convince myself that I’m too harsh and should give more people a chance.

But, if anyone has read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Blink’ and knows about thin slicing, I can do that really really quickly with people, having spent 15 years in recruitment and having done a gazillion hours of personal development work. I trust my gut most of the time, and when I don’t I pay for it.

Now some quite funny experiences.

There was the guy I met the guy who was 5’6” instead of the 5’9” he claimed and had 15 year old (and much thinner) pics up. We sat down and started to talk (this was early on...now a days I’d say something like, “I’m sorry, you’re not what I ordered” and walk out). About 15 minutes into our conversation he asked how he was doing and if I’d see him again. I felt sorry for him, but told him no...there would be no second date.

Then there was the man who asked me on our third date (which occurred within 48 hours of our first date) how I’d feel about raising his children. That’s not even why I decided not to date him again, although to this day he thinks it is. Nice guy though and he seems to have found someone so good on him.

My absolute favourite though is the guy who texted me a picture of himself without a shirt on the night BEFORE we were supposed to meet. He was completely flabbergasted when I texted him back and told him I found that creepy and would be canceling our date.

Why so many first dates and not many past that you might be asking? Well, I’m the first to admit that I’m picky. I know what I want and won’t settle, not again. And first and foremost I want a strong, masculine man who brings out the feminine little girl in me. I want someone who can make me think, make me laugh and make my toes curl.

And the guy that went past the third date? While he did all of those, unfortunately he has the emotional maturity of a retarded knat to quote a teacher of mine.

And that finally ended once and for all last night when I did something I’ve never done in my life. I walked out of the restaurant we were eating in...before the main course came.

But this story actually illustrates the main learnings that I’ve gotten over the last few months and is the main reason that I’ve decided to include this part of my life in my blog.

I won’t go through the whole story here, and it is quite a story. But the high points are that this is a very masculine, self assured (cocky) guy who’s a rock star in business. Highly intelligent and great looking! On our first date he had me giggling like a school girl and I loved it! I hadn’t experienced that, well ever. My God it was like a drug! I couldn’t for one moment slip that masculine mask on, even when talking about business. He’d rip it right off of me.

He made me feel like the most special person on the planet when I was with him. Until he didn’t. And when things changed it hurt like hell. He got mean and manipulative. Not overtly. Very covertly. He could sell ice to Eskimos and convince you that the sky is green and grass is blue, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

But I did what most women do. I blamed myself and excused him. He’s troubled (and he is troubled...not the easiest of childhoods). I was somehow insufficient in how I was reacting and he just needed time. He / we had this great potential!!!!

But you know what? Unrealised potential amounts to nothing at all. And my biggest learning was to look at things as how they really are and not as how they could be.

My second biggest learning was what it feels like to be with a strong, masculine man. He set the bar for me and I’ll always be grateful for that. I’m also grateful that he showed me that I was enough (pretty, sexy, etc) to attract someone like that.

So, on with my search! I have a date with someone tomorrow. I’m breaking my first date rule of coffee or a drink only (quick get away) and I’m going sailing. I’m only breaking this rule because an opportunity to go sailing on Sydney Harbour is never to be missed.

I have someone else wanting to meet me (we’re talking tomorrow night for the first time). Not so sure about him.

Then there’s the two men that actually asked me out, without being online! OMG!!! One is a lovely man and I’ll probably go out with him at some point, but he’s not rocking my world. The other is rocking my world and we’ve had only a 5 minute conversation. I suspect he may be a bit of trouble though. But I’ve never been one to choose the easy path.

Learning to Date at 48: Inner Journey

I’ve debated with myself about whether or not to share my dating exploits in this blog. My original intention was to do so but then I started to have second thoughts for two reasons. First, this is the area of my life that I’ve historically felt the least confident in. Do I really want to air my vulnerabilities in this public forum? Secondly, I wouldn’t be sharing things about just myself, I’d be sharing them about others as well.

But I’ve decided that yes, I will start sharing my experiences (and the names of other parties will be changed and details left intentionally vague). I’m really passionate about helping others and this is such a big area in everyone’s life. And if I can share any learnings from my own journey maybe I can shine the light on the path for others dealing with the same issues and make their journey a bit lighter.

So, a bit of background for those that don’t know me. I was terribly shy in high school and my Freshman year in college (shocking I know to those that know me now) and barely talked to boys / men. I dated one boy from the age of 13 - 15 1/2 and had a bit of a long distance thing as well for a year in our early 20‘s (actually I almost married him). I’ve never fallen out of love with him but am very clear that we could never be together. We’re two different people.

I cured my shyness when I joined the Air National Guard in 1985 and went through basic training. Even so, since then I’ve spent most of my adult life alone with the exception of an 18 month relationship with one man in my early 30’s and a 5 month relationship with another a couple years later.

I “dated” others but nothing serious until I was 37.

I never wanted kids so never had the urge to settle down. But at 37 I decided it was time to start focusing on my social life and take the attention off of my work life.

As an aside, I’m working with a number of clients now in their late 30’s and it’s amazing to me that that seems to be the time that the focus in our lives start to shift. Either from career to personal or from kids to ourselves. But it’s certainly a time of transition.

But I digress. Within 2 months of making this decision I met my ex-husband. He’s a wonderful man and a great companion. But we only had one life goal in common, and that was to move to New Zealand. Once we did that I began to realise that we wanted very very different things out of life. We were also never madly, passionately in love. Either one of use. And I realised that I had compromised on what I really wanted in this area of my life.

So, after and 18 months of talking to him and looking for resolutions I decided to leave. We’ve not had a cross word in the 2 plus years we’ve been apart and have remained very good friends. He’s going on 2 years with another woman and seems quite happy, and I’m happy for him.

And me? I’ve started to date. Really date for the first time in my life.

Now, I’ve had a couple of internal obstacles on my dating journey. First, I believed that men were intimidated by me and second, I believed that men didn’t find me physically attractive. So, you can imagine what life was like with those two limiting beliefs.

I’ve always had this notion that I intimidate men. And it’s always been supported by my girlfriends. That’s what girls tell each other to comfort each other. But, at the risk of blowing my own horn, I’m very smart, successful and driven. Someone told me last night that I do more in a day than he does in a month. That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.

So I believed that men don’t want smart women, successful women because we intimidate their fragile male egos. But I’m realising that that’s not true at all. And I’ve realised this by going out on at least 40 first dates in the last 8 months and talking to smart, successful men.

The truth is that smart men love smart, feminine women. Masculine men love feminine women. Masculine men are repelled by women wearing masculine masks (and many women do to succeed in business). It’s like a magnet. Remember playing with magnets in school? Opposite polarities attract, same polarities repel. A woman in her masculine repels the masculinity in a man. It’s as simple as that. Bio physics at work.

And we get all tied up in knots as women wondering what we’re doing wrong.

Conversely, women wearing masculine masks often attract men wearing feminine ones. And many men do wear feminine masks...again society is training them to do so...look at the whole “metrosexual” movement. And then when she starts to relax into the relationship and into her own femininity she feels unsatisfied (as does he I imagine). The polarities shift and, unless he can move into his masculine, they start to repel each other again. All of this can get very confusing.

So part of my journey has been to reclaim my femininity. Not an easy thing to do, but way fun!

In my case, and I just realised this about a month ago, not only was I putting on masculine masks to succeed in business and wearing them all of the time (hence attracting men wearing feminine masks), I didn’t actually know how to be a feminine woman. You see I was basically raised by my Dad. And while I loved and adored my Dad and I’ll forever be thankful for everything he taught me, he couldn’t teach me to be a woman. He tried though, in his own way. I remember him really encouraging me to enter a beauty contest when I was 13 or 14. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I’d heard at the time. Me? Now I realise that on some level he knew this was the one area that he couldn’t teach me and he was searching for an alternative. God bless Dad!

So about 3 1/2 years ago I really started to explore this area of my life. It’s been frustrating and confusing and a lot of fun! And my journey is not over, but I’ve come a long way!

Dating Life

As I mentioned, I'm divorced and dating vigorously. Well, technically I'm separated as NZ has a 2 year mandatory separation before getting a divorce. After August 4th my husband Brad (whom I'm still great friends with!!!) will take our separation agreement and $25 down to the court house to finalise our divorce. He'll be happy...no more joint US tax returns!

It's interesting dating at 48. In many ways it's much easier than when I was younger, maybe because I'm much more self-confident...maybe because I'm much hotter than I was back then (see told ya I have a healthy opinion of myself). :)

But the last few months have been quite the experience.

Now, I'm primarily using RSVP, an online dating site in Oz to find men to date. I love RSVP because you don't get as many weirdos and scam artists as I found on Match.com. It's also a great system because you can "kiss" people you're interested in and, if they are interested in you, they will reply positively and then you spend money on a "stamp" to send an email. For women it's a very cheap way to go as you get more than enough hits. I rarely send kisses...only if there is someone that really attracts my attention.

I use RSVP because I think it's a tremendously effective use of time, gives me access to a much broader cross section of men. And I can "date" in the comfort of my own home wearing old sweat pants and no make up.

I've had email exchanges with over 100 guys, met over 30 for first dates and had exactly 3 second dates. Yes, I'm picky.

I've learned some things along the way too:

• If they are under 6' tall they lie about their height...take 1 - 3 inches off (you know how bad men are with measurements). :)
• If all of their pics are taken with a cap or hat on they are bald.
• If all of their pictures are scanned in they are 5 - 10 years old.
  

Now I have heard some horror stories about online dating as I'm sure everyone has, but my experience has actually been quite good. Maybe it's my 15 years in recruitment, but I can usually sift through the crazies before I meet them.

I've only I met one guy that totally lied in his profile. He said he was 5'9" (5'6" is being generous) and that he had an athletic body (maybe he did 10 - 15 years ago but now he's almost as wide as he is tall). Now I would tell him that he'd misrepresented himself and walk out. But this was the early days and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Mid way through my first and only glass of wine he asked me how he was doing and if I'd like to see him again. I said no.

The other guys were nice, but not compelling enough for me to spend more time with.

Of the three second dates I had...

One has turned into a great friend (probably my best friend in Sydney) and business associate. He doesn't feel a "spark" for me, which is fine. We have a great time together and don't seem to get bored with each other, which is ashtonishing for both of us, really.

One wanted to move really really quickly. I suspect he was more looking for a mother for his children than a romantic partner. I like him a lot and was attracted to him but I just didn't seem to connect with him like he said he was connecting with me. Part of it was the fact that he didn't take particularly good care of himself physically, which is a big deal. Part of it was something else that I just couldn't put my finger on. But he's now in a relationship that seems to be working really well for him and I'm happy.

The third was smart and funny and cute and a Kiwi (I have a soft spot in my heart for Kiwis). Our second date was the day before my birthday. He "took me out" to celebrate...and made me split the bill. Needless to say, there was not a third date.

The best date I've had through this entire experience was the biggest learning experience of all. He was smart, very funny, extremely successful, accomplished and driven and very sexy. We spent a great 3 hours together and he had me giggling like a school girl! He was extremely masculine which brought out the feminine in me. It was just about perfect...until

As we were finishing off (he was running late to pick up his kids) I got up to go the bathroom. When I came back he stood up, pulled me towards him, gave me a nice kiss on the lips and walked away. He didn't mention paying so I thought he must have taken care of it.

I had a networking meeting in the same hotel and went to that. A waiter came by with a tray of drinks and I took one. Shortly there after another waiter came by with a bill. Now, I've been to a lot of networking meetings before and I've never seen a system where they offer you a glass on one tray and present you with a bill a minute later. Then I looked at the bill. $58! That's an expensive glass of champagne!!!! But no, it was actually our bar bill. My guy had left without paying.

Now, my first reaction was that he forgot. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a very direct communicator. Normally I would have just gone home, written him and email asking if he'd forgotten and we'd be laughing. But, I was so stunned by this (and a bit tipsy at this point in time) that I started telling people what had happened. I love a good story and I thought this was a good one. After I got over the initial shock I was laughing. But, to the person, everyone I told (men and women) all told me that he most likely did it on purpose and that I shouldn't give him a second thought because he was either a complete ass or a game player. Unfortunately that was congruent with some of the emails that we'd exchanged before meeting (although my experience of him in person was definitely not that!) But, I took this to heart and, instead of writing the email I would have normally written, I wrote him a very ambiguous one and one he took the wrong way.

A month went by with little communication. I did ask him to make up for leaving me with the bill by donating some items from a store that he owns to my Rotary Club's 4th of July celebration which he did.

Then finally curiosity got the best of me and I emailed him and asked him why he left like that. Well, he'd forgotten, like I'd originally assumed. Then he mis read my email and thought I was hard work so he forgot about me. Unfortunately for me and luckily for him he's also met someone else and is madly in love. I am happy for him and I learned a lot through this experience.

• Don't let other people's opinions influence you! Go with your gut.
• Direct, clear, open, honest communication is the only way to go.
  
• Seize the moment. If you see something you want go after it!
• There are men out there that can make me giggle like a school girl. They may only come around rarely but they are out there and I can find them and attract them (he later told me that we'd be dating had my email not pissed him off). :)

At the end of the day I've learned a lot more about what I'm looking for and how to attract them. It's been fun! I've actually had fun dating for the first time in my life.

And there will be many more adventures to come, that I can promise you!