I’d just like to go out with someone who isn’t ridiculously in debt.
Is everyone freaking horrible with money management?
Yes, but also there’s basically a societal expectation to go into debt, seems like. I have had so many problems, often with seemingly unrelated things, because I have refused to do that.
Also our higher education system is fucked all to hell from a financial perspective. Student debt is just a killer.
Dunno what it’s like now, but online dating wore me out about 10 years ago. It was email back and forth and then meet for coffee and…bleh. The in-person meeting was usually a disappointment. Now there’s tinder or whatever it’s called for hookups. That wasn’t around back when I was looking.
I recommend Yahoo Meetup groups. There are often sort of general, let’s get together and socialize groups that allow you to do an activity with others and meet people in a casual setting. For example, movie watching groups, casual dining groups, etc.
You might try joining some co-ed adult kickball leagues, too. I’ve seen some of the games in the park here. I’ve seen an entire table set out on the sidelines like an expensive bar, ha ha. What’s nice about kickball is no one really gets too serious and everyone can play – who can’t kick a ball, after all?
One of the things to keep in mind, and I say this without any malice towards anyone, is that a lot of the middle-aged singles out there are single for a reason. You’re a good guy who was in a long, solid relationship, so you will be a good partner for someone. A lot of people out there seemingly are unable to be good partners. Just my opinion.
Sorry to hear about the divorce, Denny. I’m glad it’s amicable, but still, 22.5 years. Ouch.
I’m 50 and have an SO (now fiance) I’ve been dating over 3 years. So I was, “in the game,” so to speak during my 40s, up until late 40s. I did not have much success on dating sites, but I attribute that more to my area and possibly the fact I have a hard time making a stellar profile. I had much better success “network” dating, i.e. expanding my friends and social group quite substantially, and meeting people that way. It’s worth considering joining some groups for things like that, Meet Up is just one example. I’m also something of a barfly and I’ve done that scene as well.
Tinder wasn’t so hot, here at least. The women of my age on Tinder aren’t what I would consider as good girlfriends, though they might be good dates if that’s all your looking for. Similar to what @Mark_Asher said, the more formal date sites were a long arduous task of back and forth communication with little gain. Which is even more sad because I had hoped Tinder would be the better option and it was not.
Work on yourself for a bit. You’ve not had to work on your self-confidence in dating conversation for quite a while. Even if you think you’re an amazing conversationalist, it will help a lot to be near a group of like-aged single people and see how the dating game operates these days.
As far as I have ever been able to tell, Tinder is for hookups and therefore entirely useless to me. I was not happy when OkCupid started emulating it more and more.
That was the premise, but there are a surprising number of people/profiles on Tinder looking for relationships. It truly is a mishmash of everything wrong with internet/app dating.
Sorry to hear about the divorce even if it is amicable @Editer.
As for online dating, I’ve done my fair share of chatting with people, but it seems like the picture is all anyone really cares about. Make sure you get that part right.
The other thing is it seems very hard to find people in their 40’s with geeky interests. It’s not mandatory, but jeez, how can there be so many people out there with zero knowledge of Star Wars at that age?! Everyone just wants to go to the beach or go camping. I dig that too, but you can’t constantly be traveling unless you’re rather wealthy. *shrug*
I saw a bit of that too. The problem is nobody wants to put on their profile: “I pretty much just work and then try to squeeze something in on the weekend so that I don’t feel dead inside once the work week starts again.”
People travel so little each year and camp even less. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been hiking in the last 5 years. Do I like all that stuff? Sure. Should it be on a profile? Probably not, but you have to put something on those things, thus the problem.
Assuming you are looking for women, unfortunately the traditional geeky pastimes have had a serious gender imbalance until relatively recently (and some people seem really invested in it staying that way, which I find baffling). Not that there aren’t older geeky women (my mom is 61 and met my biological father in a college SF club and the man who’s been my father figure at a con, and I’ve shared a lot of my reading and TV enjoyment with her), but it’s not as common as more recent generations.
I’ll second @Skipper’s excellent suggestion of expanding your social horizons, if that’s in your comfort zone. While I’ve been off the market for all but about two weeks of the last 18 years, I for some reason wind up being the person everyone in my social circles comes to for dating advice–??? Thus, I hear a lot of horror stories and have seen a few nice things blossom along the way, too.
And while a couple of people I’ve known have had real and considerable luck with dating sites, most of the longest-lasting relationships I’ve seen form have arisen from friendship and mutual interests and time spent together.
For instance, my primary social group these days is a group called RTR–Raleigh Tabletop RPGs. We actually have a pretty even split among age and gender (not so much race, apart from a contingent of half-Hispanics in the group, self included), as the group’s leadership–self included again, as of a few months ago!–have worked hard to make it a welcoming, inclusive place rather than an unpleasant old boy’s club of grognardism and woe.
Anyway, over the last few years, I’ve seen a handful of really sweet relationships spring forth from the group, including one marriage (the lady of whom was celebrating her 4th anniversary of which. . . by gaming with me and my friends last night, with her husband’s loving blessings, hah). My two closest friends wound up together semi-recently, well after everyone knew they would.
Gaming, sports, hiking, book clubs, whatever your thing is–if you’re out there, spending 4-8 hours a week with these people, bonding over a shared interest and expanding out from that (in my largely TTRPG-focused social circle, we’ve expanded out to weekly walks and hikes, twice-monthly meal gatherings, big Escape Room road trips, concert attendance, etc.), I think you’ve got a very high percent chance of forging some real, lasting, and meaningful connections.
And even if none of them turn out to be romantic, that rarely strikes me as a bad thing.
AP will now cease shitting up the internet dating thread with recommendations to not bother internet dating.
I got lucky in that my future wife said something about rolling for THAC0 in her profile years ago.
Huge sign of a keeper! ;)
While I am, for the time being, still married, this is one thing I too have noticed and it makes me think that should I even get divorced, I will likely give up dating/relationships altogether afterwards. I’m 47, and I have several friends who are around my age who have either been recently divorced or widowed and have struggled mightily to find any sort of new relationship despite being fairly nice looking, successful and decent guys.
A big part of it seems to come down to shared interests. These guys range from full-on gaming/sci-fi/fantasy/pop-culture nerd to more understated geekdom like playing occasional Xbox games with their kids, enjoying Game of Thrones, Marvel movies, Star Wars, and/or having a working knowledge of internet and pop culture references. Yet even those at the low end of the nerd spectrum seem to find it impossible to find a woman over 40 who shares any of these interests. “Geek Girls” seem to be a recent phenomenon, mostly limited to women in their 20’s and early 30’s. It’s very depressing for us OGs (Original Geeks).
I also depresses me that most of the “normal” 40+ couples I hang out with on a regular basis seem to have only a single hobby: getting plastered on the weekends. I mean, I like alcohol, especially if it’s something unique or tasty, but I simply feel zero compulsion to drink until I’m nearly obliterated…stumble (or worse, DRIVE) home at 1AM to sleep it off, and lather/rinse/repeat the next weekend. Yet that seems to be all people my age know how to do to “have fun”. Ugh.
Thanks, everyone, for both the support and for the great advice, anecdotes, and background info!
(And yeah, I think listing “hiking” is just mandatory for online profiles.)
Not sure what approaches I’ll take – I figure it can’t hurt, when I do start dating again, to put myself out there on the online dating services and see what happens, but I’m not looking at it as the only channel. Luckily, having been involved in the improv comedy and theater scenes around my city for the last five years, I have a wider-than-normal network of local friends to meet other people through.
As far as the geeky stuff, I damn well am going to mention Star Trek somewhere in the profile. She doesn’t have to be in to that (though it would be awesome to meet someone who was), but you gotta at least respect and accept my geek tendencies if want to be my friend. :)
Luckily, being in a tech-focused city, and involved with the creative community, there’s a higher-than-normal quotient of people around who are into creative and geeky things, versus just going out drinking.
From what I can tell, most people who like “hiking” just like neature walks. Irritating!
Ha, yes. But what you and I call hiking, most people would classify as ‘crazy’.
Speaking of, I should share pictures some time of my recent hikes. Not as spectacular as your night shots, but still cool.
Good luck @Editer. I wish I had some advice for you, but others have already covered better than I could.
I am definitely a pleasant walk in the forest kind of guy. Good friend of mine invited me for a hike and it was exhausting, I was huffing and puffing by the end. I was like, dude why don’t we stop and enjoy the sights? But he wasn’t having it.
Anyway yeah, I got no dating advice, online or otherwise, since I haven’t been on what you would call a “date” in 16 years. Those of you jumping back into the pool have my respect, don’t know if I could do it.
One of the most difficult things about dating as a divorced Dad is that the people you date often have kids of their own and they get attached to yours and you get attached to theirs. It’s hard to let that go if things don’t work out and I’ve gotten rather stuck in some relationships since divorce because of it. I’m generally a pretty good Dad and that’s a selling point with those I date so that makes it doubly hard.
Anyway, this thread is great. The “hiking” notation is spot on. Most people have no idea what that really means. I would never call my walk in the woods, even with elevation changes, “hiking”.
FWIW, I heard from the girl I mentioned upthread a few days later and we finally got together tonight and she is every bit as wonderful as I recalled and we are talking about when to do a second date. So that’s looking a lot more up! :)
Excellent! Glad the first date/meet went well and you’re on to the second. Keep up the good work!