Just first date! We’ve met a few times over the 10+ years I’ve known her. But I didn’t realize she was available or interested until I ran into her on OkCupid.
Yay!!!
Signed up for a couple of sites a little under three weeks ago. I don’t want to jinx things, not going to get cocky, etc. but so far I’m pleased with how things are going.
Went on my first “first date” since 1994 last week. :) And my second…
Taking it slow – I’m not even officially divorced until a week from Friday, not that I’m counting or anything – but phew. Facing this at 53 was pretty damn scary, but initially, at least, it’s fun. Really cool to meet interesting, smart, creative people. (And there are some not-creepy women out there who like science fiction and other nerdy stuff. You just have to wade through a few hundred “I’m loyal, I love hiking and frequent travel, and I want to learn to salsa dance” profiles to find them in the haystack.)
You dawg. ;)
Seriously, I hope it goes so well for you.
Awesome to hear, Denny. Good luck to you. I actually found this more fun at our age than dating when I was younger. Plus, let’s face it, people our age have better stories.
What if I am loyal, do love hiking and frequent travel, and do want to learn salsa :(
Then you have 90% of the people on the site to choose from!
I like to eat salsa! And if you’re buying the drinks, I’m loyal to the end! Of the tab. But oh my god dating: I hope I die before my wife because I don’t want another date for the rest of my life. Whoa, I should copyright this stuff.
That depends. Do you love to travel, consider yourself a romantic, enjoy cuddling up for a movie and hate playing relationship games?
I may have shared these before, but when I was deep in the dungeons of online dating, I started collecting some of the profiles that stood out, in a bad way:
“If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain…hum hum hum…
I absolutely love Pina Coladas- getting caught in the rain can be ok- I’m thinking strongly about Yoga and I have a fully functioning brain (although, as researchers indicate probably not utilizing it to it’s full capacity)- hum hum hum…”
“I’m kinda looking for a successful, independant, good humored, sociable, active, fun, affectionate man that is not a stalker, serial killer or controlling.”
“I am adding this statement, because apparently, I must. Please do not contact me and turn on your webcam so I can see you masturbating…”
“I like UFC, WWE, Spider-Man movies, martial arts, castles, and handguns. I’m 6’ tall, intelligent.”
And my favorite:
“I like sitting near bomb fires…”
OMG! EVERYONE FUCKING HIKES!
Congrats, Denny! That is awesome!
I would be the first to admit I hate to travel and sure as hell don’t want anything to do with hiking. I am not exactly lazy, but don’t have an interest in hiking many miles on rough terrain at my age. Maybe some mountain biking, heh. Guess I would be in trouble if I ever had to date again.
But no one seems to really hike. They just take little Neature Walks. Bugs the piss out of me.
It’s insane. Just say, “I like to walk.” That works fine. It’s much more descriptive of what you actually want to do. If you like to hike then I damn well better see a big ass backpack in your photos on your back with hiking boots on! Sigh.
Shit, I better change my profile, because my hiking is “walk up a well-pruned trail to an overlook or waterfall.” :) The kind Kelan would be fine with and Hal9000 would dump me for doing. :)
Skipper, yeah, I am enjoying this way more than last time I dated, in the mid-90s. I should have just found a nice 47-year-old back when I was 29, apparently.
Oh man. Hope it keeps going well for you. At your age the numbers are in your favor (it felt like to me anyway) because at least half the guy profiles are bad. Real bad. I wasn’t on very long my second go around but got plenty of hits simply because I actually took the time to write a decent profile. And to respond/initiate with something that indicates you actually read what the gal took the time to write.
It was kinda fun being out there for a bit even with the ghosting and interviewing and whatnot. But it snagged me an amazing woman so I’m certainly not complaining.
A lot of the female profiles are also bad.
The real issue I saw is a lot of middle-aged single people are single because they have trouble maintaining relationships. I don’t mean to impugn anyone but that seemed to me the reality when I was dating.
I mean, anyone who manages to find a stable long-term monogamous relationship is automatically out of the dating pool, and by middle age, that’s going to have eliminated a whole bunch of folks. So you’re looking at people who either have chronically been unable to find a workable match (e.g., me), and there’s usually a reason for that; people who just recently started looking in the first place (which seems like it’d be a small demographic), or people whose stable long-term relationship fell apart. So realistically, you’re probably either looking at people who have some inherent issue or who have baggage from failed previous relationships.
And hey - that doesn’t mean any of these people are inherently unlovable or necessarily aren’t worth a shot. Just because things didn’t work out with previous relationships or they’ve never clicked with past suitors doesn’t mean they might not be a perfect match for you. But there are challenges that I think one doesn’t encounter so much in one’s youth.
Oh, there are plenty of vacuous lady profiles for sure. I just think dudes tend to be more obnoxious in their profile than the women do. Not that I care enough about it to do any real research or anything.
And to malkavs point, it’s true that plenty of those ‘left in the pond’ are there for obvious reasons (some reasons so obvious they jump off there profile and smack you), I think there are enough real people just using the dating sites as intended that I wouldn’t worry too much about the crazies. Although, if you’re only on POF that might bias the data set towards nutters, louts, and bed-hoppers of questionable reputation. At least that was my experience. 😁
Yes.
And the fourth reason might be people who have been recently widowed.
I also think that people who pair up before 30 don’t really know what they are doing because you only figure these things out through experiencing them. So some early matches work out great, some struggle but the couple perseveres for a variety of reason (often children), and some are simply bad matches.
Conversely, people who don’t pair up before 30 can find it more difficult to make the compromises that relationships demand. They can get a bit stuck in their ways.