The Background

I have been divorced for over ten years. To tell you the truth, I don't even remember exactly how many years it has been. I'm not one to memorize the dates that mark the milestones in my life. I can't even tell you exactly how old I am without subtracting my birth year from the current year. Anyway, the divorce was not a friendly one and I have not spoken one word with or written one word to my ex since the divorce was final. I had a brief fling with a married man who got my mojo going at supersonic speeds until I came to my senses and dropped him. Let's be honest here, what made me come to my senses were a few things that he said, a few things that he did, and the shock of discovering what kind of a home he lived in. That killed the romantic fog I had been floating around in. Shortly thereafter (very shortly thereafter) I met a nice guy through friends and we had a good thing going until I got a job in New York City and had to move. He was too planted in his home town to even consider moving. We tried the long distance thing for a while, but after a few months I decided I wanted a man to come home to every night, not one I could see every other week, and I guess I broke his heart (maybe, maybe not).


As a reasonably attractive woman still wearing the same size 6 she wore in her twenties, I was accustomed to being the recipient of men's attention wherever I went. There was always at least one man chasing after me at work, I always got whistles and cat calls when I passed working men on the street, and I made heads turn when I was in public places. Then I arrived in the Big Apple and suddenly it seemed as if I had turned invisible. It seemed like I couldn't get a guy to notice me if I hit him over the head with a baseball bat. (In retrospect I realize that this probably was just the common New Yorker's blase response to anything they encounter in public but at the time I thought it was just me.) I had an active social life, went out dancing, took classes, made friends, but my love life was a big zero. No one was chasing after me at work. No one was chasing after me ANYWHERE.


It was at this point that I made my first baby step into online dating. Met a few guys who didn't do anything for me, then met a guy who didn't do anything for me in person but after our first meeting wooed me with intensely passionate emails that perked me up and got me going again. I fell madly in love with him, even though we were a miserable match. All my friends were bewildered by my choice. Eventually I figured out it wasn't really love but LUV, or lust as some would call it. He did some things and said some things and eventually I came to my senses (again) and ended it. We were together for four years, though. It's hard for me to give up on a man once I have committed to him. I hate to admit I made a mistake -- again.


I hit online dating again, met a few guys who didn't do much for me and was taking a time-out when I got an email from a guy who looked promising. We met and hit it off right away. We had sex on our first date, or tried to anyway (his fault, not mine). On the second date he made up for it double, triple, and quadruple times. Warning signs cropped up almost immediately, but I was in love, love LOVE! After a few months he broke up with me, we got back together, then I broke up with him, we got back together, he broke up with me, we got back together. This happened more times that I care to admit (more on this later). After four years we went through the by now familiar breakup scenario but I was determined to make it permanent this time. When he called, I didn't take the call. When he emailed I didn't respond. Four months went by (do you see some pattern here in fours???). Meanwhile the economy tanked and my cat died and I suddenly realized -- wait a minute, what was I thinking, I can't get by on my own! I guess I have to give him a name since I will be referring back to him from time to time so let's just call him Mr. Big Foot. I could think of many less flattering things to call him but this is the Internet after all and I should be circumspect, right?


I thought long and hard about what was wrong and right about our relationship, what his complaints were, what I liked and didn't like about him. I worked out a scenario in my head where I thought I could make it work. I decided I could make both of us happy by making one tiny little adjustment in my head (never mind what it was). Now I had to screw up the courage to call him. I had no idea whether he was seeing someone or not or even whether he would talk to me. Let's face it, I was desperate. He seemed like my last chance. I called. He talked to me, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear. He had been seeing someone for two months, and "things have gotten pretty serious pretty fast." I may as well admit it, I BEGGED him to give me another chance. He politely demurred, saying he preferred to stay with his current woman and "see what worked out." I couldn't believe he would give up what we had together for four years for someone he had known for only two months, but he was nothing if not determined. Being wishy-washy was not one of Mr. Big Foot's issues. He had many issues, that just wasn't one of them.


So there I was, alone and adrift in the world of middle-aged online dating. Shit, I thought to myself, here I am again, ten years older and another 99 frogs to go through before I find my magic prince. Is it even possible to find a magic prince when you get to be this old? (Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.) Frog #1 coming up next!

Here Goes!

I am one of those people who feel better if they write down their feelings about their experiences. As a woman in my fifties, newly thrust onto the dating scene, I am finding it frustratingly difficult to connect with a man who gets my mojo going. For a while there, I thought my mojo had given up the ghost and died, but then I had a brief online fling with a man who not only revived my mojo but made me feel as frisky as a twenty-year-old. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I have not been 20 for a long time and my older and wiser self wised up before I got myself in any trouble. More on that later.

I just assumed that all my dating troubles were attributable to my age, since I never had any trouble finding someone to date, say, ten or twenty years ago. But when I read advice columns (one of my secret vices) and blogs written by younger women, I realize they seem to be having the same difficulties I am having. So maybe it's not so much MY age as just THE age, the time we are living in. Or maybe it's just that all the good men are already taken and all that is left are the riff-raff, the kind of men we only pick when we don't think we can do any better. Well, I can't claim to have much of a perspective on the middle-aged dating scene, but I can write about my own experiences and maybe help myself see things more clearly and perhaps give any readers who might materialize out there something to laugh about from time to time. So let's see how it goes.