Dating in My Sixties, There Are No Words...(Well, Maybe A Few)

Of all things I expected in my life, I never expected to be single in my sixties. However, it's given me lots to think about, in terms of relationships. The basic way a person meets another person in this internet-world, is by putting your profile on-line on one of those dating websites.

I have had some interesting experiences on dating websites. I haven't had many periods where nobody was interested. In fact, some guys I have gotten a "hit" (I think that's the lingo) from, are surprisingly young. I didn't really take those "hits" seriously, because what could they have wanted with me? Practice? Now, perhaps there are some women "of a certain age" who don't mind being Practice for a guy. I, however, am not one of those women.Then, there are the guys who either post a picture taken ten-twenty years ago or one that makes him look unwashed and overfed. (I mean, none of us is perfect, but don't you, at least, want to take the time to provide a pleasant-enough-looking/well-groomed photo of yourself---After all, what might the get-it-over-with picture & profile imply about your lovemaking technique?)

I have learned from therapist-friends (I am a therapist too, which doesn't make me immune from having my own "stuff" as people call their "issues" these days!) that some people are just good writers or they take a good photograph or they put a photo on-line which is really their daughter ("But, we look exactly alike!") and then they are amazed that you feel "tricked." My one therapist-friend says she finds many of the people who say they are available for a relationship--are not-at-all--available. They will engage a person; maybe meet her/him or exchange a series of fascinating e-mails or both--and, then, mysteriously disappear. Go, figure. I mean, we're not even talking sex, here.

I have had a number of mysterious episodes myself. There was one guy who was movie-star good-looking, but he was not very giving (well, not to me, anyway). After any number of homecooked meals at my place, complete with leftovers to take home for him and his dog; he asked me to repay him the $10.00 it cost him for a headlight he replaced for me. (At least he didn't add a service charge!) Another guy (and I really liked this guy!) made a lot of promises--so many, that my head was spinning. Next thing I knew, I got an e-mail from him telling me it-was-over & he was already dating somebody else. "What just happened? Who was that masked man?" I said to myself. How did I end up dancing this dance with him?

Then there were people where we didn't have the "click." You know what I mean? Either you have the "click" or you don't. Although, the longest relationship I've had with anybody I met on-line was six months and I didn't get "the click" when we first met, at all. It developed later. But, over time, that didn't work out because he had the C.O.M.-syndrome. Cranky Old Man, I call it, where somebody takes their stomach indigestion or plain old bad moods out on you with constant complaining and general crankiness.

And then there are people who advertise that they are "generous," "kind," "faithful" and "patient." I met a
guy like this recently. Advertising himself as "a patient man," after a series of back and forth e-mails and a couple of telephone conversations, he drove all the way from Michigan in this winter weather to meet. However, when I did not want to pick him (Surprise! He was a total stranger! Hell-oooo?) up at his motel (I didn't ask him to, but he stayed overnight, not wanting to make the long drive home); he thought I was being "bitchy." Maybe he was thinking we had some kind of unwritten contract, one I never agreed to, that I would be joining him at his motel?

One guy-friend of mine said, "Watch out for don'tbedesperate.com; they attract a lot of people who are just looking for sex." He also cautioned, "And never answer anybody who doesn't provide a photograph. He's just a married guy who doesn't want his wife's friends to see him fishing for "girls" on a dating site.

If I look at my own father, who I adored, he was a wonderful person and a brilliant businessman, but he quit school in his junior year of high school. Thus, he could never spell. But, he was a sweetheart! Would I have answered somebody like that, on-line? And my therapist-friend who is in a long-time happy marriage told me: "Alan (her husband) and I never would have met if we had to meet on a website. He's a quiet, intellectual, trueblue kind of guy (lucky her!), not formally educated and not one of those big-bucks, braggadocio kind of guys."

So, there it is, girls and guys "of a certain age": my brief experiences with dating on-line. The hardest part is that it probably works out one of three ways: 1. You don't like him, but he likes you. You hurt his feelings by sending him a cowardly e-mail that it's "not a good fit for you." 2. You like him, but he doesn't like you. He hurts your feelings by never calling you, though he said he would, and you cleared your whole weekend. Or 3. It's a "click" that keeps on "clicking": You both like each other. Hey, I think it was Einstein--or maybe it was Woody Allen (okay, again, Woody Allen!)--who said, "99% of succeeding at anything is in just showing up." There may be great rewards in on-line dating; but, like life in general, you've got to get through the tough parts. Don't you just hate that about dating? Don't you hate that about life? Nobody properly warned us.