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by Cynthia Gilmore  “Uh oh, here come the Golden Girls.” Despite that warm greeting received when friends and I recently entered a bar for a nightcap, I’m considering online dating again after a fifteen-year hiatus. Between which, I was coupled, uncoupled, and relocated a million times, more or less. With seven years between the breakup, and improved mental health, I’m ready. Ready to kick that guy’s ass in the bar and move on. It’s a weird way to meet people. People lie. About their height, (I’m 5’10”), their weight, their wrinkle-free photos from yester year, and their relationship requirements. For all the older men who want sex with a twenty-five-year-old, just say it. It’s creepy, but we’re all adults. Don’t waste my time when I could be re-watching Pride and Prejudice or having my tires rotated. I prefer to meet people in person. At a book club, an art museum, over an avocado at the market, or around the holidays when a kindly lumberjack rescues my car from a snowy ditch and makes great hot cocoa. Yes, I’d prefer a Hallmark movie for seniors and second chances. But sigh, none of the above have manifested. So, I’m back to online shenanigans. What’s changed in the online dating sites since I left? Money. You can sign up and go through the trouble of answering annoying questions, uploading a photo, and viewing potential coffee dates. But that’s it. You can’t see who likes you or respond to any emails without a membership. It’s a pay-to-play scheme. Who knew when I was in my 20’s that dating would one day require a monthly fee instead of hours of flirting and a sloppy goodnight kiss for a free bar tab. Good grief. Oh, the whimsical desires of my twenty-year-old self. Who was my perfect partner then? I wanted a tall handsome man with a great sense of humor. I should have aimed higher. I met that guy over and over again in the bars and concert halls of my carefree youth. Turns out it wasn’t a great formula for relationship longevity. But I got hitched eventually. After I dated everyone within the state of Connecticut and moved to Maine. Marriage wasn’t in my grand plan until all my friends tied the knot and spent weekends painting the nursery. It finally looked like an appealing option after years of dating. I liked yellow rooms and whimsical mobiles. So, I answered a personal ad in the newspaper, was married two years later, and divorced by my fortieth birthday. Single again and cutoff from stepdaughters I loved. I vowed I would never date someone with young children again. So much for the old personal ads. As if that was the problem. I returned to the dating world a few years later when online options were free. And survived a lot of first dates. Mostly due to profile fabrication strategies gone awry. Do people think we won’t notice that the person in the online photo barely resembles the one we meet in person? Or do they believe we’ll overlook various faux pas because we’re already smitten? It’s sad. I get that it’s hard to be your vulnerable self when the world judges so harshly. But maybe others are looking for real people showing their soft underbellies (ewe, not literally) just like us. One can only hope. It wasn’t all bad. I met some nice people during this phase of Dating for Divorcés. One who has remained a friend and maybe could have been more if our timing was right. A great guy who had young children, while I was considering a career move to another state. He told me once I was the "one who got away." I like being someone’s "one who got away," but that still leaves me with no one to take out the trash or hold my hand at the movies. Sometime after the "one who got away," I met the big love. The big online mushy love. Handsome, tall, charming, and funny; I was a goner after dessert. And eight years later I left. One can only take so much of a malignant narcissist. It took almost as many years to recover. But I’m finally free of that story, and ready to enter the wacky wading pool for seniors. My list of requirements is somewhat altered from when I started out, starry eyed, and unfamiliar with nefarious intentions. Life has a way of filtering out the things that matter from the things we tolerate. What matters now is kindness. Kindness and emotional accessibility. Okay, kindness, emotional accessibility and curiosity. Someone who is still curious about the world and has hobbies and interests. And a reader. So, kindness, emotional accessibility, curiosity, hobbies and interests, and a reader. Loud chewing is undesirable, but as my hearing deteriorates with age, it may not be a deal-breaker. And what about me? What do men want now? I have no freaking clue. I’m lumpy and cranky, saggy and snarky. More Shar Pei than Greyhound; suspect attributes to attract potential partners. I’m sampling dating apps to get to the bottom of men’s short lists. I hope they know by now. If they don’t know by now, I’m off to the nunnery, or bingo night at the senior center. There must be free dating apps that aren’t hookups or SerialKillersRUs. So far, I’ve tried three. There are few Tumblers in my age range. Catch.com is still out there. But I met my ex on that app so maybe that’s a no. And they charge a fee for just about everything. An app for “Over 50” optimists asked several questions about religious affiliation which is where they lost me. I’m sure there are dating apps for specific religions. Yay. But couldn’t we just keep that to ourselves. Where I come from that’s like talking about your income. Or sex. And if that’s a deal breaker, you’ll find out quickly. Any who, that’s a No. I’ll have to pursue other options. Oh, for Pete’s sake, just writing about this is exhausting. I’ll go take a nap and think about it later. A New England Yankee, Cynthia Gilmore currently lives in North Carolina and works at the library. She once wrote for a local newspaper and has been published by The New York Times and other journals. Cynthia spends hours untangling things or picking lint off sweaters when she could be writing for her dearmomm.com blog and other literary gems. Comments are closed.
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