Prompt: Beyond avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?)
So this prompt actually fits perfectly with what I wrote yesterday, and then with the good Comrade’s question, “What’s wrong with dating?” Now, you may ask yourself, why didn’t you date in 2010, Crazy? And, in truth, I don’t think that it was about being scared, or worried, or unsure…. but it was about being “too busy” or “too distracted by other things” or just too… too freaking exhausted to take it on. Even just thinking about dating as a 30-something woman in the 21st century is totally exhausting to me. And you know, I’m not alone. I know lots of women who are around my age who are not at all interested in “dating” as a pastime. Because the thing about “dating” as a pastime is it’s generally sort of depressing. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
I’ve never been much of a dater. I’ve been a hooker-upper, I’ve been a somehow-I-ended-up-with-a-boyfriend-er, I’ve been a hanger-outer. And when I was in my 20s, those approaches worked just fine. I mean, sure, I didn’t always end up in relationships that were long-term or mutually supportive or whatever, but I had a lot of fun. And, ultimately, I didn’t need to devote much energy to my “dating life” by taking that approach. Of course, perhaps if I’d devoted a bit more energy to it then I wouldn’t be facing the prospect of having to date now…. Ah, best not to dwell on that.
But so anyway, it turns out that unless you want to date 26-year-olds, my previous approach to romantic attachments doesn’t actually work. (Seriously, I spent ages 24 through like 32 dating 26-year-olds. Apparently 26-year-olds are a weakness of mine. And apparently 26-year-olds are strangely attracted to me as well, because they do seem to show up periodically whether I want them or not. Oh, and as an aside, I worry that me with the 26-year-olds is not unlike Matthew McConaughey’s character in Dazed and Confused who keeps dating high school girls long after he’s graduated.) And then, well, there was the involvement with FB which sort of threw a wrench into any sort of normal dating prospects I might have had. But see, that FB thing wasn’t just a wrench – it was also a way of avoiding something that I didn’t feel like doing, which was the whole dating thing. Which, when you’re a professional lady in her 30s, who is friends with mostly married people who themselves are mostly friends with other married people, means that you have to do some sort of online dating thing, which, well, I’ve done a few stretches of that and…. yeah. It’s not something that I think anybody is terribly excited about doing. I mean, sure, we all know somebody who met their soul-mate that way blah blah blah blah but the reality is that most of the people whom one meets that way are not one’s soul-mate.
And so, when people ask what is so bad about dating, I answer the following:
- Most of the time, dating does not feel like fun. I mean, sure, it’s supposed to feel like fun, but really what it feels more like is a job interview, a job interview in which you are both the interviewer as well as the interviewee.
- In order to force oneself to date, one has to try to convince oneself to like or to be excited about people that one just doesn’t like very much or isn’t very excited about. (This is how I ended up going on like 4 or 5 dates with a guy I ended up calling “piranha mouth.”)
- More often than not, dating is disappointing.
So, yeah, the prospect of dating is not something that I’m looking forward to doing. That said, I really like the idea of being in a relationship. I like the idea of having a person with whom to share things, and I like the idea of having a person who is my primary hanging-out partner. I like the idea of making a life with somebody who is not feline.
And so. That means I need to stop the avoiding of the dating, because unlike when you’re in college or even grad school and you can just fall into a relationship without any effort because you met somebody at a party or because you just happened to hang out a lot with a person and suddenly ended up being boyfriend-girlfriend, that’s not how it works when you get old. People with whom you’d want a relationship don’t just fall into your lap. (Well, and to be fair, I’m not sure that the ones who fell into my lap over the past 15 years are ones I’d pick for relationships, if I were picking, and in fact they surely aren’t or one of them would have stuck around. So perhaps what I’m saying is not that when one gets old one can’t have people fall into one’s lap but rather that I don’t want the kind who typically do that sort of thing anymore. Maybe I’m actually maturing and I don’t want to just end up in a relationship with some weirdo. Huh.)
So I guess in 2011 I have to go on dates. And probably a lot of them. Seriously, though, if I could just skip over all of that and get married in like two weeks, I’d do that in a heartbeat.
Amen to 1-3.
All the single 30-something men I know are in California and all the single 30-something women I know are on the east coast. I wish they could meet each other. The tenure track job thing is a bitch.
In economics there’s a theory that if you’re female and start graduate school attached, you will end up marrying someone who isn’t an economist. If you start graduate school unattached you will either marry an economist or you will end up single the rest of your life. Most women think that singlehood is the better option.
My recommendation is always to go for an engineer if you can. They tend to be shy so they can be difficult to find in the wild, but they make good life-partners once you get them talking.
Good luck!
I think where you live has so much to do with how good or bad online dating is. I’ve done it and absolutely loved it. It was really fun and I’m still good friends with many of the people I went on dates with because we were that good as matches (interests, values, etc). But the pickings are a lot better here than they would be in other parts of the country. (For the record, my new boy is not from online dating, but I did have some fun dates there when I was still single….)
Also, I’ve had this conversation with a friend of mine here who limits her searches to Indian guys and she’s not had as much luck…so also depends on what you’re looking for, I guess. She also brought up a good point about size privilege and how this might affect online dating which I’m interested to hear more about from people, as I’d think that since online dating doesn’t *require* a full body shot, it wouldn’t be such a factor in getting dates…she sort of made it sound like I got a lot of hits because I’m thin.
You might want to check out various local “meetup” groups and see if any of them sound interesting. I’ve had positive experiences with them here, though I think it might vary a lot based on where you live. In any case, I like being able to meet different people (outside academia) based on shared interests, and not have the explicit pressures of dating. I agree–it sounds like a lot of work to “date”!
Let me offer a cautionary tale, albeit from a male perspective. I began grad. school later than the norm at age 30 and finished when I was 36. During those years, though, I made a tremendous error and failed to notice the “mating frenzy” that was going on all around me, both amidst my grad. school cohort and beyond it. Oh, I had a bit of “fun,” as you put it in your post, but mostly I just focused on my work.
When I finished and got my first job, I moved to the new city and went about the business of settling in to my position. It was a FT non-tenure track gig, and once again, I remained oblivious to the anthropological exigencies whirling around me. I look, act, and give off a vibe that is younger than my actual age. Even though I was 36, then 37, which is a bit post-prime, I got away with it due to my appearance. And lo and behold, I did meet a very cool, interesting woman who had just finished law school.
The relationship ultimately didn’t stick. It hovered on the casual side for a few months and then dwindled. But as I look back, I see that the reason for that was my utter obliviousness to basic reality — what I’m calling “anthropological exigencies.” My problem was that I failed to look ahead. I was just living in the present, doing my thing, doing my work, writing, teaching, sending out apps for tenure track, and, you know, “hanging out” with this cool chick. This cool chick eventually took a job in D.C. and moved on without me.
I’ll cut to the chase. Now it’s eleven years later. I’m obviously not 36 or 37 anymore. And while I may not look or act (whatever that means) my age, it’s a moot point because for all practical purposes, I am invisible. I simply do not register on any woman’s radar in any way. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time a woman even looked at me.
And let’s not even get into the horror show that is dating divorced women in their 40′s with kids.
I didn’t mean to end up this way, but here I am. The train left the station, the boat sailed, and the entire time I was oblivious to the fact that there even was a train or a boat. But there was, and I f’d up bad.
I’m a woman, now 41, and my story is pretty much a female version of Chris’. I got a tenure-track position at 31 in a small university town, focused on work, dated and had a long-term casual relationship. Generally, though, I felt no urgency to find a mate. Now, ten years later, I am also wholly invisible to any reasonable sort of men and really regretting that I didn’t give this more priority when I was in my 30s.
I will note that I have never been interested in having children, and that is one decision I’ve never had second thoughts about at all. However, not having to worry about having children by a certain age likely contributed to a lack urgency about finding a mate.
Dating is icky, and dating after 40 is beyond horrible.
Ah, right, forgot the whole kid thing. Like Lucy, I never wanted them either, but there’s been a tremendous cost associated with that. In serious, non-casual relationships, I’m 3 for 3 on the kid front — that is, I’ve been dumped 3 times by women who decided they did want them. And kids were the reason things stayed largely casual with the cool lawyer chick because she made it clear that one day she wanted some. I had no luck with the Lucy’s of this world. When I met them, they were either already in long-term relationships, or if they were single, they were not at all into me.
“And let’s not even get into the horror show that is dating divorced women in their 40′s with kids. ”
Um – Chris – if you want someone in their 40′s you’re going to have to deal. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so tremendously picky in whom they date and then bemoan the fact that they are alone. Honestly, if you’re that much of a hot house flower, marriage or long term relationships are probably not for you. The reality of marriage is that most people gain weight as they get older, acquire sagging spots, wrinkles or stretch marks, experience tremendous personal loss (jobs, family members dying, horrible illnesses, addiction to various substances) and come with baggage which their partner has to help them with. I assume from your comment that you probably don’t want to deal with any of those things and feel that you shouldn’t have to – but they are part and parcel of life with another human being.
There is enormous collateral pain associated with most long term relationships – life involves a certain amount of suffering and watching someone you love suffer is exquisitely painful. I’d rather cut off my arm than watch my husband lose his parents again. There is also joy in long term relationships and there are some things that are hard to do without one (buy a house, have a kid – not impossible, just hard). But long term relationships are not for sissies. Many of the things we look at in dating (ironically) are transitory things that mean nothing in the long term or inevitably, irrevocably change with time.
I always looked first at character and then at the person’s sense of humor. Get someone with a comfortable / compatible level of both of those and you will have the tools you need to meet life’s vicissitudes with equanimity. Everything else is ephemera or window dressing.
My dating experience was okay. But I didn’t start dating seriously until the end of my 20s/beginning of my 30s.
I met Bob online, so I’m all about that. In fact, I met most of my serious guys online. I was so shy at first that it was just too hard for me to connect in public.
Do you have friends who might be able to set you up, if you’re not into the online thing? Or, a group that has similar interests – maybe a walking group or something like that.
As you know, dating is just like Tom Hanks’ character says in Sleepless in Seattle – you try on people until you find the right fit.
@Chris – I promise that you are NOT off of all women’s radars. I am 38 and have always dated older men. I don’t want kids. And I know plenty of women in my age group who feel the same way. It’s just about being in the right place at the right time.
@Ivory: why are you calling me out when above me, Lucy wrote “and dating after 40 is beyond horrible.” Hmm … do I smell a double standard?
Look, everybody, play nice. I think it’s fair for people to note the things about dating that are not satisfying for them, difficult, etc., and I’m not sure how helpful it is for some commenters to jump in and say “well if you just weren’t so picky” or “but I have a strong relationship and so the fact that you don’t must mean you’re not mature or you’re not willing to put in the work,” or whatever. I also think it’s fair that some people have had good experiences and they want to share them, and I am not at all interested in this comment thread becoming a place where everybody bemoans how awful they’ve got it as a single person. Being single does suck in some ways, but it also has its good points, like not having to share when you don’t want to (my personal favorite) and not having to consult with another person before making decisions (a close second).
All in all, though, I’m not really into the tone that this comment thread has taken, where I feel like there’s a lot of talking past each other and not a lot of true conversation. And the reason that I haven’t piped up is because I said pretty much all I have to say about dating in the post, and then I got my shit together and worked on an online profile for myself, because as much as I find it annoying, I’ve decided I’d rather be annoyed and trying than annoyed and lonely and doing nothing. That’s not to discount anything that anybody has said on either side of the conversation, but that is the decision that I’ve made about this issue going forward, as I indicated at the end of the post.
So. I’m not sure what else to say. Let’s just try to keep the conversation a conversation, okay?
Chris – Lucy described dating as horrible. You described dating a certain type of person as a horror show. That is fundamentally different to me.
I don’t envy anyone the prospect of trying to date ever – it’s like being a foodie at a cheap Las Vegas buffet who’s required to do blind taste testing of everything on the menu. Some of it might be very nice but it takes a long time to find something good and you’re going to spend a lot of time at the gym working off the extra calories that were a waste of your time.
I only know of two successful dating strategies (successful in the sense that people actually met their long term partner doing them):
1. Finding a group activity with people who have similar interests (volleyball league, book club). This can backfire if the relationship sours.
2. Dating online.
I also know people who moved to be in an area with a different or larger pool of prospects but the jury is still out on whether or not that worked for them without also doing the first two things on the list.
Good Luck!
Thanks, Ivory. When I said that “dating after 40 is beyond horrible” I was referring to my age not that of a possible date. To my surprise I have found that many men have a real psychological barrier about dating a woman over 40 – even when the man is considerably older. I was truly taken aback at what a difference there seemed to be between 39 and 40 in their minds.
It’s not that I find being single so terrible. My life is really very good. However, I would like to feel that I had consciously chosen rather than inadvertently ended up with the life that I have.
Similarly, I was only speaking of the kid factor. All the rest that was insinuated was entirely off my radar. And referring to me as a “hothouse flower” was seriously uncalled for, not to mention inaccurate.
And the difficulties of single guy without kids dating divorced women in their 40′s with kids — and I’m speaking on a purely anecdotal level here — comes down to lifestyles. I’m pretty free. Apart from my job, my obligations are relatively minimal. I can go where and do what I want when I want etc. That’s not the case for people with kids – male or female – and in my experience, that eventually drives a deep wedge of incompatibility into the relationship. Such is life. (see, I’m not blaming anyone for their life choices)
And @ Lucy, I have no trouble with “40.” In fact, the times I’ve met a single woman who’s 40-something, who’s cool, interesting, compatible and so on, I’ve been positively giddy. Unfortunately, it’s only happened twice. And in both instances, they weren’t into me. Alas.
@ Dr. C.: agreed on what can be good about being single. Except, see how you feel after 5 or 6 years of being single. The charms of not having to share or consult someone on decisions can wear a bit thin. And the real bitch of it all is that while these charms are wearing very thin, a kind of converse-effect is happening at the same time: as the years pile up, one becomes so rooted within their own life and its patterns and rhythms that they become utterly incapable of sharing or compromising or just making simple plans. (see above paragraph under “they weren’t into me”)