The Musings of a Dating Midlife Widow

What no one told me after losing my husband to brain cancer, was that as a widow, I would go through a (for lack of better word) horny phase. Yes, I said it. Women over fifty still get randy! It was a few months after his passing when the longing for my deceased husbands tangible touch, scent, taste and feel was still in the yearning phase. I would meditate to remember his essence and what it was like to be with him. That would get me all fired up with nowhere to go. It was too early to try and date, because once around other men, it was still repulsive to think of being with someone new. Of course, there is guilt about being loyal and faithful…to a man that is no longer alive. I know, its not rational. Nothing much is when it comes to grief.

Flash forward over two years…and here I am. Ready as I can be, trying out the dating scene. Everything is different. The texting, online presence, the expectations and worst of all, the catfishing. The fake profiles are everywhere, seemingly on every dating site and of course I was a victim right off the get go.

As I cried to my girlfriend about being duped, she exclaimed “Oh honey, everyone gets catfished…it’s a rite of passage into the dating world now, onward and forward, let it go.”

I was smart enough to not send compromising pictures or heaven forbid…money, but I still felt stupid and gullible. There are fake profiles for married men who are looking for a thrill, money scammers, creeps who just want sexy girls photos but are too gross to come out from under the rock in which they hide under and the phony’s that post pictures of themselves from five or ten years ago when they weighed much less and had hair.

I still don’t understand how they can show up to that date they managed to secure on false pretense and look someone in the eye.

It has become much harder to meet men who will integrate into my life. I found that a lot of them are so full of past baggage they date in fear and are paralyzed to move forward with someone new, in case they have to commit somehow. Then there are the ones who want to start a relationship but I can’t reciprocate, because I have my own fucked up set of ideas as well. Most recently, I met a man on a first date, where he stood up and looked for his keys and coat, while I was still eating. I don’t know if I said something to piss him off or he just got bored. I thought it was the rudest thing anyone had ever done on a date with me.

The biggest thing I noticed missing from todays men is that chivalry seems to be gone. They text for conversation and setting up dates, they don’t want to pay for the meal and they expect sex fairly quickly. How did the millennial’s behavior rub off on the baby boomers?

The frustration in trying to carry on an actual conversation via text brings mistaken meanings and dead-end relationship development. There is so much unsaid, hidden emotional shit attached with older men (and probably women) in mid life that to sync up with similar goals and desires feels impossible. When I finally do go on a date, if I can make it past the texting, the art of connecting has to happen quickly, because if one of us doesn’t feel it, the online options are endless and its easier to move on to the next interest then pursue what is sitting right in front of me.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve had enough of all that life has offered me. Job excitement, dating, sex, new stuff, homes…I’m over all of it…. but just when I think I want to give up, something in my soul pushes me to keep trying. Because even though I love myself and find contentment within my inner circle, without that special, sexy, all-encompassing love, life has no interest to me.