Dating During a Pandemic, While Over 50. In one word? Gross.

Dating is not for the faint hearted.
Especially when you were married for MANY years and wake up from a hundred year dating-sleep (like you ever dated in the FIRST place) and find yourself smack in the middle of a garbage fire, pandemical app world.

 

 

 

 

I really hate the dating apps.
Like really, really.
Like really, really…really.
Hate.
AND I KNOW I can’t be alone in this feeling.
I mean, there is NO way I am the only one who stepped out there, after hundreds of years married and/or partnered (or other), who opened a dating app for the first time, and thought:

What the fuck is THIS fresh hell? This is fucking bullshit. I would rather be alone forever.

The swiping, the picture picking, the bio writing…the ENDLESS Hey, How Are You-ing…the bots, the fake profiles, the catfishing, the ACTUAL fishing, the guys WITH fish and oh my gods, let us ALL say it together…the endless friggen dick pics. (eye roll emoji)

SIDEBAR:
Someone suggested the following to me, and I encourage YOU to do this, if it tickles your fancy.
Oh, It’s HIGHLY gratifying, trust me.
I CANNOT for the life of me remember who told me about this…so, I apologize if it was is you…but THEY saved up all the dick pics they’d been sent, and when a dude sent one (unsolicited), they just started firing back ALL the pics they’d saved.
When the guy said WTF, they would respond with:

Oh, I thought that’s what we were doing, sending each other pictures of penises!

Magical, right?
END OF SIDEBAR.

In the very beginning of my dating app experience, which started two and a half years ago, about five months after I exited an almost twenty-five year marriage, I had the great luck of thinking I was awesome AND totally-unsuitable-for-other-humans in equal measure, depending on the day.
Oh, being alive…and not the Sondheim version.
Texting and chatting with total strangers, some who live in Brampton (Brampton, simmer down, it’s a joke…I’m from Hamilton…you make fun of us ALL the time) was and is, a real rollercoaster of a situation.
Every time I had a positive experience, it lifted me way more than it probably should have.
THEN, if had a negative experience on the apps (which is more often than not), I would fight hard to not feel like the dented can of tomatoes on the very back of the shelf.
It’s harsh on there, people.
HARSH.

EXAMPLE OF HARSHNESS: I swiped right on one dude, who matched with me simply to have his first message be:

Nah.

If I could’ve crawled through the internet and let him have it in person, I would have.
What (claps) a (claps) DB.

Let’s be honest here, being 50 on ANY dating app is a bit of shit show, if you are out to do more than hook up.
And I don’t want a hook up.
Not anymore, anyways.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…but, it’s a friggen pandemic, people. Deadly dates, indeed.
AND I don’t want to be your BIG GIRL ADVENTURE.
AND I don’t want to be your MATURE WOMAN EXPERIENCE.
I simply don’t. I’m too awesome for that. (It’s a total feeling good day…let’s celebrate!)

I’ve gone back and forth on the idea of dating, during this pandemic.
And really?
You can’t really call it dating…right now, it’s like some kind of self-forced, sad, online interview process that evolves into a weird walk along the waterfront, quite possibly in inclement weather (CANADA), holding a cold coffee, alongside other weary/scared adults, whose face you might not be able to see from behind a mask.
A “date” with someone who maybe, like most right now, simply doesn’t want to go out alone, here at the end of the world.
The people just seem to want hugs, possibly a good gut laugh and maybe some delightful kissing, really. Okay, I will speak for myself.

And then one day, after a weird walking date, you meet someone nice and you find yourself sitting on your couch after, weighing the odds of letting someone into your life who you are just PANDEMIC-INTO.

PANDEMIC-INTO def:

Someone lovely, but with whom you have no spark really, who you discover you’ve not as much in common with as you first thought, and would probably never date, if it wasn’t a pandemic, BUT you have put all this work into them, so why not give it a go?

It’s hard times out there, humans.
It feels the like the options are either:

YOU’RE GONNA BE ALONE FOREVER AND ARE LEANING INTO IT
or
GET TO SWIPING, SWIPING, SWIPING…AND SWIPE LIKE IT’S A PART TIME JOB.

Neither option seems particularly appetizing to me, to be honest…so, instead, I have worked really hard to embrace my solo-ness, right now.
I do really love my life…and I appreciate the life I’ve made for myself, in this strange world we are living in right now.
I hike.
I ride my bike.
I watch TV almost every night with my pal in Winnipeg…we are in Season 3 of Game of Thrones and I can’t wait to get to the Red Wedding. He’s gonna shit.
I write.
I work.
I cook…such as I can or want to.
I meditate.
I breathe.
I talk to people on the phone and on Zoom.
I play Dungeons and Dragons when I can. (Don’t knock it…it’s awesome)
Some times, if the numbers are low, I meet one of five friends for a walk outside…wearing two masks, of course.
I have dug in and, some days, have to work VERY hard to appreciate what goodness is sent my way…but I try.
But…it would be nice to have someone around a few nights a week, right?
Yeah…someone who is TOTALLY into you…maybe, um, three nights a week and two weekends a month..is that too much to ask?
Until I meet the absolute right human, THAT’S where I’m at.
Again…not all nights…just a few.
Maybe a sunny afternoon or two.

After a bunch of looking around, after being married for over half my life, I know what I want now, and I’m not ready to give up my time or space for anything less than…it all.
Bold, yes? Now here this:

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO FUCK AROUND!

Y’all, I’ve been through it and know what I want…mostly. I am going to add a smiley face now, to cushion the passion of my last statement. : )
In the last two years, I’ve had some short relationships…and one longer relationships…but nothing that I knew would be forever.
It’s strange to wrap your mind around having someone in your life, after you get happy on your own.
And I have downloaded and deleted ALL the apps many…many…many times.

Daters, you know when you get on the apps, and you see the same person roll around and around again and think:

What’s wrong with them?

Well, I just realized that I MIGHT be that around-and-around person, now.
Good god, how gross it THAT!!?!?
That thought just made grab my phone, and change all my pictures.
I don’t ever click on those AGAIN-AND-AGAIN guys, because I think they’re serial daters, hook up artists, or bots…or someone using someone else’s pictures who is trying to DEAR JOHN you and steal your life.
Don’t laugh…it’s on NETFLIX…so we all know it happened, right?
But…maybe I’ve been too hard on them…or maybe not?
WHO KNOWS AT THIS POINT, PEOPLE!?!?!

THE DATING WORLD IS A VIRTUAL MAD MAX AND THE THUNDERPLACE, MESS.
And, after chatting with other gals who are dating, I have surmised that it’s bad enough if you are under 30…
But?…People…
Try being over 50…or a Tinder 48.
Judge at will.
Over 50 is considered the bad side of the tracks, chugging steadily towards the end-of-life times.
I aged myself down…a bit…just so I could get into another age bracket.
WHO KNEW THIS WOULD BE A THING?
It’s a thing. What a thing. Sweet goddess.
THEN try to be a semi-confident Tinder 48, as an active, fit, big girl.
I mean, how dare I, right?
How VERY dare I dig myself? And then have standards and wants, on top of that?
Who do you think you are, Lady?!
And then there are the 20ish-30ish year old guys who are LOOKING for a big girl…which…is…well, see above
NOT YOUR BIG GIRL ADVENTURE.
PEOPLE. PLEASE.

I am just your regular, run of the mill, wonderful and fun gal looking for someone who wants to share the driving to the beach, an arm on an opening night or a red carpet, who is totally besotted with me and vice versa…I mean, come on…just three nights a week and, possibly, a rainy Saturday every once in a while? Who is vaccinated and probably childless? Too much?

To top this all off…we singles (and some marrieds and partnereds, it seems) are at the crucial point in the pandemic when:

A: You find yourself, late at night, starting to reconsider people who you let go of, for whatever reasons. Usually good reasons.

B: Guys you haven’t talked to in a year or more, text you saying “Hey, I was just thinking about you! (winkie face)”

Everyone is going through the same thing, right now…so, I try not to go straight to righteous indignation when the late night texts bloop through on my phone.
I mean, let’s be honest here, these texts are right above the draft versions of the same ones I’ve almost sent. ALMOST.

What a time to be single…happy single and complicated single.

What a time, period.

So, I’ve stopped looking for the time being. It just feels too exhausting.

Also, this is just you and I, right?
So, I can tell you that when I first started looking for a date after the totally gross, and slightly soul destroying, end of my marriage, I was trying to validate myself.
Trying to prove to myself, and others for some stupid yet totally understandable reason, that I was still desirable and worthy of a person.
What a thing, and again, what a time.

But now? A cool three years later, I KNOW I’m worthy of my own free time. TAh-DAH!!! Imagine! True story. Spikes the ball. High fives the world safely…so with elbows.

Yeah.

Indeed.

Um.

But still…some nights, it would be nice to have some one to be hysterical with in person…like two or three nights…maybe a brunch…who I enjoy kissing…possibly…but, I want it with someone like in the finale of Grease (the movie and the stage play) THE ONE THAT I WANT.

Till then…I will be walking, writing, hiking, working and LIVING mostly solo…but still, somewhere in the back of my mind, staying alert for the perfect profile picture that goes with this bio:

Happy, ambitious, gregarious, not-to-be-fucked-with, adventurous, honest, and ready to dig someone hard…and be dug
No hook ups. Serious humans, only. If this doesn’t work out, I’m becoming THAT desirable, eccentric world traveler that you muse over in airport lounges.
Which ACTUALLY sounds pretty wicked, so change my mind.

Namasté

S.M. – May 11th, 2021

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