Hoss
Make America's Team Great Again
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Dating
- Thread starter pharmakos
- Start date
Edaw
Parody
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moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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A little help for your big date!
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OU Ariakas
Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
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Ok my dude, it is time to liven up this thread a little. I know it is not the same, but I my divorce was finalized yesterday and I am going to be dating again at 44. I am sure that I am going to come up against some of the same things that you have faced and in a different way; but, let's face it, this thread has really lacked for the perspective of us that had good, successful relationships that ended for various reasons and now we are back in the mud. So let's hear a doozy.
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I'll get to my stories, but first let's start with you.
Well my friend. You're pretty much fucked. Recently divorced mid forties guy is like fucking plutonium to a lot of these women. Either they're coming out of a divorce and are looking to see what malevolent character traits blew up your marriage and if those line up with the guy that burned them, or they've been on the apps long enough to get fucked over by the guy "figuring stuff out" and "just trying to see where things go".
I know this, because I have women friends that have gone through it, and I've been on enough dates where whenever they ask "So, how have the apps been for you?" this is the lead in for them to unload on their past experiences.
I know it comes off as flippant of callous saying this, but I get a pass because of the widower thing. It's like an instant demeanor shift.
So, what you'll be looking for is:
- Woman in 40's, recently divorced, kids are out of the house or pretty much, and is going through a "renaissance" and "finding herself" aka pretending she's 22 again and just wants to party a whole bunch and hopefully you make enough $$ to take her away for random weekends. She won't get on your nuts for not wanting to get serious right away and ask things like "What are your intentions??" after chatting for 45 seconds.
- Never been married woman who has no head piercings besides her ears and is 35 and under. You might think a lot of them at that age are baby crazy (and some are) but just as many have no interest in kids and they just work and travel a lot. Its great because they aren't wanting / expecting all of your free time. My kids are young and I have no split custody so these women are out for me.
- You can try for the ones in their 20s but they're all pretty much retarded, the conversation sucks, and they're too expensive.
- After a while if you decide you actually want to have a serious relationship, just find someone who's life/lifestyle lines up with yours.
I've realized that My range is like 31 to 44 and they have to have kid(s) around the same age as mine. Not because the kids will hang out, but because even if there is an age gap we still can relate to each other a lot better. A lot of the women my age are in a completely different life stage and look at me like a fucking alien. "No, I can't go to Miami for the weekend, I'm going to fucking Fraggle Rock Live. "
Other tips:
- Skip tinder, I went with Bumble and Hinge. Pay for premium (it sucks but you'll never get anywhere with the free version) "Oh hey, a notification that someone swiped me!" "Sweet, I can look and see who it is once a day or whatever." "Oh great its some swamp donkey from 70 miles away! Better luck tomorrow!" With the premium you can get through a lot of the riff raff (there's tons) and you can swipe / like as many people as you want.
- Set your distance range to like 5 miles of where you live (less if you live in a city, more if you live in the woods). You'll still get random matches for people 70 miles away but it will save you a lot of time. I live in Portland, Maine but most of the state is rural fucking woods. I've been swiped by some genuinely beautiful women, but they're hours of driving away. At first I'd still swipe back, but really there's no point. Now I just accept reality and hit the X. No sense wasting time.
- If you see someone that's hot and it says "Just joined", don't bother swiping, odds are she has grandiose ideas of meeting prince charming, you're better off waiting until she's seen the wasteland that's out there, and then 44 divorced guy starts to look better and better.
- Don't put any pictures of yourself shirtless, holding a fish, or standing next to a car. Unless that car is a lambo, they're probably not going to go for it.
- When you match with someone, or if you're on an app where you can respond to a prompt (Hinge) make sure you ask a question in the response to the prompt - odds are they'll at least answer and give you a shot.
- When you do match, get off the app as soon as possible and go to texting. And once you're texting don't chat forever. In going out with these women, a lot of them say that guys will just text forever and ever and never have the sack to actually ask the woman out. And if you text too long, you get a cliffnotes version of everything in each other's lives - so if you do meet up, its harder to come up with shit to talk about.
These are more personal ones to me, but to each they're own:
- Don't do coffee, its lame.
- I'm not big on activities as a first date. An activity might be fun, but it might mask that the person and I don't click. If I can't make it through a meal with someone, it ain't going to work. So I start there.
- When I do ask someone out, I say specifically: "If you're interested, I'd love to buy you dinner". It tells her already she's not going to deal with the splitting the check crap, so odds are she'll at least give you a shot for the free meal. If you aren't a schlep it will be up to you if you want to see her again. So many guys are really bad at dating. I'm no fucking stud, I'm just not an idiot, and for these women - that's pretty much enough. I can hold a conversation, I don't talk about myself the whole time, and I don't make lame sexual innuendo jokes. That's literally the bar, its so fucking low out there, that's really all you have to do.
- When you take pics for your profile, the vibe you're trying to put out is: I'm letting you know I have a dick, but I'm not going to send you unprompted pictures of it. Never send dick pics.
- I went on Hims and got a tin of the chewable ED stuff. I've never had to use it, but just having it nearby took the pressure off. I hadn't been with another woman in close to 20 years, and hadn't gotten laid in 2. I was scared shitless.
- Don't go swipe crazy, respond to the prompts of like 4 or 5 people tops and then wait a few days. Often times you'll get nothing and then all of a sudden you're trying to keep up with 5 conversations at the same time. Its a pain, especially if the women are all attractive / seem cool. You don't want to blow it with any of them necessarily but you're trying to keep all the plates in the air, and are trying to schedule dates like 4 weeks out. No bueno.
I could probably come up with more, but I'm too fucking tired (2 kid birthday parties today) and I write too many words as is. I promise I'll get to some of my stories.
Edit. I lied - I thought of 2 more.
- I filter out sober people or non drinkers. I love a cocktail and I can't be with someone who might fall off a wagon and blow up my life and theirs if I was in a relationship with them.
- If you are on Bumble and someone swipes you whose come in from out of town, it's really up to you to decide if you want to get laid. Because that's whats happening. And if you decide that's a go for you, you have to swipe back quick because she's swiping a lot of other dudes. I've never done that, but I did swipe someone back not realizing where they lived and then they were pissed I couldn't meet them and I realized "ooooOOOooh, thats what that is".
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Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Very very hard disagree here. Paying for dating apps is absolutely some of the worst ways to spend money.
Kithani
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I wouldn’t filter out non-drinkers personally my wife can’t drink more than 1 drink without feeling like crap (Asian) but it works out because I always have a DD.
OU Ariakas
Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
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I appreciate the candor; I would not have asked if I thought it was going to be a cakewalk. I think that I am lucky in that I got a ton of serial dating out of my system in/after college and have accomplished a lot of what I wanted to with my life already. I don't know if it will play well, but my main goal now is to raise my kids to be well adjusted, independent, and critical thinkers; everything else is secondary. I am not going to settle for the first girl that pays attention to me, but am also not going down the path of multiple girls in some sort of roster to choose from.
It is funny you mention holding conversations; all of the profiles on Bumble talk about this and it makes me wonder if these women are the deficient party in those conversations or if this forum has spoiled me into thinking that the majority of people can have nuanced, long conversations.
Have you found that most of these dates are a lot of them talking and you asking leading questions?
fris
Vyemm Raider
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Given that i'm about to get back on apps after a short 6 month relationship that didn't work out, i'll add some thoughts on what's worked for me over the 6 years since my divorce
I didn't see a benefit on paying. You might have to honestly evaluate your appearance, it's a big deal on apps.
I can't swipe every day either. it's depressing. i also don't read too much into any one profile. you'll get your hopes up if you find a good match and that person will never swipe on you. i could quickly go through my 50 swipes a day and not get a single match. girls are getting matched up to ever other swipe they do. it's a numbers game.
i prefer the coffee first date. i've had 2 that I knew right away it wasn't gonna work. one they were probably 20-30 pounds more than their pic, the other was a complete basket case. the basket case was a nurse and her profile showed she really had her shit together. once she started talking, she couldn't keep the red flags in. she was about to move cause her parents didn't want her in their rental home anymore, and were going to let some random who was renting the other bedroom take over the whole thing.
don't get caught up in ghosting. it's just the nature of these non-organic meetups.
i've found that i need to do about 50 swipes to get a match. about 3-4 matches before i'm willing to ask someone to coffee. about 1-2 coffees lead to seeing someone a few times.
being almost 50 and having 2 young teenage boys, matching isn't easy. i find a lot of women my age are empty nesters and they either want to meet my kids right away or get frustrated when they can't see me for a week straight. i find women my age that never had kids have a reason for never having kids. that's what I first looked for after my divorce, and now I try to stay clear.
protect your kids. seeing you doing a revolving door of potential partners isn't good on their views on relationships. my xwife introduced a guy too early, his kids, combined Thanksgiving, and then it didn't work out. i could tell it confused my boys. then i did the same thing, was dating a girl about 3 months, brought my kids to her christmas party, our kids meet each other. now we're broken up. ive read that kids shouldn't meet someone until at least 6 months.
i haven't tried hinge, just started using Facebook dating. Tinder in my area seems more focused on hookups, which i'm not looking for, and seems to have more guys swiping on everyone. bumble has worked out well for me in the past. girls having to make the first comment seems to weed out some matches that wouldn't go anywhere.
I didn't see a benefit on paying. You might have to honestly evaluate your appearance, it's a big deal on apps.
I can't swipe every day either. it's depressing. i also don't read too much into any one profile. you'll get your hopes up if you find a good match and that person will never swipe on you. i could quickly go through my 50 swipes a day and not get a single match. girls are getting matched up to ever other swipe they do. it's a numbers game.
i prefer the coffee first date. i've had 2 that I knew right away it wasn't gonna work. one they were probably 20-30 pounds more than their pic, the other was a complete basket case. the basket case was a nurse and her profile showed she really had her shit together. once she started talking, she couldn't keep the red flags in. she was about to move cause her parents didn't want her in their rental home anymore, and were going to let some random who was renting the other bedroom take over the whole thing.
don't get caught up in ghosting. it's just the nature of these non-organic meetups.
i've found that i need to do about 50 swipes to get a match. about 3-4 matches before i'm willing to ask someone to coffee. about 1-2 coffees lead to seeing someone a few times.
being almost 50 and having 2 young teenage boys, matching isn't easy. i find a lot of women my age are empty nesters and they either want to meet my kids right away or get frustrated when they can't see me for a week straight. i find women my age that never had kids have a reason for never having kids. that's what I first looked for after my divorce, and now I try to stay clear.
protect your kids. seeing you doing a revolving door of potential partners isn't good on their views on relationships. my xwife introduced a guy too early, his kids, combined Thanksgiving, and then it didn't work out. i could tell it confused my boys. then i did the same thing, was dating a girl about 3 months, brought my kids to her christmas party, our kids meet each other. now we're broken up. ive read that kids shouldn't meet someone until at least 6 months.
i haven't tried hinge, just started using Facebook dating. Tinder in my area seems more focused on hookups, which i'm not looking for, and seems to have more guys swiping on everyone. bumble has worked out well for me in the past. girls having to make the first comment seems to weed out some matches that wouldn't go anywhere.
Hoss
Make America's Team Great Again
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Back when I was using apps I had that happen to me a bit. Once time I matched with and hit it off with a phillipino girl. Once day I asked about it and found out you can specify your match location separately from your physical location. In her case, even though she lived in manilla, she wanted to meet and marry an american so she set her match profile to various big cities in the US. So maybe that's what's up with the girls from 70 miles away.
I feel attacked
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Cutlery
Kill All the White People
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The older I get the more I think the worst part of dating is the shit that just didn't work out.
First gal I dated after my divorce was named Rose. Our personalities clicked harder than anyone I've ever met. We had such a fun time, our sex drives were in the same level, the banter and jokes were the best, and she was reasonably intelligent and we had a lot of great conversations.
But......her father is currently in jail for killing her brother. Man, that is something that just doesn't buff out. She didn't have the money or the means to get the proper help for that, and that is not something I am equipped to help someone with. I feel really bad about that one. She was an awesome amount of fun, but holy shit could things get fucking dark quick with one slipped word.
She also was deathly allergic to peanuts, and I had to make a choice - Reese's and Snickers or her.
I had a girlfriend in first grade, and she ended up changing schools and moved away after that year and I never saw her again. My ex wife managed to find her on Facebook when I was 35, and I got to meet up with her as an adult. There's something there that will never die, we've both been living in the back of each other's minds for 40 years. When I got divorced I told her she had her chance, but she was trying to make it work with the alcoholic abusive father of her son. Now I'm engaged and surprise surprise, her thing crumbled and she's getting her shit repossessed and working 3 jobs to try to hold everything together. I feel bad about that one too, but that one's a little different. She actively didn't pick me, and is now regretting it pretty hardcore. I pity her, but at the end of the day, the fiance chose me, picks me every day, and prioritizes me first over everything and everyone else. Why give that up to be 2nd best for someone else? And second best to an alcoholic abusive shitheel at that?
I spend a lot of time thinking about that shit in quiet moments. It sucks that you don't really have the time in life to explore all of the "what could have beens." I firmly believe that there's not "the one" out there for you. There's probably a thousand "ones," but we'll never get to experience 999 of them.
First gal I dated after my divorce was named Rose. Our personalities clicked harder than anyone I've ever met. We had such a fun time, our sex drives were in the same level, the banter and jokes were the best, and she was reasonably intelligent and we had a lot of great conversations.
But......her father is currently in jail for killing her brother. Man, that is something that just doesn't buff out. She didn't have the money or the means to get the proper help for that, and that is not something I am equipped to help someone with. I feel really bad about that one. She was an awesome amount of fun, but holy shit could things get fucking dark quick with one slipped word.
She also was deathly allergic to peanuts, and I had to make a choice - Reese's and Snickers or her.
I had a girlfriend in first grade, and she ended up changing schools and moved away after that year and I never saw her again. My ex wife managed to find her on Facebook when I was 35, and I got to meet up with her as an adult. There's something there that will never die, we've both been living in the back of each other's minds for 40 years. When I got divorced I told her she had her chance, but she was trying to make it work with the alcoholic abusive father of her son. Now I'm engaged and surprise surprise, her thing crumbled and she's getting her shit repossessed and working 3 jobs to try to hold everything together. I feel bad about that one too, but that one's a little different. She actively didn't pick me, and is now regretting it pretty hardcore. I pity her, but at the end of the day, the fiance chose me, picks me every day, and prioritizes me first over everything and everyone else. Why give that up to be 2nd best for someone else? And second best to an alcoholic abusive shitheel at that?
I spend a lot of time thinking about that shit in quiet moments. It sucks that you don't really have the time in life to explore all of the "what could have beens." I firmly believe that there's not "the one" out there for you. There's probably a thousand "ones," but we'll never get to experience 999 of them.
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