To think I may be single forever que violins

[Hollymay45]

I am sick of seeing old friends and the first thing I'm always asked is "have you met anyone nice yet" then giving me a patronising speech about "not being so picky".
I am 37 and have a teenage DD I have been single for 5 years. I have been on dates in this 5 years but just not met anyone I have had any chemistry with. I am in an occupation which is over run with females, I have tried online dating (yet to find a cheap/ non creepy one? ) and just can't afford to get out as much as I'd like.

I'm not really unhappy/desperate it's only when I am constantly reminded/advised I feel a bit down. Apparently with age chemistry goes with age (according to some "friends" ) and I'd be better off just settling. On top of the fact I don't want to "just settle" I think having a teenager and a new man might be pretty hard to manage! Anyone got any advice/decent dating tips?! Been made to feel like some crazy spinster at a reunion today

ps, and I'm messaging men about 2-6 years older than me.

Men's entitlement to a much younger woman is disgraceful.

ps, These men of 60 who want to date women 40-45, are they ever successful? I mean, how often does that work out for them? None of my friends would consider it.

Don't settle!!! I was 36 when I got married. It's true though, I did end up marrying (first marriages for both of us) someone 8 years younger than myself.

If your friends bring it up, can you say, nicely, "I'm really not interested...and I really don't want to talk about it" and if they persist, just repeat the above? But please don't settle!!! I Didn't settle and it's been hard work these last few years and we've been married 15 years. I can't imagine would it would be like if I actually didn't care for him!

WhatDoes, they are successful if they are loaded. Sorry, but it's true.

OK lets throw this into the debate.

I'm 64 and single. Until a while ago i was married to a lady who was 20 years younger than myself. We had a good marriage by any standards and had two beautiful daughters I also have a daughter from a previous marriage. I wasn't particularly looking for a girl that age but there was an attraction there, she it seemed liked older or more mature people anyway. Also FWIW my older daughter was in a relationship with an age difference of 15 years for around 3 years!. Younger one is also looking at slightly older boys because ones her age are "pratts", her words not mine!

That said the age gap rarely caused any problems sometimes there was an an element of "been there dun that got the tee shirt" but you can't help being involved or just picking up life experiences along the way.

We parted as her job wasn't going where she wanted it and she was a European national and was missing her country badly we also drifted apart in interests for instance she loved rugby football and I didn't;!.

The age wasn't anything to do with that we could have been any age.

Didn't seem to have caused any bother elsewhere her parents were totally accepting of it and so was everyone else in fact her mum was the best mother in law anyone could have wished for;!.

I settled at 25 and spent a few miserable years. I met DH in my 30s and he surpassed expectations. Still does. Just have fun, live your life and see what happens.

To be honest if you've already got a child I don't see why you shouldn't be as damn picky as you like. You don't need a man and it's nice being in a position where you will only take someone on on your own terms and not because you are so desperate to have a baby that you've 'settled.'

miowroar I've just seen my future in your post.

Whoops hit the send rather than the preview!.

So where do i go now?. I'm not particularly looking for anyone at the moment. However just out of interest I did a scan thrugh POF strikes me as a bit of a website that could be done better, perhaps because its free?.

What did come across was a LOT of women test age range was from 45 to 60 years was that many seemed almost to have given up hope of meeting anyone decent virtually all made it very plain "no one nighters, no risqué pictures, only single Not married no one line replies etc" it gave me the impression that it was almost the last chance saloon;!. It seems that very few women were getting the replies that they wanted if any at all and seemed to have got fed up trying.

I then looked at what the men wanted. It seemed that very few if any had put that much effort into their profiles it all, seemed very down at heel very just for the fun of it and lets just piss around and see if we can get a shag:-(

Well that's my impression of it all quite a disappointment and not somewhere I'd look if i was after a partner whether she'd be 21 or 101 years old!

One for the 60 year old who posted. I was walking across the footbridge a while ago to the Queen Elizabeth Hall and there was walking towards me this absolute vision of a lady she was at least 70 years old!. Unlike most women of that age she had very long hair Grey it was but she was dressed immaculately and very stylish at that but it was also the way she walked. She seem to just gliding along there was something about her she was a stunner really was! I just wanted to turn around pinch a rose from someone somewhere stop her give it to her and tell her she looked fantastic:)

And ask her out!. There!. I kid you not.

OP, UrbaneFox and IronLung - I am sorry if I disheartened you! I think what I should make clear is that I haven't made great efforts because of the nature of the break-up of my relationship and now sadly am sadly out of the game - I am sure I give out all the wrong signals. I have a friend of a similar age whose circumstances were different and she got straight back on the horse and went speed dating! She met someone lovely, (10 years older than her - as seems to be what happens). They have been together for 11 years and get on great. I suppose what I mean is please don't give up - that's what I did and now I do have regrets, but what the hey.

Justaboy Thanks for your anecdote it does give one hope - even though I cannot pretend to have ever had more than average looks. However, it is encouraging to hear that at least some older men are not actively searching for partners decades younger!

Don't worry miaowroar !! I've only been at it a month! I will either find somebody or I won't. I'll be fine. I think I need to at least try so that I CAN accept being alone if that's what happens. NOt having tried would make it harder. I think it'll make me more confident in real life too. If I can't find a nice man, my age, up to 7+ (but no older) then I'll have to try younger instead. No idea why, but I've had messages from younger men . I think men my age and a bit older are worried that a woman their own age will publicly rate their level of attractiveness to the opposite sex. Men in their 30s aren't thinking about losing their looks so they don't look to every single woman they might date for six months to publicly label them as 'successful with women'

Miaowroar, justaboy is full of blather. He said he was looking to date women 40-55 the other day.

I am getting loads of messages from much younger men too, urbanefox, and also being chatted up by quite a few in real life. Very puzzling so I asked one of the wee whippersnappers who messaged me and seemed like a nice enough lad what he was playing at and didn't he know from my profile that he was young enough to be my son etc, etc. He sent a very sweet and apologetic reply saying he was quite inexperienced and wanted someone really attractive (!) and experienced but kind and safe to initiate him into the ways of sex! Hmmm. One of the conversations I had with a similarly aged young man in the pub who I ended up really liking in a motherly "you remind me of my son" way said something very similar. He seemed to want to "learn" how to fuck and be intimate with someone he thought was sexy but also nice and motherly. I had to refuse his invitation but we had a really interesting conversation! It really is quite hard to find the right person in this world of confusion and angst and luck and old men who want younger women and young men who want older women (but only for a short initiation period).

Oh god - I could have written this OP!

Similar age to you, 2 DC, single for 5 years. Had some flings but nothing remotely serious. Determined NOT to settle.

I think it bothers my friends more than me that I'm single. They are desperate for me to meet someone.

I feel lonely sometimes (God that sounds pathetic!) but never as lonely as I was in the final year of my marriage.

Miaowroar

There was a line missed out in the editing there in that which was;

If i hadn't had my daughters and their friends with me and we were running late then I'd have stopped and asked her out!.

{there seems to be a bit of a problem in the coding on this website or the java script on my pc is playing up, no matter}.

Now Miss Fox.

Be fair, i said in a follow up "Perhaps revise that to late forties to fifties somewhere might be more in line, its no real issue"!

and it is not. An instance. There is a 32 year old who I have to be in contact with occasionally, now the e-mails have a "flirty" content to them its light banter but that could go somewhere, she is seemingly interested in me, and interested in what I do but i choose not to carry that any further at all because there's no real connection that i can  see in her despite her age, she is quite attractive but i do not see that as a relationship I'd be into thanks.

I'm not that shallow or needy to have to have a bit of "crumpet" on my arm to make me feel better thanks. I'm OK as i am. I had a younger wife and been there etc. If there is another, relationship and I expect there will I'd want to it to be a real connection and a balanced harmonious love  match thanks. I do have some criteria which isn't set in stone, as  anyone who was up for that would be assessed, sorry if that sounds rather analytical! on an Overall "thing" not just her age that would be just stupid!.

Age it seems is very important to you and I would ask you to be a bit more flexible on that. If someone did come along was OK in all other aspects would you really be doing yourself a favour by maintaining that position so very strictly and denying yourself a happier future?.

Yes of course its your prerogative and you can  do as you please and so can I anyone else here.

please do not take his personally but I'm a bloody big hulk around 20 tons  two miles wide and three miles high and I would like a "tallish" lady. I've had relationships before where very short women have been involved and there does seem to be an opposites attract at work sometimes. 
A friend of mine is married to a delightful Japanese lady and she interests  me in areas such as her culture and suchlike also she has interests that I'm into but shes married and I don't do affairs thanks. 

She's around 4 foot 11 very fragile build, looks like she'd blow away in a good wind;!!

Now if perhaps with her and  It was good and there was common interests had that "spark" or explosion  that height issue would not be a deal breaker, it may infringe one of my criteria but its not the be and end all of it at all. Also she is around 55!.

I'm not even going to read that essay. I wasted three minutes of my life reading a weird unsolicited essay from you in my in box yesterday.

And it's Ms not Miss

I most humbly beg your pardon Ms Vixen;!.

Yuk, you sound like a total sleazeball, Justaboy.

sumoweeble well everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you hardly know me we've never exchanged messages spoke or whatever.

If your judging me on a private message exchange with Ms Fox regarding a "weird unsolicited message" that was a reply to a message she sent me then perhaps that's just, well too bad.

I don't think i would be that ungracious to call a lady here a "sleazeball" thank you.

oh fuck off you weirdo

For one thing, NO way on earth is a 32 year old flirting with you. You think she's flirting. She sees you as a father figure, or maybe she's getting free music lessons. No normal 32 year old would 'flirt' with you. You're far too weird, creepy and patronising.

Calling women 'miss' and talking down to them like you are somehow equipped to advise us , coming on to all of these OLD threads and offering your advice, and PMing multiple posters. You're a creep. This isn't a dating site. And the nerve of you suggesting that I consider being more flexible re age when I'd date a man as much as 7 years older, or younger. That's already a wide age range. You're the one who claims to be flirting with a 32 year old (Oh God The Delusion) but yet, I ought to be more flexible wrt age?! Seriously. I was too polite to you earlier, on the other thread I believed other posters were being a bit hard on you but having read enough of your drivel now, they had you pegged, so now I'm going to tell you that you're a sad old goat. Your poor daughters. I would die if my father came out with the drivel that you're posting on here.

You also keep going back on what you say all the time. You say something which reveals your character, then posters rightly challenge you on it or make you explain yourself and then you take it back and claim you made a typo or that you omitted a vital piece of the story earlier. Bleurgh. You can't even be boring once, you're like a cow chewing cud. Back to bore us with regurgitated advice.

As for suggesting that I'd be happier if I compromised and was more flexible about age, ie, settled for an old man, ha, that only confirms what I said originally about men's entitlement to younger women. Your last wife was 20 years younger than you and you tell me/women to be more flexible wrt age.

In fairness to other old men though, not all of them are as patronising and as creepy and as old-fashioned as you. Some might be nice. You however come across as old for 64. Are you only 64? NO, don't answer, I don't care.

Ah! you've done it again!!!

I did not pM you first. You PM'd me and I replied to it to say that as you didn't know me, you couldn't say if my profile represented me well or not.

You have a very tenuous relationship with the truth Justaboy. Funny screen name for a 64 year old btw.

Good points, Urbanefox and I believe you. I think the key with sleazeball fuckwits such as this is to disengage, detach and withdraw the attention they so crave. I will now ignore, ignore, ignore the poster concerned.

No way would i consider anyone that age 32 anywhere near a serious relationship prospect, it would not interest me and it would be silly.

Calling a single lady Miss might be old fashioned but i though it was just being polite, if Ms is the correct term these days then so be it.

I don't think anyone should be excluded from any discussion thread. It is a free country and 70 years ago this week my father was badly injured shielding an already injured airman in the battle of Britain fighting for just that. I'm proud of him. I'd do just the same if i was called to do so.

I do not think or considerer this a dating site. I am not trying to date or form a relationship with anyone heron. I did think this was a site where people could exchange their views.

I expressed an opinion that i did not think age related relationships were a be all and end all. That's my opinion yours is different that's fine and i respect that.

Other posters of course are entitled to their opinions that's what this board is for.

There was a genuine problem with the text in that posting. It was not a type error. I am not changing my mind or track. If anyone wants to criticise me then I will defend myself as I'm sure anyone would do here.

Yes i did PM you first it was to offer assistance that was all. You replied and so did i. I don't consider any of that offensive I would let anyone see it so they could form their own opinion but its private and private means just that. If you are so offended by this or any other posting i have made then why do you not report it to the board moderators for their opinion.

Yes i am 64. I do not lie about my age.

If anyone finds my style of writing offensive or patronising then that may be because i speak directly and honestly and how i find. If anyone is offended then it was not intended to cause offence.

I don't think my screen name is any better or worse than any other. At least it doesn't include offensive words.

I bid you all goodnight.

Just crap to "settle" - for what, some creep rather than being alone?!

Or also - yes we all grew up with fairy tales and they lived happily ever after "don't worry, there is someone who will turn up soon".

As a LP abused so got out who also just turned 60 I am definitely not looking for a man to "save" me. Why would I want to be a domestic to a man anyway?! LOL

MY 3 philosophy's of life:

• Become Independent. You only have yourself for the whole of your life.

• Become independent - Socially, financially, practically, emotionally (work out your shit). Your kids will thank you for teaching them that.

-- Be outgoing and kind. We are all on our own path. Anyone that comes along for however long is a blessing.

It breaks my heart the things I read on MN from women who are stuck in horrendous relationships with kids rather than break free - and my heart sings at the wonderful advice they get to do it.

Iflyaway

You make me feel much better and reaffirm what I told myself 12 years ago. I had a husband then and I wouldn't go back to those days - so thanks.

Yeh I like those philosophies. I live by those. I only have to think back to how lonely I was with my X and it gives me a spring in my step again. Ok, so I'm single but I'm not unhappy and I'm not lonely. I'm just ready for a relationship and capable of having one! It's so weird (and sad I guess) that all of the relationships I had were before I was ready for one. This, looking "out there" is a phase.