Dating Thread 144: Jingle Bells, Dating Tales, Single All The Way

[DaffoDeffo]

Dating thread rules:

1. The first rule about the dating thread is you don't talk about it with people you're dating.
2. Develop a thick skin.
3. Do not invest emotionally too soon.
4. It's all BS until it actually happens.
5. Trust your gut instinct.
6. People vanishing, lying & being generally weird is not your fault.
7. You are the prize - they should be trying to impress you.
8. If it's not fun, stop.
9. Loo update is mandatory.

10. No dating the thread. 11. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

And a reminder - you don't know them until you know them!

@Apparentlyacatch I'm 43. Thankfully I've got my kids so I don't have that side of things to panic about. However, at my age (and I don't think I look my age), most men similar in age look about 60. The ones who do look good for their age are looking for younger models. Then there are the younger guys who like older women AKA think we're desperate.

Oh and meant to say unMN hug @pushreset

Really despair of the ones who disappear mid conversation. One I actually met up with, after a lot of patience and reassurance on my part, did it again just after Christmas. There will be zero concern coming his way from me this time!

Aww push, sorry to see you're still feeling low :(

Makes me almost a little glad of mines wtf-ness - at least it gave me something other then to get angry with

crappy I'm much the same age and I see the late 40s guys looking mostly dreadful. OTOH the pretty 30 yo boys do nothing for me, I'd have liked them when I was 20 but not now.
I'm distrustful of ones who have never partnered up (why?) but also don't want to start anything with someone with young children because my own situation is complicated enough.

Don't want much, do I current chap ticks those boxes so I'm OK

Just catching up, sorry can't remember names but I did the OLD when my STBX was still living with me. There was absolutely nothing between us and TBH only a few men questioned me about it so overall, didn't seem to be an obstacle for them.
Also, dating now as a single Mum to child at junior school. I've had to have some dates at home otherwise I'd never meet anyone. My son stays in his room out of choice and is not remotely interested in what I'm doing. Without me asking him to, he politely knocks on the door if he wants to see me for something!
Each to their own I guess.

Hi all - advice needed. Quick history - separated 10 months after long marriage, 2 teenage kids, old as the hills (49) and not been chatted up by anyone but weirdos IRL so, tipsy one night and egged on by a friend, put up a profile on Match.com and them promptly forgot about it until I started getting notifications about matches/views/likes/winks or whatever. So tried to have a look to see what sorry specimens showed an interest in me and it seems I have to pay rather an extortionate amount even to see my messages! Am not sure it will be worth it - have been added as a favourite by quite a few people but only a handful of messages, and they all seem a fair bit older than me. I only entered into it in a half-hearted spirit anyway, but now I am curious (damn you, clever marketing algorithms) so was wondering a) is this normal? to lure you in with a 'xxx is interested in you' and then not let you even see whether they have two heads or not before paying to reply? b) is the price really that much on the paying sites? Over £30 just to check they have their own hair and teeth? and c) should I just move on to a free site? Is it rude not to reply to people (as I haven't paid yet!) Sorry to be a dating thread idiot but thought this would be the place to ask! Thanks in advance.

Oh[ dear and just read the comments from Crappy and War etc about the poor quality of 40+ men (as I suspected) and now thinking perhaps the answer is to get a couple of cats and take up a hobby rather than pay the subscription fees. I could afford a few bottles of wine for that money Am I wasting my time? Honest answers? (I don't look bad for my age, have a serious gym habit and not yet clothes shopping at M&S, but of course I don't look like a 30 year old so am fairly realistic about my chances)

I personally didn't find Match.com any better than the free sites Prim. I used POF and Tinder.

Prim I'm 42 and in decent nick (no stunner but normal looking and seem to be getting plenty of interest) and I'd say give the free ones a whirl. There's absolutely tons of people on tinder at least, and lots of overlap with bumble I'd say.

I swipe away lots tbh, I know I want someone who can string a sentence together and probably isn't a labourer or someone who wears a chunky chain (there's an excess of heavily tattooed joiners in my area ) so I have been quite heartless but still had plenty of options.

What’s with all the negativity about age guys?? I’m 56 and overweight and have had a ball with OLD. Sex drive through the roof too. I don’t fancy younger men so kick them into touch, lots of men in their 50s think they want younger models then melt when a woman gets their references to 60s children’s shows and 70s pop stars. Have faith.

pushreset sorry to hear you are so down. You sound like a loving person and you’ve had bad luck there. Have faith in yourself that you’re going to feel better soon. Because you really will 💐

prim another vote for Tinder here - Match etc are ripoff yawnfests

I've set up OkCupid today, I think I might do tinder tomorrow. I reckon if I have a load of apps, I might be less likely to obsess...?

I made myself invisible on both apps I was using, but still have a quick 10 min browse now and then for a nosey.
Tbh I very quickly got fed up with the never ending small talk running two apps, then whatsapping with a few etc.

I'll have another go if this current one doesn't pan out though, the flirting is quite fun if you're in the mood

DogDay I think you have been lucky. I'm 51, I struggle to get any interest. The dates I've met that have been around my age have been deadly boring, no interests/hobbies, just waiting for a woman to come along.
I'm quite active and sporty so I'm looking for someone similar. But the men who are similar want a younger woman.

As an experiment, I set up a profile with my age 5 years younger. I got lots of interest, including messages from blokes who had ignored me previously.

On Match you can specify your preferred age range and the majority of men were looking for women younger than them.

So I would say age makes a huge difference, especially if you're over 50.

myoldbrain I think I was lucky too, very surprised, but my point is that we should not be hung up on age, weight too much. They are not the only variables and shouldn’t hold anyone back.

I think it is tricky dating when you have kids. I’m lucky in that DS1 is an adult who lives at home, so I get free babysitting. But DS2 has a super busy schedule of activities and I don’t like being out all the time. Ex does have him EOW and takes him to activities a couple of times during the week. So that’s helpful.

Things are easier now as the BF and I have been together 6 months, decided it’s a long-term thing and he’s met my children now. That makes it much more straightforward. As does the fact that, at this point, dinner and then watching crap on Netflix after work feels like a reasonable thing to do together rather than a cop out.

I did OLD while I was still living with my ex (waiting for the house sale to go through) and didn’t find it was an issue. We were definitely very much not together. In fact, I’d say it hadn’t actually been a relationship in any meaningful sense of the word for many years before we split up.

My BF is still stuck in the same situation. I wasn’t put off because it would be hypocritical to reject people based on something that also applied to you. His situation is more complex and his house is proving much, much harder to sell (not helped by what I’ve come to realise is a very difficult situation with his ex who appears to have a different agenda from him in relation to the house).

He is definitely keen for it to sell and trying to get out of the situation. So I have no concerns about that or their relationship (which is dire tbh and neither of them want to get back together, ever). They’re rarely in at the same time (she stays with her BF, who was the OM, when he’s in the house) but it’s still very stressful for him, and that does impact on me. They actually split up before my ex and I but the uncomfortable housesharing has gone on for a ridiculous length of time.

I think, if I’d realised how long his situation would continue for (and there’s still no end in sight at this point), I’d have been more put off (even if that was hypocritical). I knew my house sharing situation was going to be as temporary as possible and that my ex and I were both equally keen to get out of it (to the point of taking a loss on the house to do so). I don’t regret anything because I do really, really like him and we work really well. But it’s certainly not an ideal situation and I’m not sure I’d encourage anyone else to get into a similar one.

Also, I’m in the tinder camp. Or bumble, I guess (although I did not like the women messaging first stipulation).

There are so many people on tinder, looking for a range of different things. It’s definitely not just about hook ups (in fact, I didn’t get much of that at all although I think that’s because the hook up seekers had the kinds of photos I swiped left on anyway - all topless selfies, lying in bed shots and drugged tigers).

I actually liked the not having to wade through long, wordy profiles. I had about 3 sentences on mine. All positive and about me (not what I was looking for actually). The BF just had photos actually but he’s good looking and the right age so I swiped right. That’s really superficial but I found that messaging was how I like getting to know someone.

I did find that what I put as my job title made a big difference to how many matches I got. If I put ‘academic’ I got much more than ‘university lecturer’, but it was obvious from the ‘what does academic mean?’ messages I got that lots of men didn’t know what an academic is. 😆 And they tended to disappear sharpish when they found out what it was. Obviously they’d have been totally wrong for me anyway, but it is depressing how many men actively do not want to date women they think might be cleverer or more successful than them. And who’d actually say things to that effect.

On profiles, I did find lists of what people didn’t want and a tone that suggested they were fed up with feckless time wasters really offputting. Especially short tinder bios that basically just told women what they were doing wrong on OLD. I really did see them as red flags.

@DogDayMorning its not so much negativity, just personal experience. To be honest, most blokes older than me look ancient (probably lying about their age). I literally found one guy who I quite fancied. He was 47, had a reasonably decent job, kids etc but his chat was so BORING.

So I've deleted my Tinder and POF accounts this morning and I already feel a weight has been lifted!
I went to indefinitely hide my Bumble one when I noticed I had also matched with the same guy on Tinder whose chat was boring. I do fancy him though. So, I thought fck it, and messaged him on there and if he replies I'm just gonna tell him I'm deleting everything and if he fancies a date then to let me know. Then Bumble is going too.
I'm off on holiday for a week at the end of the month so I'm concentrating on that for now.

i've re-worded my profiletp as follows:

Mother of 2 loves walking and travelling when she gets the chance. I love history an when I travel I like to go to historic places or learn about the country's culture (I'm not a sit-on-the-beach-and-tan kind of woman). I like reading, puzzles, quizzes and most types of music, especially anything from the 80's/early 90s.I try to keep fit but the call of pizza, beer and chocolate is sometimes too strong......

Looking for someone down-to-earth, respectful, caring, kind with a good sense of humour. Drop me a message to find out more! Have met a few wrong-uns on dating apps so hoping to find the right one.....not looking for hook ups etc.

It's a bit less aggressive I'm sure you'll agree lol . Hopefully it brings Mr. Right cos I'm getting fed up of eejits and I'm growing a beard feckin waiting for him!!

I think it’d be naive to insist that age doesn’t matter, especially on OLD. One of the first things you do is choose your age filters for searches.

I set mine initially to 10 years either side of my age but quickly decided that 5 years younger was most definitely as young as I was willing to go. I’m not interested in men in their late 20s. I left it at 10 years older but, honestly, I just was not interested in any of the men more than a few years older than me. They looked so old. I realise that’s dreadfully superficial of me, but it is what it is.

The BF is one year older than me, and it was definitely a factor in my swiping decision. I worked out that I mostly fancy men about my age and also that I like having the same cultural reference points etc. I’d assume the same applies for many of the men in OLD.

Actually, my suspicion is that a lot of men set their age (or below) as the upper age limit, and set their lower limit much lower than I would. It is what it is. I suspect many of those men do not meet with much success because the younger women they’re interested in are probably looking at them thinking ‘he’s so old’.

There are lots of young men looking for older women though. Before I changed my age settings, I got lots of matches from stupidly young men (who knew I was in my late 30s). Often they don’t put their ages on or lie about it. I had some 21 year olds messaging me (some of whom claimed to be 35). I actually responded to one with ‘you’re a couple of years older than my eldest son; that’d be far too weird’. I know men often do pick girlfriends the age of (or younger than) their children, but that really, really is not for me.

That sounds good @scotgal2017. You sound much more approachable than before, and properly interesting. Also funny.

I would date you scotgal.

Of course age matters, not least because of the cultural references thing. My point is that great age doesn't exclude OLD as a means of finding people of like mind. If anything OLD is best for the over 50s because frankly any RL 'club' type thing that I go to with my age group is full of either smug married men being 'allowed out' by their exasperated wives or total losers. OLD has men of my age who are willing to take more of a risk maybe?

Morning thread and happy new year. There are a lot of posters on here I don't recognise as I haven't been on the thread much but thought y'all might like to see a positive dating update.

So from April until December the year before last was seeing a FWB, both started to get felings, both pulled away and didn't allow ourselves to get too involved. I wasn't ready in hindsight, and he knew i'd just left a long term relationship (21 years) and felt I should have some free time to work out what I wanted (at the time it just seemed like he'd met someone else as we didn't really talk about all that shit then). I had 6 months on tinder, seeing other people. Only one guy came close to what I had with FWB but I didn't actually miss him that much, and was happy just datign others and seeing what happened.

Anyway, started FWB again around May last year, purely sex, and hanging out a bit. No actual dating. I was busy rennovating a house and with the kids etc, and was cool with everything. Since end Sept, things have shifted and well, we are quite loved up. He has met my kids very briefly and in a casual way, yesterday he met my parents kind of by accident. I think I am now fully on the smitten bench and we are making a go of things.

He is kind, calm, funny, gorgeous and oh so manly. We have some differences but now we got over the initial shit of dancing around each other because neither of us were sure what we wanted, we actually communicate well. We have never had any fall outs, raised voices or arguements, it all feels very easy and stress free. He has started to open up more and at the weekend I saw his vulnerability for the first time and I felt honoured (he cried talking to me about his late grandma who he adored). We have a nice bond, and the physical side was and is still amazing (I am not just saying this, physically we match so well).

During the times when I wasn't sure I posted on here, and it seemed the general consensus was it wouldnt go anywhere and I would end up getting hurt (which may of course still be the case and I am not even thinking of the future just living in the now). I am pleased I took the chance again, I spent time working out what I wanted, who he is etc and I am happy we did.

It helps a lot he is local, we have mutual friends and he is uber laid back. It feels like a very grown up stress free relationship, and I know that is hard to find. I feel lucky he is in my life, and I think vice versa. Neither of us has declared love, we are both quite reserved in that way, but his actions show me what I need to know.

Keep on keeping on daters