Dating is awful

[Corastiredmummy]

Just wondered how many other women in their late 30s absolutely despise dating in this era?
It seems most men just want you to either send them naked pictures or go on a first 'date' at their house. That is not date. That is a scene from a movie where the woman doesn't return home.
Guys on dating apps are total time wasters, or you meet them and they don't look like their pictures (and you've made an effort with hair washing/doing your makeup).
I'm 38, I look after myself very well, I'm successful....but sadly I live in Hull and it seems most of the men here are not at all what I'm after. I'm so over it :(

Totally agree with both of you.

I’ve found that the issue is that men (like myself) are afraid to say anything in a bar or pub. it used to be fun and yes it was still was still a numbers game at uni etc but it was the way to meet. Your either had one night together or many, the first night was the test drive fumble.

Nowadays, meeting for a coffee or a walk is as dull as dishwater. No flirting allowed, probably raining, the dog needs to crap and you have to drive.

it’s gone from fun, flirty and sexual chemistry to bloody domestic suicide.

The cheesy one liners were always crap but we all knew that, they were just ice breakers and you’d probably used your guts to do it. If you say something even slightly flirty on an app they take offence.

Here is another “men over 50”, perspective, (53, 54 soon-ish), looking to date women 50+

most women don’t respond, personally I think that’s pretty rude, but that’s neither here nor there really.,

I have never had any of the sexual comments or references , the chats often turned to money quite quickly, what job did I do, what income did I have, often before they really knew me, as if I was being financially sized before any thing else ( I have twice been asked to financially help women)

Lots of quite poor chat, often just a couple of words a day, or the sometimes the other extreme, a bombardment of messages , a bit like a brain dump in WhatsApp ( and some women are unbelievably rude)

I found some women don’t actually want to meet, they just want to chat to men, seem to like the validation they still have it, I think more one woman I was chatting to was married as they were switching between I & we in the conversation for things they were doing

The biggest issue for me was availability, some women seem to have such busy lives that they only have a few hours a week to meet, but insist they want to date , I have read on this forum that a man should add to woman’s life, and that works the other way as well, a woman should add to a man’s life, I would rather use the extra time on self training or cycling or something rather than waiting for a few hours of her time once a week

I have given up on it now as OLD is waste of time and money for older men, if I meet someone IRL, great, but OLD is indeed awful

Very hard to flirt digitally without coming across a total idiot! At least an irl cheesy line can be accompanied by body language and chemistry! I’d really advice men to just be chatty and interested until meeting irl, and to be as strict as women about time wasters even though I appreciate the pickings are slimmer.

But yeah, it was all much better when we just… went out. I’m still a little mind boggled OLD has become such a standard rather than the modern Lonely Hearts column.

I've thought for a while that a return to old fashioned singles' nights and speed dating might be the answer. Actually leaving the house and mingling in person.

But for all the complaints about OLD, it still seems to have the most demand.

@strof - I'm in the same boat as you - had a few nice dates but given up on it.

One woman ran through her back catalogue of OLD experiences. I was torn between crying tears of laughter and being aghast at some of the behaviour. Most of it wasn't even creepy just, well odd.

I've given up on it.

Note to the ladies out there - if you receive a dick pic the correct response is

"Oooooh That looks like a dick- only smaller"

The problem with online dating is that its all based on a photo. In real life, the way someone moves, their personality, their body language, their laugh, their conversation etc can make someone extremely attractive even if they dont photograph that well. We may reject someone from a photo we would find hugely attractive in real life and equally, find someone attractive in a photo that in real life is really dull, tedious or flat out weird. I think there is almost too much choice- a bit like now we have thousands of tv channels that its hard to find something to settle on.

My experiences of OLD have been dire. All my successful relationships came about from meeting in real life and if I ever split from my partner I'd give OLD a miss and focus on meeting people via interests, friends or hobbies etc

@formulaonecar - there is a lot of truth in what you say here.

I would add that when you are messaging someone it is easy to misinterpret comments or miss nuances that would not happen in real life. Happened to me a few times although no such issues when we met for real.

That may be an age thing - older people are not generally as active or proficient on social media

Yes, I agree. Written language can be misinterpreted very easily that wouldnt happen in real life. Many people can express themselves brilliantly in spoken words but not so well in written words.

That's why waffling on via text doesn't work. It's short form, not meant for long prose about this, that, and the other. Who cares about whether someone says hi or they have an interesting chat via a clunky text platform?
Match, brief chat, and meet very quickly.
Any longer, it fizzles out.
When users understand and use the app as intended, their overall experience will improve. However, it's important to recognize that having a lot of options doesn't necessarily result in finding amazing dates or love for most people. You will be bored, rejected, cancelled last minute, ghosted etc, etc.
I've been there and had an overall great experience with the apps, however, I did experience all of the above many times. I understand it's all part of dating. I liked the apps because they helped me to meet people from all over the world not just my local pub. How dire is that?

But yeah, it was all much better when we just… went out. I’m still a little mind boggled OLD has become such a standard rather than the modern Lonely Hearts column.

It's the immediacy of it I think. Back in the day, you'd have to wait until Friday night or whenever, or build up a connection day by day at work with a colleague, when now it's a couple of clicks away.

For instance, I remember I had just started dating someone who I was interested in, and she decided she didn't want to pursue things... we'd only been out twice and it had only less than a fortnight since we'd matched, so we weren't exclusive and was still chatting to others online, and a couple of hours of her telling me she didn't want to pursue things, I had a two new dates arranged! In the old days, you'd have licked your wounds and started the process again, and it would have been at least the end of the week before you even had another opportunity to begin to meet someone, let alone arrange a date.

The biggest issue for me was availability, some women seem to have such busy lives that they only have a few hours a week to meet, but insist they want to date , I have read on this forum that a man should add to woman’s life, and that works the other way as well, a woman should add to a man’s life, I would rather use the extra time on self training or cycling or something rather than waiting for a few hours of her time once a week

I would say that was sensible to start with a few hours a week and to see how it progressed. For me it would be a couple of hours here and there.
We all (I guess) lead busy lives.

I wouldn't like to waste hours texting either, as some seem to. I just wouldn't have the time or inclination. I remember my brief foray into OLD when younger where people would be irritated and impatient about not receiving immediate replies. Those people were blocked immediately. A definite bad sign for me.

I personally prefer the sort of woman who has a life of her own as well.

Like women are on creep alert blokes are guarded against the really needy ones.

As a relationship grows Ive always found you gravitate towards doing more things together whether with friends or just the two of you

Agree with the rubbish chat. I told a guy that I'd just finished hot yoga and felt like I was dead and he replied that I needed a massage with loads of kisses.

Another time I was up late and messaged him I got this.

Snap lol
I wondered if you were naked in the sack like me 😜😱💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

Gross. 🤮

Makes me cringe just reading that.

The chat is dull as dishwater though isn’t it.

hi babe how are you x
hope you had a good sleep x
hope you have a good day x
how’s your day going x
how was your day x
what you up to tonight x
sleep well x

I mean what a load of boring dross and both parties can be guilty of it. you wouldn’t speak to someone like that in real life so not sure why people do online.

Because the idea behind texting is small bite-size exchanges.
Match, meet, date or reject.

What people expect is long fricking monologues or calls for 4 hrs with a stranger. Really.😂

I’ve been on lots of dates but never felt any real kind of frisson or chemistry, like you get from admiring someone from afar and realising they like you too.

For me, online dating is this weird artificial scenario where you’re thrown together, like sticking two cats in a room and trying to get them to mate. It’s the fact that you’re both there for the same thing, and at least start off with the same expectations and intentions, with this unspoken pressure to fulfil them. It’s off-putting. I need a slow burn… quiet admiration from afar that turns to longing, misery and, sometimes, a lovely realisation that it’s mutual followed by more misery.

Having said all that, I’m going on an OLD date next week.

The chat can be rubbish, but not necessarily. I would need some reasonably interesting chat before arranging to meet up. I'm not going to waste my time meeting someone who can't string more than three words in a chat.... But once they have shown they are interesting and intelligent via chat, then I agree you should meet up asap to know if that translates into something in real life...

This is how I did things too.

dh and I met on plenty of fish about 15 years ago. We messaged back and forth for about a week or so, fairly long chats, so I knew we could have a proper conversation and then we met up at a Costa for an afternoon coffee. I thought if we didn’t click it was fairly easy to make excuses and get away and if we did there was always a second date …. as it turned out we hit it off really well to the point they were tidying up around us 3 hours later trying to get rid of us. And 15 years later and one 11 year old ds later were still together (I was divorced and with one dd aged 5 when we met).

It wasn’t all plain sailing till then though…. Highlights include the man who literally took his Dad along with him on our first date because they were both looking to meet someone and he thought if we didn’t hit it off I’d be right for his Dad - I shit you not. I had a very brief drink and then left.

And the president of a Vegemite society who kept messaging me, literally talking about Vegemite. Just weird.

Block and delete and just keep going.

Dating was much easier pre dating apps
The apps have changed everything

That’s my philosophy too. I understand not everyone is very good at messaging but some effort required. Any one word or closed responses and I lose interest very quickly.

Im fairly new to OLD and only 3 meet ups so far. I’d rather message for a day or 2 then talk on the phone. Unfortunately not got past that stage very often but I’m still hoping there’s a needle in the haystack

It's so hard on apps. People rarely look attractive on photos to me, and if they can't type or aren't chatty then no thanks.

But I'll meet men out and about who look attractive in person but not on pics, and chatty in person but don't do texting much, and it's okay because you've met initially in person and can look past the faults that are big on an app.

I do think dating apps have changed the landscape of dating, I don't think they're all bad, I have friends who met their now sposes on them but I think it's somewhat rare. I think the ease of it means some people just chat to loads of people, they enjoy having people to message to fill the time but aren't overly bothered about investing in getting to know someone with the prospect of dating, or they do date but like having multiple options; hob theory on steroids. I was on a weekend away a few years back with some friends, one was on POF at the time and we were searching through, one of my colleagues husbands was on there! Guessing they'd set their location for the other end of the country to make it less likely they'd be found out? I wouldn't trust someone isn't married tbh, but at the same time for some it's the only way to meet people.

I think you're looking at things through rose tinted spectacles.

When we were in our teens / twenties (ie pre internet dating if we're 40/50-somethings), the dating pool was far larger as people hadn't settled down, people didn't have the baggage they accumulate over the decades, and a higher proportion of our contemporaries were physically attractive. We also tended to have larger social groups of people, many of which were single, our age, who we could meet with frequently as we had few commitments.

If you asked a 40/50-something divorcee with kids what the dating scene was like in say, the 90s (ie they were 40/50 then but 70/80 now) I reckon they'd say it was absolutely awful, and reduced to meeting randoms at a singles night once a month at a dodgy bar when you could get your mum to babysit the kids. Tinder may be bad, but surely it was better than the lonely hearts ads in local papers back then!