331–340 of 741 posts
Dating is game theory, both people try to get someone better than themselves. Naturally it's impossible to find equilibrium. Unfortunately Satoshi Nakamoto did not find a solution to this problem
Let’s start with the unpleasant. You are old and female. The best catches, as relationship minded males, are off the game board. Secondly, as an old female your expectations are likely unrealistic compared to what’s available yet simultaneously the more you date the more exhausted and desperate you will get. The pleasant: Since you are an older single professional you have money, which means you have options. You als…
In my experience, stop looking and it'll find you. I met my wife on the beach, basically randomly. Neither of us wanted a relationship at the time, we just enjoyed talking to each other so much. Our "first date" was to a hiking meetup, where we ditched everyone and broke into a park after-hours, explored shit, and at some point, kissed, while hiding from the park rangers. But seriously, just stop looking.
I'm sure you can find someone before your time runs out. But without know what's going wrong it's hard to suggest any changes in strategy.
> My time for having children is running out. > Please encouragement only, no discouragement. I’m discouraged enough already. IMHO, that's exactly the problem. Bear with me for a sec. Unless you find someone who has the exact same objective and wants to have kids asap (i.e., a more transactional relationship), this will always be a major turn off. Your partner will feel pressured to make a decision quickly, and soone…
I used to believe this kind of advice. However, I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time working on myself and coming to peace with my life as it is. I think the everything will follow piece is a spiritual bypass that isn’t reflected in reality. There are so many confident, beautiful , career-driven women who are in the same predicament as me. I think that women are learning to take charge in every aspect of their liv…
Some time back, I was set up for a date with an absolutely amazing woman. She was attractive, fit, wealthy, worked as a CTO in a very successful and growing startup. I think she was on one of those Forbes lists. Also, out of my league, but she didn't seem to think so.
Anyway, we had a date, it went fine, and then she told me about her bucket list, all the cool ideas she'd had. Well, she'd already crossed off everything except "find a guy to have kids with". It was kind of a clever little way to drop what she wanted into conversation, and I thought she carried everything off with confidence and aplomb. She also let me know that she'd go out with me again.
I didn't ask for a second date. I still think about why from time to time. Nothing about her was wrong for my tastes -- all the success, intelligence, confidence, etc is attractive to me -- so why not carry on a bit further? The conclusion I came to was: I just felt like I'd be wasting her time. She told me exactly what she wanted, but I didn't have the same certainty. I didn't feel like I was a good inclusion to the plans of someone so focused and certain of her goals. She was also short on time to go ahead and get a family set up; what if I dated her for two, or four, or six months then decided that we weren't a perfect match? I'd feel guilty as hell, because I burned some extremely valuable time. So: better to bow out.
Anyway, that's all a long anecdote with no specific point or lesson, and unfortunately I don't know how it could have gone better for her. Your description of yourself just reminded me of that story, so I thought it might be of interest to hear a retrospective from "one of those guys".
What's gone wrong with all the guys you've met? I'm sure you can find someone before your time runs out. But without know what's going wrong it's hard to suggest any changes in strategy.
Once you're sure things can happen really quickly.
Dating is only one way to find someone, it's definitely not the only way. I'm not American and nobody I know in a committed relationship, not a single one (even the Americans I know), met their partner through dating (where I'm defining "dating" as meeting with strangers or near-strangers with the intent of evaluating a possible romantic connection). For the most part, my own relationship and the relationships around…
Might work. It works with happiness.
I’d be cautious of taking dating advice from this site, as it’s dominated by young men and can sometimes lean in the red pill direction. (Though I am pleased to see that most of the top rated comments in this thread appear fairly mature.) Have you tried asking Metafilter? I’ve often found that the community there gives good relationship and dating advice. The site leans older, more liberal arts, and more gender balan…
I met someone on Reddit last year and we got to know each other very intimately, because of the safety of the anonymity. We eventually met in person, and it's really great.
I later read "Click", which I highly recommend, and it completely explained why we connected so deeply.
I wish I had learned a long time ago to "go first" and take the risk of sharing my feelings with strangers, because that's how you build a deep connection with someone, quickly. After that, if you communicate well, you find them physically attractive enough, and you trust them to have hard conversations, that's it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that once men get past 30 and testosterone starts tapering off the desire to enter relationships drops off a cliff too. Looking back at what I put up with in my teens and 20s I'd rather be celibate. Short of testosterone injections to get me back to how horny I was then I don't see that changing.
Companionship no longer seems alluring or appealing? Sorry to hear it, that sounds rough.