Women 35+ get a "chef's kiss" from me. Spent my 20s shooting myself in the foot academically AND financially. Didn't date much. Finally graduated college and started my career at 27. Dated and refined my filter for 5 yrs. Met my wife at work when I was 32 & she was 35. Started getting serious with her a yr later. Married her a yr after that. 28 yrs later still married & evolving together. Can't think of anything I'd do differently.
“It has always been hard to find real connection, regardless of age.” True! And I find that as I get older, that connection is more likely to come from women who are nearer to my age.
“But like, maybe move somewhere with more people?”
This is pretty cruel to women who have the totally normal inclination to stay near their family or where they grew up. Also says nothing for those women who cannot afford to up and leave for the big city.
It’s a difficult question. I have two little sisters in this situation who I think about a lot.
I think we need stronger, organic communities in these smaller places. Church used to fill this role.
The girls don’t like dating apps, and they cannot entertain the idea of being the ones who approach men (I get this). In my own life, practically all of my romantic fulfillment (not talking about cheap sexual gratification here) has come from relationships built at school or work.
Lately, without that (I work remote now), I’ve found difficult to even find women to talk to. I think this is primarily because we don’t have much concept of community in the US now adays, and also because it’s become faux pa to speak to women in public under most circumstances due to the state of the culture. I live in a mid major city, and find it to be like this.
I’m not on the apps anymore, since I’ve had nearly the inverse of your experience. More like 3000 swipes and ~10 marches here. I’m sure if my sisters moved to a large city, they’d have a larger pool of options from tinder and the like, but I don’t think that it would be a great pool to pick from. In fact, it’s an emotionally (sometimes even physically) treacherous pool for women, and a depressing pool for men. Would I ever recommend they give up a simple life they enjoy to move to the city for more swipe opportunities? No, I think society should rebuild the community and social cohesion it used to have, but fix the mistakes of the past. The whole idea of “dating” with dating being both means and end is somewhat contrived and gross to me.
Now that I’ve shared maybe too much, I have a question. Why do you, as a single woman who would like to find love, recommend that other women follow the path you’ve taken and move to the city? Why do you recommend this when you yourself have yet to find success in this? Why would you recommend women “go on hundreds of dates” to develop some intuition about recognizing bullshit and spotting red flags? This has never been necessary, and why should we accept this as the new normal? It sounds awful to me, and I’m a man. I think if you had places to be that you felt you belonged to, and at these places there were also men who feel like they belong to the same place, you would naturally fall in love and there would be much less bullshit involved.
My life philosophy focuses on what is practical and achievable and within my control. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but the alternative is to not move and continue fishing for an empty pool. I think a lot of things are unpleasant (like approaching men and risking rejection), but I personally choose to do unpleasant things and get rejected because to me, the potential rewards outweigh the downsides. I don’t think anyone should do what I do to get the negligible results that I have gotten, but now that I have done the stuff, I might as well make the most of the data that I have accumulated from it. I also figure that some portion of my lack of success is because I’m not as happy, compromising, agreeable, or enlightened as I could be and that I can work on that at the same time I become better at the dating process. And to be honest, I have realized that I don’t totally hate it. I truly enjoy a lot of the stupid early dating process - I get to meet new people constantly, try new restaurants, learn about different professions, see more of the city, have funny stories to tell my friends.
I find your outlook inspiring! I guess when I go on dates, I’m typically hoping to find a real connection, and find myself disappointed and discouraged when it doesn’t go as I hope for or expect.
How often would you say men put you in uncomfortable situations? One of the main reasons I’d be hesitant to recommend such a strategy to my sisters is because women often talk about the dangers of meeting men. Have you found it to be pretty safe?
So in summary: I don’t really worry about dying or getting raped. I do worry about people ghosting. That’s pretty much guaranteed to happen if you date a decent amount. I was thinking of writing a ghosting protocol.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Sounds like you’re enjoying yourself! Would you say you’ve been looking for something long term but have been unable to find it? If so, what would you attribute that to?
Speaking as a literal expert on this topic, it’s helpful to turn things you were planning on doing alone into dates (like I keep a restaurant list of places I want to try, I also keep a huge IG folder of food/activities in NYC) so that even if the date is a dud, you don’t feel like your time was wasted. Even if there’s no connection, perhaps you can learn something about the world or a new perspective or in pretty rare cases admittedly, make a new friend. It’s easier as a woman since men usually pick up the tab for a first date, though. Men infrequently make me uncomfortable. It happens, but it’s not incredibly common, I would estimate 1-5%. I have pretty much never feared for my life. Men much more frequently upset me with bad communication and thoughtless behavior. Generally the worst thing men do is be very pushy about having sex and ignore multiple exasperated protests/soft nos. I would say this happens like 1-2x a year. I think in these scenarios if I were to stand up and accuse them of being a rapist they would 100% leave, but it’s horrible that it would need to get to this point. I find these annoying but honestly the bad communication and ghosting is way more upsetting than dealing with pushy men. Those are just annoying.
Haha thank you! I also have no idea what you look like but I’m sure it’s fine, I’ve also had plastic surgery myself so there’s nothing wrong with getting things changed if that’s what you want.
Women 35+ get a "chef's kiss" from me. Spent my 20s shooting myself in the foot academically AND financially. Didn't date much. Finally graduated college and started my career at 27. Dated and refined my filter for 5 yrs. Met my wife at work when I was 32 & she was 35. Started getting serious with her a yr later. Married her a yr after that. 28 yrs later still married & evolving together. Can't think of anything I'd do differently.
Yay! So glad it worked out for you.
“It has always been hard to find real connection, regardless of age.” True! And I find that as I get older, that connection is more likely to come from women who are nearer to my age.
Thanks for sharing!
Haven’t read the article yet but as a man who feels expired at 25 thank you for writing this 🫡🫡🫡😭😢
“But like, maybe move somewhere with more people?”
This is pretty cruel to women who have the totally normal inclination to stay near their family or where they grew up. Also says nothing for those women who cannot afford to up and leave for the big city.
What do you propose these women do?
It’s a difficult question. I have two little sisters in this situation who I think about a lot.
I think we need stronger, organic communities in these smaller places. Church used to fill this role.
The girls don’t like dating apps, and they cannot entertain the idea of being the ones who approach men (I get this). In my own life, practically all of my romantic fulfillment (not talking about cheap sexual gratification here) has come from relationships built at school or work.
Lately, without that (I work remote now), I’ve found difficult to even find women to talk to. I think this is primarily because we don’t have much concept of community in the US now adays, and also because it’s become faux pa to speak to women in public under most circumstances due to the state of the culture. I live in a mid major city, and find it to be like this.
I’m not on the apps anymore, since I’ve had nearly the inverse of your experience. More like 3000 swipes and ~10 marches here. I’m sure if my sisters moved to a large city, they’d have a larger pool of options from tinder and the like, but I don’t think that it would be a great pool to pick from. In fact, it’s an emotionally (sometimes even physically) treacherous pool for women, and a depressing pool for men. Would I ever recommend they give up a simple life they enjoy to move to the city for more swipe opportunities? No, I think society should rebuild the community and social cohesion it used to have, but fix the mistakes of the past. The whole idea of “dating” with dating being both means and end is somewhat contrived and gross to me.
Now that I’ve shared maybe too much, I have a question. Why do you, as a single woman who would like to find love, recommend that other women follow the path you’ve taken and move to the city? Why do you recommend this when you yourself have yet to find success in this? Why would you recommend women “go on hundreds of dates” to develop some intuition about recognizing bullshit and spotting red flags? This has never been necessary, and why should we accept this as the new normal? It sounds awful to me, and I’m a man. I think if you had places to be that you felt you belonged to, and at these places there were also men who feel like they belong to the same place, you would naturally fall in love and there would be much less bullshit involved.
Edit for context: 27M
My life philosophy focuses on what is practical and achievable and within my control. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but the alternative is to not move and continue fishing for an empty pool. I think a lot of things are unpleasant (like approaching men and risking rejection), but I personally choose to do unpleasant things and get rejected because to me, the potential rewards outweigh the downsides. I don’t think anyone should do what I do to get the negligible results that I have gotten, but now that I have done the stuff, I might as well make the most of the data that I have accumulated from it. I also figure that some portion of my lack of success is because I’m not as happy, compromising, agreeable, or enlightened as I could be and that I can work on that at the same time I become better at the dating process. And to be honest, I have realized that I don’t totally hate it. I truly enjoy a lot of the stupid early dating process - I get to meet new people constantly, try new restaurants, learn about different professions, see more of the city, have funny stories to tell my friends.
I find your outlook inspiring! I guess when I go on dates, I’m typically hoping to find a real connection, and find myself disappointed and discouraged when it doesn’t go as I hope for or expect.
How often would you say men put you in uncomfortable situations? One of the main reasons I’d be hesitant to recommend such a strategy to my sisters is because women often talk about the dangers of meeting men. Have you found it to be pretty safe?
So in summary: I don’t really worry about dying or getting raped. I do worry about people ghosting. That’s pretty much guaranteed to happen if you date a decent amount. I was thinking of writing a ghosting protocol.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Sounds like you’re enjoying yourself! Would you say you’ve been looking for something long term but have been unable to find it? If so, what would you attribute that to?
Speaking as a literal expert on this topic, it’s helpful to turn things you were planning on doing alone into dates (like I keep a restaurant list of places I want to try, I also keep a huge IG folder of food/activities in NYC) so that even if the date is a dud, you don’t feel like your time was wasted. Even if there’s no connection, perhaps you can learn something about the world or a new perspective or in pretty rare cases admittedly, make a new friend. It’s easier as a woman since men usually pick up the tab for a first date, though. Men infrequently make me uncomfortable. It happens, but it’s not incredibly common, I would estimate 1-5%. I have pretty much never feared for my life. Men much more frequently upset me with bad communication and thoughtless behavior. Generally the worst thing men do is be very pushy about having sex and ignore multiple exasperated protests/soft nos. I would say this happens like 1-2x a year. I think in these scenarios if I were to stand up and accuse them of being a rapist they would 100% leave, but it’s horrible that it would need to get to this point. I find these annoying but honestly the bad communication and ghosting is way more upsetting than dealing with pushy men. Those are just annoying.
Aw man that was good but it mostly just reminds me I’ll need plastic surgery to get more than a date every couple of years.
Ya boy is UGLY.
Good article and subscribed thank you for writing it!!!
Haha thank you! I also have no idea what you look like but I’m sure it’s fine, I’ve also had plastic surgery myself so there’s nothing wrong with getting things changed if that’s what you want.