Adventures in
Dating After 50
Ask anyone who’s played the “dating game” as an older adult and they will likely be able to offer up some horror stories, especially if they ventured into the world of dating sites (and later dating apps on phones.) Even if they succeeded in finding that special someone, and plenty of folks do, the journey can at times more closely approximate a game of MarioCart than a stroll down EHarmony Lane; the rules change quickly, toads abound and princes and princesses can be tough to locate and even tougher to engage.
As I approached my fifties, after twenty-one years of marriage, I found myself clumsily navigating the dating world. I hated being alone, but I would end up single for far too many years before I found a man in Tennessee who would even consider a relationship with a liberal, divorced, (female) Methodist minister.
Lonely People (by America)
“This is for all the lonely people, Thinking that life has passed them by, Don’t give up until you drink from the silver cup And ride that highway in the sky.”
For readers living in more socially open-minded areas of the country, the divorced aspect was actually the least of the problem. I had stayed in Tennessee for one reason: our divorce decree would not permit me to move and take my young sons with me. Evidently, though, my being liberal in Tennessee was way more repugnant to many men I met, and, too often, I felt like a little blue raft adrift on a sea of red. I tried making sure that “liberal” was prominent on my profile’s description in hopes that those with more conservative leanings would just move on; sadly, being up front about social issues also attracted plenty of ugly comments.
In contrast, being a minister was, apparently, just plain confusing for potential dates. “Are you allowed to date?” “Are you allowed to kiss?” Female clergy quite often seemed as foreign as Cyborgs. I understand that. When I started looking into preaching nearly three decades ago, I was asked if I could see myself preaching and leading worship and I had to confess I’d never seen a woman do either. I was not alone in my lack of experience at the time with clergywomen and so I could understand why single men quite often were at a loss as to what a relationship with a woman in ministry might look like. Still, there’s lack of education, and there’s rude. I was stunned when a guy who was working on my campus ministry building leaned over one day and said, “I guess you don’t want people to see you out on a date, so why don’t you just meet me at the hotel down the way? And, do you have a dress because I bet you’d look good in a dress.” Gee, how can a girl resist?
I held onto hope through several abysmal dates arranged on dating sites on the internet; this was before you simply looked at a face on your phone and swiped left or right. If I met someone on EHarmony.com, we talked for a week or two before they got my full name or even my phone number. I even joked that I didn’t date anyone I couldn’t Google. If a guy didn’t have a positive history, we would not meet up.
One hopes we all learn as we get older, but, if you have never experienced online dating or dating apps, you might be surprised by the shenanigans, even on sites catering to the “silver” set, guys who are old enough to know better. Surely, I thought, they’d be more mature than the younger guys who were often simply looking for a one-night stand or someone to talk dirty to them for a while. Now I wish I had a dollar for every time an older “gentleman” made sure before we even ordered our meals that I knew he’d taken his little blue pill. Can you say, “Check, please?”
Once I arranged to meet a potential dating partner at a local restaurant, but didn’t see him in the restaurant even though there were only two other patrons and one was a woman. Turns out, his picture online was from more than a decade earlier, so, once I walked over to the booth and determined he was indeed the man I’d spoken to on the dating site, I had to wonder why he had sent his father to meet me. Foolishly constrained by politeness, I ordered and drank down a soda, then asked the waiter for my check and told the old man sitting across from me, “I’ll call you.” I lied.
Another guy complained about middle-aged women “letting themselves go” and gaining weight. “I hate it when they sit at a table and their breasts rest on the table,” he said. Yes, I would agree in hindsight that such a ridiculous comment ought to have been enough to prevent further conversation, but I was still hopeful that one comment didn’t sum up his entire attitude towards women. When I saw him walk into the restaurant, I didn’t recognize him, though, because, it turns out, he had gained more than forty pounds since the picture he had posted of himself! Okay, I thought, he’s embarrassed about his weight. When, though, halfway through the meal he gave me directions to his apartment in case I had trouble following him home, I excused myself to use the restroom. Nowhere had we discussed going anywhere together after the meal, let alone his place. I found the waiter, paid for my own dinner at the hostess station and left alone.
One guy openly lied about smoking – I said no smokers on my page – because, he said, he was looking for a girlfriend to help him quit. Another guy, who agreed to meet even after discussing the fact that I was a minister, informed me before we had even gotten our menus that whatever relationship we developed would not end in marriage. “Just to be clear,” he said, then he asked what I’d like to drink. No check necessary. One guy commented on my profile page that he didn’t date women with short hair. I responded that we at least had one thing in common! Yet another was charming throughout our phone conversations but then, during our first dinner, when I commented that his family sounded lovely, he calmly informed me that he was looking for a mistress and would not ever be introducing me to any of his family. I just left him with the check.
Photos I used on my dating profile in the dark ages….
I did go on some dates that were not arranged through sites. I’d started taking social dancing classes and met a few nice men but no one I wanted to go out with until one New Year’s Eve. A charming man I met while dancing that evening, who was funny and who was respectful of my vocation, danced well and we ended up dancing nearly every dance together. At the end of the evening, we were sitting around a large table with of my friends, enjoying a champagne toast to the new year when he invited me to visit his “compound” in rural South Carolina. Seemed innocuous enough until he began to press me for specifics. How soon could I make the trip? I wouldn’t need a car, he said. He’d drive me there and then I could have my choice of any of three refurbished RV’s (if I wanted privacy once we arrived.) When he lifted his glass in a toast to the fact that my impending visit to his compound would be a “forever thing” now that we’d found one another, he was sent back to South Carolina alone.
I honestly wondered for the longest time if it were going to be possible to find anyone even to date, let alone to hope for a mutually supportive and loving relationship. I did meet some nice guys but both of us being liberal or even both of us being Christian wasn’t enough to build a relationship. As a pastor, I couldn’t date congregation members because of ethical concerns. The few colleagues I knew who weren’t married were often looking for a more conservative and/or less outspoken wife. It really seemed hopeless for so long.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall….
What was most depressing was realizing there were often obvious reasons why some folks weren’t married any more; too often, a failed attempt at a connection caused me to look at my own foibles and failures and, more than a few times, caused me to wonder if I was just meant to be alone.
Then I met the man we will just call Walt. No, not his name. He was also a minister. We met for the first time when my campus ministry team visited his church. A week later, he brought his youth group to an event we held for prospective students. He was the life of the party and danced several times. We shared dating horror stories. Then he asked about spending more time together and I began to hope my solitary days were coming to an end. I was happy to find such an out-going, gregarious non-conformist; he even spent evenings, he told me, on his porch surrounded by the hummingbirds who had become his friends.
We arranged for a first real date, which started with a brief meeting of his mother and young granddaughters. They were delightful and it was a positive sign, I thought, and so I didn’t blink when he said he wanted to share a little bit at dinner before we officially began dating. I agreed. We were both old enough to have some baggage and we needed to begin any relationship with our bags open for inspection.
Dinner began quietly. He did not drink any more, he shared. I was a longtime member of Al-Anon and we understood one another on that topic. I told him about my divorce and he shared about his; we both lamented the struggles of sharing children with exes, especially when the rift was still painful.
“One thing it’s tough for me to share, though,” he said after we ordered. He took a breath and said simply, “You need to know: the probation will be over soon.”
Probation?
By “soon,” he meant, “there are only eight months left on a twelve-month sentence.”
“It’s okay, though,” he said, reaching across the table and putting his hand on mine, seemingly to reassure me all would be well. “The drugs were not mine; they belonged to the prostitute.”
I remember staring, confused, at his hand patting mine. Knowing that the drugs weren’t his made it better?
“No one here will ever know,” he explained. “It’s in another county.”
I pulled my hand back, still silent.
“You should probably say something here,” he said. I had just been staring at him, trying to process this information. “You know,” he said, “you can’t tell anyone about this. What people tell clergy, you know.”
I remember I laughed just a bit at that. He was wrong about so much at that moment. No such privilege existed, though he clearly hoped I believed it did. Most baffling was that he seemed convinced I’d be fine with the idea of him soliciting a prostitute so long as she had been the one who brought the drugs to the party.
Not only were we not on the same page at that moment, we weren’t even in the same book. In fact, I was only clear about one thing at that moment. I raised my hand, caught the eye of the waiter nearby, and said, as calmly as I could manage, “Check, please.”
Pickleball? Really?
I will tell you that, after many years alone, I did enter into a caring relationship with a man whom I met playing pickleball, of all things. Who knew pickleball would replace EHarmony, Match.com or the vegetable aisle in Whole Foods as the place to meet eligible singles? By the time my husband and I met, though, I’d pretty much given up looking. That was wise, though, because, honestly, when I review my dating experience before that, well, I think you’d agree, if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry. Check, please.
Emptying The Backpack 