Dear Wendy
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My mashed potatoes were very good this evening.
Just catching up on this after getting dinner ready for my family (meatloaf, cheddar broccoli, and mashed potatoes), getting the baby bathed and to bed and getting jackson to sleep, and then cleaning up (also, jackson is on school break this week, so I had both kids all day, so sorry, Anon, for reposting the “How Did You Know You Found the One” thread — I’ll have to give you a refund on what you pay to read this site). This was way better than the last half of this week’s Bachelor I was going to watch. Thanks, Sarah b!
Sarah b., if you see this, we would love an update!
Guys, this week marks the one-year anniversary of #CinnamonRolls && #AnythingCanHappen
#NeverForget
For the record, I was 29 when I met Drew (through a friend) and he was 36. He was just about the oldest guy I’d gone out with and the difference between him and the guys I’d dated who were just a few years younger was remarkable. He says he had been ready for a serious relationship for a while, but I think the years of dating unsuccessfully before he met me helped him appreciate what we found in each other pretty quickly. Like, he knew what was out there already. He knew I was a good catch and a good match for him. And he didn’t want to lose out, so he didn’t fuck around. I’m not sure he would have had that same … tenacity if he didn’t have like, 10 solid years of dating under his belt.
I’m not sure that’s exactly true though, Dre. Maybe it’s true of the average single 30-year-old man or the average 30-year-old man who is active on dating sites. But there is also a demographic of 30-year-old men who have been married/committed for a few years. Obviously, that pool of men isn’t going to be on dating sites looking for a match. So, yeah, when doing online dating, I’d say (hetero) women who are 27+ and looking for serious relationships should be focusing their search on 32+ (and add a year for every year you are older than 27, so if you’re 31, you target minimum age is about 36). I mean, this shouldn’t come as a shock that for a lot of men (and women!), online dating is simply an easy way to browse for casual hookups. The older you target your search, the more like you are to broaden the pool of potential matches who are looking for something more serious (and who are more mature themselves).
The video game thing is weird, but it was his immature/unsophisticated way of driving home the message that he wasn’t interested in you. I’m willing to be that after you brought to his attention that it was Valentine’s Day — which he clearly wasn’t aware of/ hadn’t thought about (because it’s rarely on the radar of single guys like it’s on the radar of single women) — he was a little worried that you thought that this was a Valentine’s Day Date and that there was more weight than just a casual first date where you’re seeing if there’s a spark. I think he probably felt pretty quickly that there wasn’t a spark and then wanted to make sure you didn’t think there was one. Well, mission accomplished, right?
Dating guys five to ten years older than this guy, whom you say is 30, won’t eliminate this kind of insensitive and immature behavior completely, but it would reduce it considerably, I think.
I don’t think most single guys pay attention to whether it’s Valentine’s Day or not. I certainly wouldn’t hold that against someone. That’d be like if I didn’t realize it was Superbowl Sunday and a guy wondered if I lived in a hole. No, I don’t; I just don’t give a shit about football and generally am not exposed to sports news because it’s not part of my life/ social network/ media consumption. And, I don’t know, he might have felt a little embarrassed when you pointed out that it was Valentine’s Day, in a “Oh, I hope she doesn’t think this is a Valentine’s date” and then he might have erred on the side of being anti-romantic with the sports injury talk and splitting the bill. Just a theory.
Another pattern to break that might help find the right match is to date outside your usual age-range. If you’re, say, 29, and you’ve been dating guys in the 26-34 range, start dating guys closer to 40. Women really do mature faster than man and what seems like a big age difference isn’t so much on an emotional/maturity/life stage level.
It’s not abut projecting a vibe; it’s about choosing men who will treat you the way you expect (and maybe think you deserve?) to be treated. The “vibe” doesn’t even matter. It’s all about the pattern here, which is long-established in the men you choose to pursue. I’m suggesting that one way to help break the pattern is to make a completely different choice in the kind of men you choose to pursue. Like, go out with someone you ordinarily wouldn’t even notice in a crowded room. (And I think lots of people could benefit from this advice, not just you, Dre; I’m looking at several people who comment heavily on this thread who seem to have long-established patterns in the men they choose to pursue and the kinds of dates/relationships they end up having and the reaction they then have to those guys who inevitably ghost them.).
Like I said, I don’t think it’s about you being with a white guy so much as it’s about you breaking a (potentially) subconscious pattern.
It’s not really about white vs. black; it’s about dating against type. It’s something I’ve been meaning to write a post about for weeks and haven’t had a chance to get to yet. I think when we date against type — go out with someone we ordinarily would overlook for whatever reason (including, but of course not limited to, race), something happens on a psychological level that helps breaks patterns we aren’t even aware we perpetuate in the choices we make — choices that we often make subconsciously.
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I didn’t mean to single you out. I just remembered what your specific type is (or, isn’t, as the case may be) and wondered if you’d dated against that type in the last year or so. Sorry if the question offended you.
