As if dating in your 50's wasnt hard enough,
Along comes THE PANDEMIC and says
“ hold my beer...."
Ok, to be completely transparent,
I wasn't doing much in the way of dating anyway.
I am not in the mood.
I haven't BEEN in the mood for quite some time to be honest.
I am snarky and tired and more than a bit overwhelmed on most days.
I like to nest in my home, seeing friends and my family and hanging out with the dog.
And now? With this situation?
I mean, c'mon?!
Even though much of my life hasn't changed during this period of distancing (I am not exactly a social butterfly in the best of times) there is one huge change I've found:
I have time.
Lots of time.
After living almost exclusively in a vortex of rushing around and multi-tasking, I suddenly can slow down.
Not just can, but have to.
There's no place to rush to,
no person waiting,
no tasks piling up because I had time to actually DO them.
I can go for walks with the dog and not check the time, know that I can linger as long as he wants to sniff that spot or wade in the water.
I can cook a decent breakfast every morning and even sit down to eat it.
Couch time with a book is no longer an elusive prize to chase and don't even get me started on napping! Oh the long glorius naps we are having, with both cat and dog curled up close, sun streaming in the windows or, more likely this year in these early days of spring, the sound of rain making it more cozy still.
And yes, I am working from home, but it's such a different feeling than rushing around in the morning in order to get myself to the office every day, leaving my sad-faced dog behind.
Given all these forced changes, if I am feeling the need to connect with the dating world, online is the only choice at the moment. In the past this was the efficient way, the thing that busy adults did who didn't have time or energy to go seek a companion by going out socializing.
But now that it's the only option, and since everyone is sitting home anyway, I vote that we make it work for us.
I have done online dating ,of some sort or another ,on and off for years.
Mostly off lately, even before the pandemic.
Now, with the social distancing, it seemed pointless to even be online since a meeting is not an option at the moment.
But then I started thinking, could this be good?
You see, my favorite part of online dating is the chatting, connecting through the email feature and exchanging messages for a bit. Many times this doesn't last long enough, at least for me. Frequently men want to jump to meeting pretty darn quickly. But oh, when someone does want to chat and they're witty and can write, well, its pretty great. It's intoxicating in ways that a half hour coffee date to see if there are "sparks" just isn't.
And now we have no choice.
No coffee dates, no lunches, no dinners.
I guess you could meet for a walk with someone, and I know some who have "dated" this way, but that's pretty frustrating trying to converse with someone you really don't know while maintaining a 6 foot minimum distance.
Someone suggested video dating.
No.
I mean, do you know ANYONE that looks good during a zoom meeting or facetime?
No, you do not.
Is it possible to connect without meeting?
What if we could go back to the days of exchanging notes for weeks before meeting?
Of courting?
Communicating with someone on a deeper level than the quick back and forth that usually precedes the first date.
Dating app email is good for starts and the phone is good as well, but I confess, I am a texter. Nothing makes me smile more than getting a series of texts through out the day. Quick, funny, irreverent - all good. But also the longer exchanges that can happen while you both may be doing something else ( I am an incurable multi-tasker).
Recently I connected with someone that I had met online last fall. He had met someone else before we even met in person and so we stopped chatting. But we fell back into it pretty fast and it was fun. Really fun.
I actually wanted to meet him and see if anything was “there". That doesn't happen often for me.
But, as much as I love the chat, I also have learned the hard way that an eventual meet is required and doesn’t always go the way you hope. Someone may be captivating on the phone or text, but when you actually are face to face it
Just. Doesn’t. Happen.
For whatever reason.
Maybe that's why I don't rush into the "meet phase", its kind of nice to entertain the fantasy of someone for a while without seeing how they look talking or dealing with hygiene issues or whatever else they (and yes, me!) have as personal quirks. It's sometimes hard to predict what little thing about yourself or someone else may be intolerable.
This man and I didn't meet and apparently won't. He had been having a series of social distance walks with several women. ( side note: juggling several women while you decide which one you will grace with your undivided attention is the definition of the term “Player”, no matter how much you protest that you are not. Ahem. )
He and one of those women went to the next level of interest when he decided that doing the “36 questions” activity would be a fun way to pass the time on a face to distanced face date which took place on his front porch. If you don't know about the 36 questions, look it up.
He seemed surprised that this activity would be translated into a higher level of interest, but it appropriately was, and so there he goes.
This is where communicating with writing and some phone can go awry. What does it MEAN? It is clearly open to different interpretations from different people. I can and have felt incredibly connected to someone while only texting and talking on the phone. Yes, I have found that its important to keep one foot on the floor as a reality check ( we don't actually know each other , do we?) until the meet, but during that fun period of texting and chatting I can feel pretty darned connected. And, although it surprises a lot of men, they can feel it too.
Is this the courting I crave?
However, the minute one of you is spending actual time in the same space with another, I am not going to muddy the water by engaging in a daily text marathon with someone else. That energy belongs to the other person in the room.
It’s a hard lesson but one worth learning in my book. No drama please.
So here we are. Pioneers in the skills of dating during pandemic. Whether we want to be or not.
Shoot me a text and we can talk about it.
It's all good.
SG
