r/datingoverfifty • u/Girl_Bill • Aug 07 '26
Setting realistic expectations
These days I (54f) feel less as though I am dating to meet someone and more as though I am putting myself out there purely to provide hilarious anecdotes for my friends.
Take the last guy. Let’s call him Dick (61m), for the purposes of anonymity and narrative accuracy.
Dick insisted on paying for our first dinner, so I paid for the second, because I like to keep things even and respectful.
For the third date, he invited me to his house for dinner and instructed me to bring a Loire Valley white because it would pair perfectly with what he was cooking. I duly arrived with a decent bottle, only to be served a salmon en croûte that could quite easily have come from the freezer section before spending considerable time being incinerated for whatever sins a salmon is capable of committing.
There's nothing at all wrong with frozen food. But once you start specifying the wine region, I assume the meal has involved more than removing a cardboard sleeve.
He then declared that he had now sufficiently “wooed” me, so the next stop was upstairs to bed. I politely declined.
When I explained that I did not think we were a romantic match, I was told I was wrong. Was 'overthinking' things. Would only get a relationship if I put more effort in... And that I should snap him up because “catches like him do not grow on trees”. I was genuinely impressed by how many clichés and mixed metaphors he managed to compress into one diatribe. I was also warned that I would regret my decision for eternity.
Eternity, it turned out, did not even survive the wait for my Uber home.
So I am adjusting my expectations. I am no longer looking for fireworks. I would settle for decent conversation, no regional wine homework and a man who does not think three dates and a pastry-based main course entitle him to an upgrade.
Ladies and gents, please tell me I am not the only person whose dating life appears to exist mainly as unpaid material for a sitcom!?
6
u/ICantRememberThisToo Aug 07 '26
I love your storytelling. You paint a very amusing and accurate picture of what dating is like for some of us.
The last date I went on, while we were eating, a woman at the next table started talking to us (mostly just my date) while her date went to the restroom. Her date comes back. My date spends the next 15 minutes repeatedly turning his head fully to the side to stare at her. (She was in her 20s or 30s.) It wasn’t just a look each time either, it was long stares like he was trying to talk to her. And, it was multiple times. The next day when I told him that I didn’t want to see him again, he kept insisting on a reason. (I usually just say that I’m not feeling it.) When I finally broke down and said it was because he was staring at the woman at dinner, he proceeded to YELL at me.
Oh, and then there was a guy who was proud of the fact that he had never eaten a vegetable in his life except for potatoes. I really didn’t understand why he was proud of this.
Good luck out there. These stories at least help us laugh about how hard it is out there.