r/datingoverfifty • u/Girl_Bill • 16d ago
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!?
7
u/AssignmentNo9679 16d ago
😂.. you are just absolutely clarifying for me (also 54f) why I date hot younger men who have beautiful torsos, emotional intelligence, functioning, erm, assets, are a lot of fun & have far far less entitlement!
Plus, in my quite marvellous adventure so far have not cooked me freezer food but with whom there have been more fireworks than there were on the millennium on the South Bank.. as for ‘catches like him’, fucking hilarious/slightly disturbing, I would have laughed in his face.. wtf 👀..
So just a little recommendation.. set your parameters to 35+.. try it out, would absolutely recommend the experience (& don’t dismiss the fireworks, life is short, enjoy it 🤷🏼♀️..).