By Vanessa Torre
Yesterday, I took myself out to lunch. When I’m by myself, I always sit at the bar. I feel like it’s courteous. This way, I don’t take up a table and the bar always offers surprising company I wouldn’t otherwise meet sitting by myself.
I sat on the corner next to an older woman finishing her glass of wine. On my other side were two young ladies in their late 20s. As my glass of wine was placed in front of me, a man crossed the restaurant and started chatting up one of the ladies.
In the span of five minutes, he disclosed the following: He’s 45. He lied to the wait staff that his dog was a service animal so he could bring it inside. He got drunk last night while clubbing. He was too hungover today to go to the river so he’s just day drinking instead. He wants them to come over to his apartment pool for a pool party in a little bit. He mistakenly thought it was 5pm, when it was actually 2pm.
I do not feel I am being too bold by saying that a lying, alcoholic man old enough to be her dad but does not own his own home is no 28-year-old’s idea of a catch. The same holds true for a 38-year-old, 48-year-old, and 58-year-old.
He left after being told by the ladies that there was no way they would be joining him. Of course, before he left he wrote down his number on a piece of paper. Just in case. He had to write it twice because, with the amount of liquor in his body, he wrote it down wrong the first time.
Once he was gone, I turned to the ladies and disclosed that I was around his age. This man is my dating pool. I told them THIS is why I’m single. It’s why they’re single, too.
A few weeks ago I was told by a man that the reason women are single is that their standards are too high. They have an unrealistic ideal and no man will ever live up to it.
I think he’s dead wrong. Women are not single because of their high standards. That misfortune falls soundly on the heads of men.
Women with high standards are single as a result of their own choices. This lady at the restaurant could easily have thrown all her standards out the window and put the guy’s number in her purse. She gave it to the bartender to throw away instead. Because she has standards. At that moment, she chose to stay single.
The man, on the other hand, is also still single. The difference is that she made that choice for him.
How can you make someone love you if you don't love yourself in the first place?
Exactly.
I met a younger man once, we connected from a dating site. I agreed to meet him for lunch. At lunch he revealed he was unemployed, doing odd jobs, living in mom's house. He said he was looking for a woman who would help him find his path. I told him that was his mama's job and he was likely in the right place as he was living under her roof again. I told him I already raised my children and if I needed a project I'd start a new quilt. There was no second date.
If you're a guy still living in your mom's house and you're looking for a date, maybe you should look for a lady who also lives in her mom's house!
And believe it or not, that's how I met my actual girlfriend! I was in a boomerang phase. I was recovering from a bad time: job loss, couple break up, depression. I met on a dating site that lady of my age that was also living with her mom. Cupid did the rest. We've been together for seven years now and we just moved in recently in a new house.
I can't imagine having anything other than high standards. I like me and am not alone when I am with myself. If I choose to allow someone to share my life (and they mine) it will be because they make it better, easier, more fulfilling, and more fun.
I once went through a thought exercise to determine the percentage of people I might be compatible with. I used broad categories, and recognize that they are just that, guidelines but generally accurate and useful. I used criteria like uncommonly high intellect, beliefs and values (approximated by political affiliation and degree of religiosity), body type, etc.
The result was a "pool" of a fraction of one percent. For someone I would choose to be with to the exclusion of all others, that seems about right.
As a man who understands he is not the quality he was forty years ago, I could never try chatting up very young ladies. There are a number of very beautiful lasses who work with me, but I see them as surrogate 'daughters' or colleagues not potential lovers.
I have never had the audacity to sidle up and throw myself into full chat up mode like some strutting peacock carrying out a mating dance. I still don't know how to do it - I prefer to be me, if the woman doesn't want the real me, then fine.
Now if the tables were turned and a twenty/thirty something lady came chatting me up, then I would be flattered, but also questioning their motives.
Still, my belly is shrinking away slowly and I'm fittening up, so perhaps I'll move beyond middle standard and become high again.
High standards are not wrong to have, and I at least do not expect a woman to lower her standards because I social media implies I'm entitled to a lover.
I've never really had that brazen bullshit "charm" either.
Dating is really hard. The obvious hard drunks are one thing, but sometimes they don't show their true colors until several phone calls or dates later, stay strong my friends. Nobody at all is better than a horror story.
Good point. Most men can hold it together for about three weeks. Then bad behavior comes out, the same bad behavior that killed their last relationships.
That's why I keep my heart in reserve. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
@LiterateHiker I guess you can remove all reference to gender in these comments, and the shoe will fit
Good point.