If you are in you mid to late 40’s or already into your 50’s you may have noticed the following phenomena: People our age have a Tremendous Fear of Dating.
I have really noticed in the last few years that the people who are in my social network basically fall into 3 categories: Divorced, Unhappily Still in 1st Marriage or Still Happily Married.
We can dismiss the Still Happily Married category based on the fact that they represent a very small percentage, at least of the people that I meet, who are Actually Happy in their 1st marriage…Still!!!
The Unhappily Still in 1st Marriage folks are the people that have just not pulled the trigger yet for a number of possible reasons: Kids, Business, Finances, etc.
The Divorced people, after having left their bad marriage for whatever reason, now have a New Dilemma…DATING!!!
After not being in the dating scene for, on average, 15 to 20 years many people are Terrified to enter back into, what is now, completely foreign territory.
The times have certainly changed. It is no longer a situation where we must muster up the courage to face our fears of rejection head on and ask someone out on a date. No, now there are Dating Sites which are supposed to make it easier to find that Perfect Partner. However, I don’t think that the organizers of these websites ever took onto consideration this one basic fact: People Lie!!! Yes, It’s True!!! And mostly men. I’m sure some women lie but since I am a man I will take them to task.
55 year old fat, balding men who lie and say that they are 35 and use their Grad picture for their profile in order to attract 35 year old women who they think somehow won’t notice how much older they look when and if they ever meet.
So, why do they lie? Fear. The type of Fear that is brought on by Self-Doubt. We all know that we are no longer 25, packed full of testosterone with bulging muscles and an unrelenting sex drive. We are just unwilling to accept it. So we lie. Ironically enough, in conversations I have had with many women from 25 to 55 they said that they are not looking for that type of guy anyway. They just want someone who treats them well. Which is most likely the reason that they are divorced, because the last guy didn’t treat them well.
But the ability to hide behind Technology has created even more fear in the Newly Dating Environment. We can Lie about ourselves on multiple dating sites with different profiles for each site to attract a different type of person. We will email instead of calling. We will text instead of calling. We will Tweet or send Instagram pics instead of calling. We are quickly becoming a society that is Fearful of Personal Interaction. And since Humans are Social Creatures, this is becoming a Huge Problem.
I will continue this post next time.