Is it hard dating past 30?

[tattoobunnie]

11 hours ago, Tonight.majestic said:

But isn't it kind of weird going alone? Or did you go with your girlfriends? 

Sadly, I dislike sports. But it's great advice. Will keep a note. 

Go to steakhouses with bars!! Get some wine. Go to places with happy hours.  No issue going by yourself.  I had a blast in my early 30's dating!!!  Just need to treat it like hanging out with a new friend - no pressure of this could be the one mentality. Just enjoy! Can't say dating in my mid to late 30's though. Got hitched at 32.

[DancingFool]

Dating 30's dating market is flooded with professional people who went to grad school, focused on getting their life and career going and now are ready for relationships and marriage.

That said, where you live matters. If you are in a small town where most people get married shortly after high school, then your pickings will be slim at best and mostly divorcees with massive baggage. If you are in a large city/metro area, dating will be easy and full of choices for above reasons.

Of course, other factors like how you carry yourself and what you have to offer also matter a lot. Yes, people in their 30's will have some mileage on them. That can be good in a sense that they may be more mature and more clear about who they are and what they do and don't want in a partner. It can also be toxic kind of baggage to avoid. So it can be hit or miss a lot, but then again....isn't it always like that with dating?

Going back to how you carry yourself and what you have to offer.... Saying that a woman is slim, fit, pretty and has a job is a bit like a guy saying he has a job, a house, and a car....so why aren't perfect matches just flocking to them? It's not enough. These are just basics that most people have at that age. You can't really connect on these kinds of superficial material things.

When it comes to dating at any age, the worst thing you can do is tell yourself that there are no good matches or that all the good ones are taken. That's not true at any age. However, that kind of negativity blinds you to the good people available because you are too busy settling for whatever garbage you've come across and hanging on to that. So your belief that nothing good is out there is a self fulfilling prophecy.

[LaHermes]

36 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

Dating 30's dating market is flooded with professional people who went to grad school, focused on getting their life and career going and now are ready for relationships and marriage.

That said, where you live matters. If you are in a small town where most people get married shortly after high school, then your pickings will be slim at best and mostly divorcees with massive baggage. If you are in a large city/metro area, dating will be easy and full of choices for above reasons.

Absolutely DF!

Great post  btw. 

37 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

the worst thing you can do is tell yourself that there are no good matches or that all the good ones are taken. That's not true at any age. However, that kind of negativity blinds you to the good people available because you are too busy settling for whatever garbage you've come across and hanging on to that

Absolutely.

[LootieTootie]

What DancingFool said. I truly believe it depends where you are located too. Saying that, my single friends complain about dating in their 30s and 40s and we are in a big metropolitan area with lots of single professionals. Just some complaints I hear from them all the time:

"can't find someone that doesn't have kids"

"can't find someone who wants an open relationship"

"can't find someone who I find attractive on a physical level"

"can't find someone who isn't playing games"

My recommendation is if what you've been doing isn't working, which possibly means all you do is try to find dates by going on dating apps and HOPE your dream guy or dream girl miraculously appears one day while you go in to work or pumping gas, you're not helping your odds. Dating is a number game.

When you also attend different social venues, you are not just helping your odds but you make yourself way more attractive. How? You're fun, outgoing, adventurous, relatable, and not a single-dimensional person.

 

 

[LaHermes]

6 minutes ago, LootieTootie said:

How? You're fun, outgoing, adventurous, relatable, and not a single-dimensional person.

Such an optimistic lady LT.  LOL.

[dias]

3 hours ago, DancingFool said:

Saying that a woman is slim, fit, pretty and has a job  It's not enough. 

Sounds good enough for me. What more do guys want?

 

[Tonight.majestic]

4 hours ago, DancingFool said:

 

Going back to how you carry yourself and what you have to offer.... Saying that a woman is slim, fit, pretty and has a job is a bit like a guy saying he has a job, a house, and a car....so why aren't perfect matches just flocking to them? It's not enough. These are just basics that most people have at that age. You can't really connect on these kinds of superficial material things.

 

Dancing, 

I have to disagree. In my area where I'm currently living, women my age are overweight to obese. Finding a slim woman size 6 and under is like a needle in a haystack. 

Now, when I lived in the city, that was a different story. 

Secondly, it's not always the basics. Some people like myself went with the whole advanced degree so I was unable to secure a career by 30. Essentially, part-timing on a tiny paycheck. 

 

[Tonight.majestic]

1 hour ago, dias said:

Sounds good enough for me. What more do guys want?

 

This is what I mean when I say men are far more forgiving of a woman's finances than vice versa. 

How many posts on Reddit where men are like, I'm making 100k while wifey is a student making minimum age LoL 

[Wiseman2]

31 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

In my area where I'm currently living, women my age are overweight to obese.

"All of the good ones are taken" is a very common sentiment:

 

[Tonight.majestic]

2 hours ago, LootieTootie said:

What DancingFool said. I truly believe it depends where you are located too. Saying that, my single friends complain about dating in their 30s and 40s and we are in a big metropolitan area with lots of single professionals. Just some complaints I hear from them all the time:

"can't find someone that doesn't have kids"

"can't find someone who wants an open relationship"

"can't find someone who I find attractive on a physical level"

"can't find someone who isn't playing games"

I think people need to be realistic sometimes when the going gets tough. 

I prefer older men. If I find a great guy that has a child, I'm not going to necessarily disqualify him because of his kid. 

I'd be more concerned with a man 40+ without any kids but good looking, stable career, never married, and check marking the "short term relationship, FWB" box. He's a player, most likely. 

[dias]

10 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

I'd be more concerned with a man 40+ without any kids but good looking, stable career, never married, and check marking the "short term relationship, FWB" box. He's a player, most likely. 

This is the impression  I will give in a decade? Hmmm...doesn't sound that bad after all. 

[dias]

19 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

 

Now, when I lived in the city, that was a different story. 

Move to the city again.

[Batya33]

16 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

I think people need to be realistic sometimes when the going gets tough. 

I prefer older men. If I find a great guy that has a child, I'm not going to necessarily disqualify him because of his kid. 

I'd be more concerned with a man 40+ without any kids but good looking, stable career, never married, and check marking the "short term relationship, FWB" box. He's a player, most likely. 

i strongly preferred to be with a man who was single, never married, no kids.  I started saving $ in my early 30s -after I paid off my grad school loans - because I knew if I was lucky enough to have a child I'd want to be home longer than maternity leave and didn't want to limit myself to men who'd chosen lucrative careers. I chose a very lucrative career as a second career after a non-lucrative career in my early 20s.

My husband and I dated and were serious in our late 20s/early 30s, broke up then reconnected in our late 30s ,got married in our early 40s.  Neither of us had had casual sex partners.  Both of us had had long term serious relationships both before and after we met.  We both have advanced degrees and both had good careers by our late 20s when we originally met at work.  I took the long way around, got in my own way and had to become the right person to find the right person.  He was my right person the second time around, for sure.  Still is (together almost 16 years this time around).

I did all my dating in a major city.  Ironically until after I had my child I was petite and slim but not very thin  - I was 5"2 and around 112 - which was heavier than many women in my city.  After pregnancy I led a healthier lifestyle and lost around 10 pounds over time.  I do have good genetics in my favor.  I am an example of a person who didn't gain weight as she got older and other than when I was pregnant and for 5 months after I've never been overweight.  I also don't drive and that means I walk a lot -which helps.  Anyway I agree with those who wrote that it depends where you date. 

My husband and I are the same age. One thing I was fine with was  that he is shorter than average.  That really increased my dating pool a lot as many women didn't want to date short men.  I basically preferred it.  

[DancingFool]

25 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

Dancing, 

I have to disagree. In my area where I'm currently living, women my age are overweight to obese. Finding a slim woman size 6 and under is like a needle in a haystack. 

Now, when I lived in the city, that was a different story. 

Secondly, it's not always the basics. Some people like myself went with the whole advanced degree so I was unable to secure a career by 30. Essentially, part-timing on a tiny paycheck. 

 

Again you are fixating on the superficial and missing the point.....

OP, have you ever stopped to think what it is that marriage minded men are looking for in a woman? Not talking about stereotypes and what the beauty industry is pushing, but rather what do real flesh and blood every day men actually want to see in a woman in order to see wedding bells? I don't think you get it and that's a huge part of your problems with relationships.

[dias]

2 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

but rather what do real flesh and blood every day men actually want to see in a woman in order to see wedding bells?

What? What? don't keep us in suspense Thursday night!!!

[Jibralta]

34 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

I'd be more concerned with a man 40+ without any kids but good looking, stable career, never married, and check marking the "short term relationship, FWB" box. He's a player, most likely. 

I actually got advice along these lines from a family friend (who is like an uncle to me). He told me never to date a guy over forty who hasn't been married. I never have, so I couldn't tell you whether that was accurate advice or not. 

[Tonight.majestic]

3 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

Again you are fixating on the superficial and missing the point.....

OP, have you ever stopped to think what it is that marriage minded men are looking for in a woman? Not talking about stereotypes and what the beauty industry is pushing, but rather what do real flesh and blood every day men actually want to see in a woman in order to see wedding bells? I don't think you get it and that's a huge part of your problems with relationships.

That's a big assumption you're making about "my huge problem with relationships" when you don't even know my dating history.  

My last relationship was 11 years. It led to an engagement and a potential wedding that I called off. So obviously, to a man out there, I was marriage material. 

I haven't dated because I recently got out of a relationship and I have to worry about other things right now. 

I'm sorry but your post is very offensive to me because you don't know me, my personality, nor my entire dating history to make such a big statement about me being "problematic" in relationships. 

 

[waffle]

47 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

In my area where I'm currently living, women my age are overweight to obese. Finding a slim woman size 6 and under is like a needle in a haystack. 

 

This would be extremely important if you were standing in a Vegas Hooker Lineup hoping to be picked to service someone for a couple of hours.  If you're looking for a LTR potentially leading to marriage, that's an entirely different animal and the number on the tag on your jeans doesn't always correlate to compatibility.

[boltnrun]

I see overweight, yes, even obese, women who are married and/or in long term relationships every day.

[Tonight.majestic]

1 minute ago, waffle said:

This would be extremely important if you were standing in a Vegas Hooker Lineup hoping to be picked to service someone for a couple of hours.  If you're looking for a LTR potentially leading to marriage, that's an entirely different animal and the number on the tag on your jeans doesn't always correlate to compatibility.

I've seen an entire engagement called off because the man didn't want to marry his fiance who was getting progressively bigger while he was getting fitter. To him, it mattered.  

[Tonight.majestic]

1 minute ago, boltnrun said:

I see overweight, yes, even obese, women who are married and/or in long term relationships every day.

So do I. It doesn't attest to whether their marriage is good or bad. 

 

[itsallgrand]

When I was dating in my 30s, I came across SO MANY men who were looking for marriage and kids, but then again this was dating in the prairies lol. 

I wasn't looking for a relationship with marriage and kids as a goal though. I was looking for something that could lead to a real partnership, it's just marriage wasn't the priority for me and it didn't matter to me if that partnership ever included marriage. 

There all kinds out there. I really think the hardest part is getting out of one's own way enough to find the people who share your values at that very foundational level. Us humans tend to get hung up on the idea of certain ways to the outcome we want. Just my 2 cents. 

[Tonight.majestic]

25 minutes ago, DancingFool said:

Again you are fixating on the superficial and missing the point.....

OP, have you ever stopped to think what it is that marriage minded men are looking for in a woman? Not talking about stereotypes and what the beauty industry is pushing, but rather what do real flesh and blood every day men actually want to see in a woman in order to see wedding bells? I don't think you get it and that's a huge part of your problems with relationships.

Yeah sure, dating is superficial but guess what, you can have a great personality, be kind, compassionate, sympathetic, yada yada....But if you're overweight, living at home, with kids, disabled,  unemployed and so on....Your dating pool just got a lot smaller. 

 

[dias]

9 minutes ago, Tonight.majestic said:

Yeah sure, dating is superficial but guess what, you can have a great personality, be kind, compassionate, sympathetic, yada yada....But if you're overweight, living at home, with kids, disabled,  unemployed and so on....Your dating pool just got a lot smaller. 

 

Love is blind, you haven't heard?

[Tinydance]

Well I'm an attractive woman (meaning my face) but I have always been overweight/chubby. I'm not gonna lie, after I had anorexia and lost 22 kg I did get so much more attention from men. And also back in 2011 when I lost 14 kg. Don't know in pounds sorry. Now I'm probably 14 kg overweight so I could definitely use losing some weight.

I'm not calling all men shallow but I definitely noticed that my best friend who is very slim and really attractive always had great success with men. She went on dates with 50 guys, mainly from online dating, and most of them wanted to keep seeing her. If you're not gorgeous it's so much harder of course.

I've been doing online dating since I was 18 years old (I'm 36) but I've actually never had a relationship with anyone from online. I've had a few long term relationships but I found them all in real life. So I personally don't think highly of online dating, but some of my friends did find someone on online dating or even married.

It's weird but I've actually had only a mixture of either loser guys or successful guys who are technically a good catch but they were acting quite off putting. I've only been singe for 1.5 years though and the majority of that was in COVID lockdown. I probably could have met more people if it wasn't due to lockdown. 

I met one guy who was Indian. He had lived in Australia for 15 years but to be honest he really seemed to have that traditional Indian mindset about finding a wife. Like almost bordering on an arranged marriage mindset. I'm originally from Eastern Europe but I came to Australia at 12 years old, so I've lived in Australia most of my life. Australia is quite progressive (especially amongst people with Western backgrounds) regarding relationships and gender roles. So that's how I grew up and I just really don't relate to those kinds of ideas like arranged marriage and stereotypical male and female gender roles.

Anyway, this Indian man who was 39 I think, was actually quite attractive. He had a high paying job in finance and owned his own apartment. On his online dating profile he didn't really write much about himself but he actually literally wrote about what he was looking for in a woman "key selection criteria" and listed dot points. He also wrote on his profile that he likes plus size women. Good for me, right? Lol And he said on his profile that he wants marriage and kids.

So, on my profile I do say I want kids. We messaged each other and said hello, how are you sort of thing. Then he sent me a message saying something like: "I just want to be upfront that I want marriage and kids. Do you want the same? Because if you don't, there would be no point in talking any further." I was thinking, ummm, it already says on my profile I want kids. It's not a long profile so you could have just read it.

Anyway, so we went for a coffee and we were talking for two hours. In that two hours he didn't really say much about himself or ask me questions about my life. All he did was fire off all these questions at me to determine if I was suitable to be his wife. It was basically like a job interview. He mentioned again a few times that he's really serious about marriage and kids and asked again am I serious about it. I was thinking, for God's sake, it says I want kids on my profile and I met him on a paid dating site where you can't message anyone if you don't pay. Why would I be on there if I'm not serious and I just want a hookup? Then he said his family back in India really want him to find a wife.

He asked me questions such as, am I really over my ex (I never mentioned any ex's), what is my sexuality, how long before I want to have kids, etc. I said I was bisexual and he had this look of utter shock on his face. He asked me if I was kissing him, would I be thinking about a woman? What he failed to realise is that even a straight woman, as she's kissing him, could be thinking about other guys! 

Oh, and also he mentioned again how much he likes curvy women and said I look great, but I could be ten kilograms larger. 

So basically we literally just met and he felt he had the right to ask me my sexuality and comment on my body and my size. And he asked me all these questions to see if I was suitable to be his wife because he felt entitled to "select" a wife of his choosing. But he said nothing about himself really because HE obviously is such a great catch that automatically I would be desperate to be his wife and wouldn't even need to know anything about him.

At the end of our meeting, he said: "I was happy with your answers and I'd like to go out with you next week". So I did well in the job interview and I got the job!! Lucky me 🤣😂 Anyway, I texted him afterwards and just said "nice to meet you" but then I thought about it more and realised he was an a-holr and I just ghosted him lol