Well, That's Discouraging

I just read In Her 50's, Looking for Love in the nytimes.com.  The author discusses the really poor odds of a divorced woman in her 50's of EVER finding a suitable romantic partner.  Okay, I'm not in my 50's yet, but I am rounding the bend towards that decade, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.  "According to 2001 census data, 41 percent of women 50 and over who’ve been divorced have remarried, while 58.4 percent of divorced men that age are remarried."  And Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder says, “Among the divorced, the least marriageables in our society are older women, highly educated who make a good salary.”

crap

I don't make a good salary.  What a relief.

I've been divorced for nearly three-and-a-half years, and I have not gone on one lousy date.  Or a good date either.  I've had a three-month membership in two on-line dating sites, and they both resulted in bubkis.  Men my age want to date women ten to fifteen years younger, seriously.  And a woman with my intelligence, both of the intellectual and emotional variety, are not impressed with the photos men post of themselves posing with their car/truck/boat (ooooh, what a catch!) or when they blank out the face of their last girlfriend with whom they are posing.  I mean really, how DIFFICULT is it to take a new photo of just yourself?  It's that hard to come by a camera these days? 

There was one fellow on one of those dating sites with whom I "advanced" to the phone-call stage.  I hung up from my first conversation with him with a really BAD feeling in my gut.  And I tried to push it away.  I had also told him what times he could call me because I wanted my two daughters in bed or at their dad's when I talked to potential suitors.  The next time he called was exactly when I told him not to.  I remembered that stomach ache he gave me last time, and I told him off.  (Go me!)  And that was the last "dating" thing I did, which was more than 2 years ago.

I know there is no way that I would ever meet a potential mate in my day-to-day life.  I work with children, mostly younger than mine.  Sure, there are divorced dads as part of this work life, but they are, for the most part, younger than I am (remember:  men want to date younger women, they don't want to BE the younger guy), and I'm pretty sure I don't want to get entangled with young children at this stage in my game. 

At least I look young for my age, or so I'm told.