Thank Your Lucky Stars

If you've never had to look for a date as an adult, if you've been in a solid marriage for years and years and never had to figure out how the rules have changed since the last time you dated, you should consider yourself lucky.

Dating over 50-55-60 is like walking through a haunted forest where an ogre, real or imaginary, lurks behind every tree.

I've been on-and-off Match since late 2003. When I was living in Tucson and looking at men who were sited in that geographical area, I would see the same men, year after year. Their photos never changed, their profiles were always visible. Occasionally I would e-mail one whose information struck some note of accord with me. Frequently he'd e-mail back that he was seeing someone. (But your profile is still out there?!)

Men whom I dated and formed relationships with—usually of three-months' duration—never stopped communicating with other women on Match and never hid their profiles. One was even telling me he was falling in love with me, and two weeks later telling me he couldn't see me on a Friday night. Turned out he had a date with another woman he saw on Match.

Most of the men I communicated with on Match indicated in their profiles that they wanted a woman, one woman, and wanted a committed relationship. Very few said they just wanted to play around. They all indicated they were in it for the long haul.

(An exception to this is the profile I read recently of a USMC Vet/biker in Northern Virginia. He said flat out, "We ain't goin' exclusive until we know it's workin'. Let's not rush this thing." Okay, so I paraphrase. But his wise-cracking profile had me laughing until I cried, and I wrote him a note to congratulate him on a compelling profile.)

Many of the men will see the photo of an attractive woman, and immediately "wink" at or e-mail her. They don't read her profile; they don't peruse her likes and dislikes and education and height and …. They see a pretty trinket and go for it. I've had men who were 10 years outside my stated age preference or who said they were trying to quit smoking or who lived 1000 miles away from me or who stood 5'6" tall send me an e-mail. I quickly and politely said, "No, thanks." C'mon. My profile is brutally honest: I'm not a biker babe. I don't cook or dance. I'm just a really nice, kind, oft-married person with a lot of degrees.

And many men will not make the first move. They, at age 50-55-60+ are so afraid of rejection that they sit and wait. If a woman e-mails them, sometimes they'll respond. But e-mail someone they think is a good fit for their lives? No way.

And when they do e-mail someone, they can't write. They can't spell, they can't parse a sentence, they can't hit the Shift key (or don't know how to turn off the Caps Lock key), they can't write without strings of periods (People! An ellipsis contains three periods. Three. Not seven or nine or 13!) A first or second e-mail on a dating site is no more or less than a job application. If you're writing someone you wish to impress, you cut-and-paste the note into Word and spellcheck it! Especially if that someone you're wanting to impress earns her living as a writer!

I knew one woman in Tucson who broke up with a man she met on Match after they had been together about nine months. Why? Because he never would introduce her to his family. He was Hispanic, and had a large and close family. She was a beautiful, smart, shapely blonde, hardworking, non-Catholic Gringa, and he couldn't take the risk of his mother's rejection.

So why is this the topic of today's post? Why does this come up now? Because the Jazzman is proving himself to be out of the ordinary. Wayyyy out of the ordinary.

He e-mailed me first. He writes beautifully, with good grammar, perfect spelling, and a healthy dose of humor that leaves me grinning after reading each e-mail. He's already told his mom and brothers about me. We have a double date later this week with one of his best friends and his wife. And this weekend he e-mailed all the women he had been communicating with on Match and wished them good luck with their search, saying he was out of the market.

Me? Impressed? You betcha! Big time!

I'm not sure what planet this man is coming from, but I'm sure thankful my stars were aligned with that planet!