Let’s say that, in your mind, you look the way you did when you were twenty five or six. Let’s say that you feel the same inside, have the same desires as your younger self, the same passions. Let’s say you feel all this but when you have to post a picture of yourself on a dating site it looks like a damn big nosed, saggy skinned, overweight old lady? Who in the heck is going to see all that wonderful stuff inside you?
Yeah. That IS a problem.
I was surprised, initially, to see that many of the men of my age posted pictures of themselves as young guys (with full disclosure) alongside those of themselves with their families and motorcycles and motor homes and dogs. But now I see the logic. If I can look at a picture of what the gray haired seventy year old looked like in his hey day, maybe I will be attracted to the vestiges of cool sexiness that might still be under the old skin.
Perfectly clear.
Only this now begs the question of what, exactly, I am really looking for and how I am going about it. I want to be attracted to someone again, and they to me, but using old pictures of ourselves to achieve that seems somehow cheap, tawdry and dishonest. Or maybe it simply gives credence to the idea that sex is for the young looking?
On television and in movies if there is an older person featured in an ad, they are in good shape, attractively even featured, and probably driving an expensive car. (read sexy). Is it no wonder that when looking through my matches I don’t feel any spark until I see a picture of what they looked like thirty years ago? Am I not supposed to feel a spark? Maybe I should be looking for companionship and shared interests in hopes that there will be more?
I am so confused. But I have reluctantly been tossing around the idea of posting a picture of the young me in case it might appeal to a total stranger.
Is that odd, or what?
There was another rude awakening for me as I blithely entered my credit card information and signed up for a year of “matches”, I was putting my butt on the line. No, really, literally…someone may (eventually) want to look at my butt.
Oh God. Can I put a picture up of what my butt used to look like?
This is the reality of elder online dating. (I can hear you yelling “Stop!” But, what else can it be called? I know I am not eighty or ninety, but damn it, I am no longer middle aged either. So is there another age related term for that? How about late middle aged or early old age? No. There is nothing. Retirement age? Would that work?)
Anyway. The ugly truth is that we are judging matches purely on looks. Keep in mind this is just to get through the initial cull, the “pick me” stage. Once chosen, subsequent emails and/or meetings will, hopefully, get down to the nitty-gritty.
Oh, there are short blurbs about your “passions”, leisure activity, how others see you, and what you are looking for in a match to give someone with the ability of a sharp turned word an edge up on those that don’t have that skill. But, really, sadly, it is faces and bodies that we are responding to when looking through the line up.
(There was the fellow that, under the “passions” section, wrote one word “sex.” Well, that IS being pretty clear. Too bad he resembled a shriveled up Donald Trump with a thick gold necklace and a shirt open to his navel.)
So, in conclusion, this whole thing has changed from when I first signed up a month ago, when I thought I would recognize the visage of future love by magically recognizing his aura, or some damn thing. This is going to be hard, dirty, self-analyzing work. I am going to have to actually take a chance by asking someone if they think that they could like me, the right now me, and be prepared for rejection, maybe a lot of rejection. “Don’t take it personally” I have been told.
Yeah, right.
My six foot two body never fit into the normal idea of beauty in any way, shape or form so this ‘putting myself out there’ has been exceptionally hard to do. However, I never thought I was attractive, even when I actually was…so, maybe I look better now than I think I do. Right? Right?
Sigh.
I have a confession. I spent the first month on the dating site looking through the faces and callously rejecting one or another because they were too old looking. That is, until recently, when my daughter lowered her head, raised her eyebrows, looked at me and said pointedly “well……?”
Okay. Got it.
I wonder if I have a really good picture of my nineteen year old self in a bathing suit?
Yeah. That IS a problem.
I was surprised, initially, to see that many of the men of my age posted pictures of themselves as young guys (with full disclosure) alongside those of themselves with their families and motorcycles and motor homes and dogs. But now I see the logic. If I can look at a picture of what the gray haired seventy year old looked like in his hey day, maybe I will be attracted to the vestiges of cool sexiness that might still be under the old skin.
Perfectly clear.
Only this now begs the question of what, exactly, I am really looking for and how I am going about it. I want to be attracted to someone again, and they to me, but using old pictures of ourselves to achieve that seems somehow cheap, tawdry and dishonest. Or maybe it simply gives credence to the idea that sex is for the young looking?
On television and in movies if there is an older person featured in an ad, they are in good shape, attractively even featured, and probably driving an expensive car. (read sexy). Is it no wonder that when looking through my matches I don’t feel any spark until I see a picture of what they looked like thirty years ago? Am I not supposed to feel a spark? Maybe I should be looking for companionship and shared interests in hopes that there will be more?
I am so confused. But I have reluctantly been tossing around the idea of posting a picture of the young me in case it might appeal to a total stranger.
Is that odd, or what?
There was another rude awakening for me as I blithely entered my credit card information and signed up for a year of “matches”, I was putting my butt on the line. No, really, literally…someone may (eventually) want to look at my butt.
Oh God. Can I put a picture up of what my butt used to look like?
This is the reality of elder online dating. (I can hear you yelling “Stop!” But, what else can it be called? I know I am not eighty or ninety, but damn it, I am no longer middle aged either. So is there another age related term for that? How about late middle aged or early old age? No. There is nothing. Retirement age? Would that work?)
Anyway. The ugly truth is that we are judging matches purely on looks. Keep in mind this is just to get through the initial cull, the “pick me” stage. Once chosen, subsequent emails and/or meetings will, hopefully, get down to the nitty-gritty.
Oh, there are short blurbs about your “passions”, leisure activity, how others see you, and what you are looking for in a match to give someone with the ability of a sharp turned word an edge up on those that don’t have that skill. But, really, sadly, it is faces and bodies that we are responding to when looking through the line up.
(There was the fellow that, under the “passions” section, wrote one word “sex.” Well, that IS being pretty clear. Too bad he resembled a shriveled up Donald Trump with a thick gold necklace and a shirt open to his navel.)
So, in conclusion, this whole thing has changed from when I first signed up a month ago, when I thought I would recognize the visage of future love by magically recognizing his aura, or some damn thing. This is going to be hard, dirty, self-analyzing work. I am going to have to actually take a chance by asking someone if they think that they could like me, the right now me, and be prepared for rejection, maybe a lot of rejection. “Don’t take it personally” I have been told.
Yeah, right.
My six foot two body never fit into the normal idea of beauty in any way, shape or form so this ‘putting myself out there’ has been exceptionally hard to do. However, I never thought I was attractive, even when I actually was…so, maybe I look better now than I think I do. Right? Right?
Sigh.
I have a confession. I spent the first month on the dating site looking through the faces and callously rejecting one or another because they were too old looking. That is, until recently, when my daughter lowered her head, raised her eyebrows, looked at me and said pointedly “well……?”
Okay. Got it.
I wonder if I have a really good picture of my nineteen year old self in a bathing suit?