#360 - Where has the fun in dating gone?

Where has the fun in dating gone? Do you remember when going on a date used to be exciting? It was nerve wracking for the boy to call and ask the girl out especially when your family was around.

For those of you that are uninitiated, our telephones were generally mounted on the wall and had a three-foot cord. My family phone was mounted on the wall in the kitchen, which was right next to the living room.

I couldn’t talk to a girl without my mother and sister listening in on the conversation!

There was a certain innocence back then. It was nothing like today. Part of it is that we’ve all grown up…at least most of us have. LOL Personally I’m trying to reclaim some of the happiness of my youth. I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going.

As we’ve grown up we’ve experienced more of life. We’ve dated, fallen in love, fallen out of love, dated some more, got married, and somewhere along the line we’ve ended up divorced.

Currently, I’m in my mid-sixties (just now as I wrote that, it hit me like a ton of bricks!) and some of you are a little older and some a little younger. Either way, this is not a place we thought we’d ever find ourselves.

I know a lot of you can relate to the fact that the longer you stay single, the less likely it seems you are to find a new partner.

In doing research for this blog post, I came across a study from the sociology department at Bowling Green State University. The statistics are mind blowing…at least to me.

For people that divorced after age 50, 77 percent of women did not remarry or cohabitate after 10 years and 62 percent of men remained single. The study had no definitive conclusion as to why this occurs.

Economics, health, and social ties had virtually no impact. The authors of the study acknowledged another factor that may have mattered: whether the participants wanted to become partnered again.

From personal and anecdotal experience, I have found that a lot of people just choose to quit looking after a certain point because of the effort it takes to put yourself out there. And that’s okay. It’s your choice.

I wonder how many people would still be dating if they found it fun and exciting again. Granted, dating can never be as it was when we were in our late teens and early twenties.

We’ve had too many life experiences to go back. Today we should all have higher standards because of those experiences. We know more about what we want and don’t want.

What would it take for dating to be fun again for you? Would it be the excitement of dating that cute guy? Or maybe it would be a date that didn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to impress her.

Can dating be simple again? Can it start with just coffee or cocktails? Can we stop trying to make someone jump through hoops to try to figure out if you’re interested in them?

“It would be so much easier if I knew you had an interest in me.” “It would be so much easier if you just asked me out.” (These thoughts apply to both men AND women!) After all, we’re all adults now, aren’t we?

For the new year, for those of you still interested in dating, let’s try to make it easier for our potential partners to get to know us. And if you’re not interested in someone, be kind and polite.

Message me to let me know what would make dating fun again for you. Or If you've given up, what would entice you to try again?

Food for thought.

Happy Dating!