Looking for a mate in mid-life...

[drscott]

So you're older now, and you think wiser. But still embedded in your thought processes are all of those myths about romance and the ideal partner just waiting for you out there like some used, rusty needle in a mildewed haystack.

Viewed dispassionately, what are the odds that all of these things will happen: a) you find a person that elicits a really strong emotional response, and b) they feel the same about you, and c) they are capable of being an ideal partner to you (single, interesting for years, matching in values, makes you laugh...), and vice-versa? Pretty small, in middle age, when most of the interesting candidates are already taken. So maybe you should think about whether each of those conditions is necessary....

The kind of bond that holds most really long-term relations together is not the intense, dramatic love you've been told all your life is a necessary precondition. It's more a feeling that only grows in time, and has to do with mutual reliance, trust, respect, and a more mild affection. It's not clear that there's any correlation between the people you might feel more intense initial love for and the person who would make you happy in the long run. I wised up and went for the person I liked and knew would be trustworthy and entertaining for the long run. Immediate passion and stunning looks had never led me to the right person for the long run; I looked for the best partner, and I've never been happier in my life. I did the right thing, especially since we have the kind of relationship that allows some of that passion and novelty to happen with others. You might want to seriously question your assumption that if you're not feeling something deeply after a few months, it's no good; and you might be careful to find partner-candidates who are patient and have evolved beyond a need to have the intense romance they have been told all their lives they are due. I would pay more attention to the boredom signal: "I am with X and I'd rather be somewhere else, with someone else, who's 'interesting.'" That's deadly in the long run.

So when you're dating someone, ignore your checklist of requirements and pay attention to your feelings. Do you enjoy being with them? Do you expect that that will last a long time? Everything else is noise.

Comments

[envirobear.livejournal.com]

Very nicely said. When we're younger, we mostly have that expectation to have the wildest sex every waking moment with a partner who is porn-star hot (and who will impress all our friends with his wit, intellect, artistic/culinary/mechanical capabilities, looks, and sexual prowess), and, as I like to put it, "play house" until one or the other or both become bored and move on to the next "challenge". It's unfortunate that most of us have to go through emotional blast furnaces in order to reach the understanding that you write of so well...but sometimes the tempering we get in the process of that learning makes us better human beings and better capable of loving other for the *right* reasons. It's even more unfortunate that others never learn those lessons, or that they do so after many difficult years of aggravating their close friends, by their obstinancy, to the point of pushing away those friends because they believe that their own situation is "unique" or "special".

Thank you for the insight...hopefully someone who needs to understand what you say *is* understanding what you say.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

You can end up with a series of partners who don't last because the initial flashy attractants have no staying power, and the failure of any real person to meet the ideal means you'll never be satisfied.

I usually use the word "crucible" instead of "blast furnace" as metaphor for the burning out of unnecessary assumptions and misleading myths, but you understand me exactly.