Tag: friends with benefits

If You’re New to Dating, Work Out What You Don’t Want

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 9 Comments

From the beginning of my journey into online dating, I knew what I didn’t want and the list was extensive.

I didn’t want a conventional relationship. I didn’t want boring, humdrum or ‘average’. I didn’t have a pre-prepared list of all the qualities I sought in a man, or needed in a relationship. I didn’t want dinner dates, assumptions or expectations about my time and our status. I didn’t want just one lover. I didn’t even necessarily want a man my age.

Instead, I wanted novelty, flirtatious, rambunctious fun! I wanted lots of other things too, but I couldn’t name them at that early stage. In hindsight, I was a fairly typical midlife woman out to reclaim her sexuality and experiences of youth and dating!

Idealistically at first, I dipped my toe into this new world. You can picture me as wide-eyed and relatively innocent at the start but gradually I became wiser, more familiar with patterns and common issues and sadly, somewhat jaded.

Online Dating is not for the Faint Hearted

If there was just one point in my favour when I began dating online, it might be this: I didn’t have any preconceptions.

I hadn’t touched another man in more than 20 years and frankly, I was curious. I soon became very focused on sex, which is probably a natural result of the novelty and choice that flooded into my life.

But it’s one thing to be focused on sex and quite another to manifest it into your everyday. I eased myself into the idea and reality of sex gently, resisting the potentially crippling doubt and embarrassment masquerading as a pervasive body loathing.

It was a balm to the bruised ego; being appreciated and desired by others can be immensely healing. Each of my stories, and the men behind them, played a part in helping me to examine my own limiting beliefs or prejudices about my body. Some men played a huge role in freeing my sexuality, and I’m happy to say that they have stayed in my life to this day.

From the outset, a part of me wanted instant intimacy along with satisfying sex – and that was never going to happen, so I was setting myself up for disappointment. It’s very rare that you can meet a stranger and feel immediately close to them, ‘connected’ in a genuine way. It usually takes time to get to know their character, personality, likes and dislikes, and to build rapport.

And while there’s nothing wrong with relationships that are primarily sexual, I wasn’t sure if I could do that. I was soon about to find out.

During the first year of online dating, a positive attitude kept me buoying back up and much of the time, I could heartily laugh about it. You need a sense of humour to face all the bigotry thrown at women and girls! This begins as soon as we become sexual beings (if we’re allowed to), continues after we become mothers (maternal and definitely non-sexual), and is perpetuated after we reach a certain age (so the story goes, non-sexual and invisible).

As with trying anything new, especially something as risky and daring as plunging into dating again, it’s realistic to remember The Learning Curve.

We all start out as somewhat innocent. We all think we know what we’re doing but it’s possible that we don’t!

Debriefing With Trusted Friends is a Good Strategy

I regularly shared experiences with people close to me but I was careful which ones. Only a few understood where I was at, and talking to people who have experience here really helped. My two main ‘go-to gals’ listened to my excitement, my confusion and my tears, as I listened to their stories. One dear friend helped me to express my feelings about the socio-political in the every day.

I’m very grateful for these support networks, because to deal with this world alone would be suffocating. It also helped to have women I could have a laugh with, or ask ‘curly’ questions (for example, how come so many men ask about the status of my pubic hair?!)

What Happens When You Get A Dating App on a Whim?

~ Midlife Dating Adventures ~ 16 Comments

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself in a bizarre new world of dickpics, sexting, hook-ups, friends-with-benefits, MILFs and the general collapse of what ‘dating’ used to be like.

And, you’ll probably be labelled a cougar, even if you don’t like younger men!

I came to embrace my ‘cougar’ self as a tongue-in-cheek recognition of the way society pigeonholes women over 35.

Apart from being a romp through cougarland, this blog is unashamedly about reclaiming my midlife sexuality, post-motherhood. The tumultuous ‘dating and mating’ rollercoaster forced me to grow and develop as I figured out what I like, what I don’t like, and ultimately what I want in this second half of my life.

In fact, I now see the word ‘cougar’ as a rebellious take on the outdated, patriarchal notion that women (unlike men) have a use-by date defined by their reproductive abilities, their appearance, their value according to men, and their clickability or appeal on social and mainstream media.

I’d even go as far as declaring that to be a cougar you can be a feisty, forthright and sexually empowered woman of any age – you don’t have to be attracted to younger men. You don’t even have to date men! You can date whoever you like!

At first, the cougar stereotype did not sit easily with me. I was a slightly awkward, intense and naiive online dating virgin. But though I may have been innocent in that regard, I was certain that I would be no young man’s teacher, experimental sex plaything or time filler. If they were crazy enough to want me, they had to take me on my terms – and that included (ideally) having a strong intellectual bond, as well as a certain openness or lack of pretension.

But right back at the start, to use a quaint Aussie phrase, I didn’t know my arse from my elbow.

Picture This – The Defining Moment

Two workmates huddling intently over a smartphone screen in a tiny, steamed-up Asian diner during our lunchbreak. The air filled with the delicious aromas of Laksa and Pad Thai, smoky with quick wok frying for the throng of hungry customers.

“Go on,” she said. “It’s fun – and you’ll never meet anyone sitting at home.”

The dating app in question was called Skout and it changed my life. My friend persuaded me to install it on my phone, and from there, it was an instant whoosh of energy on that exhilarating joyride to somewhere new.

At first flirting came as naturally to me as pedalling the cobwebbed mountain bike in my shed, after a good decade of being ignored.

But within a very short time in this new world – exciting, ego-boosting but also crushing and disturbing – I needed to express what I was experiencing, to try to make sense of it. No longer wide-eyed and youthful, I wasn’t used to being single. I was a dating ingénue.

I needed to relieve myself of the weight of strange experiences crowding my head, and to listen to the voice that said, ‘What the fuck?’ (And later, the smaller voice that said, ‘What the actual fuck?!’)

Writing it all down is natural for me but I also debrief with close friends, trying to figure out what I feel and get some insight into other people’s motivations or behaviour.

As time has gone on, I’ve continued this habit, mainly because I need to express and make sense of my experiences but increasingly, as this blog has grown and reached more people in the same position, because I love to share and read people’s reactions and advice.

As far as the WordPress community goes, blogging about dating, sex and relationships is great fun and an extremely supportive community.

The internet is an unpredictable space where almost anything goes. Social norms might fluctuate; vitriol and prejudice may be openly on display – but I prefer to remember that, underneath, we are all human. How we behave online is a topic I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about.

There Are Some Very Rude People Online

The things people say to others online, when they are tucked up on the couch with their phone or sitting safely behind a keyboard and screen half way across the country (or the world,) really are incredible.

I reckon keyboard warriors are the bane of our modern world. And goddess help you if you are a woman on a dating site who says no, sorry you’re not my type. Or that you’re not interested. Or if you refuse to send a pic of your naked boobies, or worse, a pussy pic. FFS people – are you serious? How can you go from ‘Hi’ and polite chit-chat to ‘Will you send me a pic of your boobs?’

I like what sista blogger Fabulous and Forty has to say on this topic, especially what she terms FUCKBOYS. They are probably the most prominent population on dating sites, equally matched by those desperate to find a partner before they lose all of their hair, or get even more unattractive or just plain old. Straight talking yes, but it’s scary out there.

Take a deep breath and prepare for the great variation of humanity if you are venturing online as a woman in the 21st Century. Brace yourself for dick pics, insults, insistent requests for nude photos, and best of all, ghosting.

These are all topics I love to explore, so if you haven’t had a good look in the sidebar of topics and stories I’ve covered, head over there now for some fun!