10-reasons-why-dating-is-harder-for-older-women-part-10

why dating is harder for older women part 10

trigger warning

Reason # 7

Baggage

I do not think it is fair to say that older women have more baggage than other human beings. I do not believe that is the case. If you are human you have baggage; regardless of your gender.

When I am coaching older male clients, the issue that I often hear them express is that although they are fully attracted to older women and they want to be in a relationship with an older woman when they have attempted to date them, some older women turn a romantic date into a therapy session (when they promptly empty their baggage)!

The issue is not that older woman have baggage. Let’s be clear, we ALL have some baggage. As reported by my client base, the issue is that older women want to share, discuss, and disseminate all of their baggage early on while dating. This turns off many older men, who have baggage of their own and do not want to hear her baggage right away, until he decides if he wants to even date her again!

The 2 issues that I hear the most from older male clients with regards to dating older women are:

1. Older women turn dates into therapy sessions. They are seeking a friendly ear to listen to their problems, but they are not interested in actually having a date.

2. Older women come across as bitter

Issue # 1

Sometimes what an older woman really needs is to have a friend who will listen to her. In the absence of a friend, she attempts to date in order to seek out that kind of friendship.  However, dating to find friendship does not work.

People do not go on dates to find friends.
They go on dates to find someone to be romantic with.

If you are an older woman who is not really interested in dating, but are using the guise of dating to find friendship for companionship, it is likely you are going to get rejected a lot. You will never get either a second date, or a friendship.

dating rules

Quality older men do not want women they have to rescue. 

Dating is no time for a “woe-is-me” pity party. Dating is when you showcase what you have to offer as you explore what he has to offer to you.

Dating is not a time to recruit sympathy for how life has been so unfair to you.

from artist Ricky Whitney

If you need a friend to listen to you and comfort you, but you are not interested in having someone make a pass at you on a date, do not date! Start a support group instead.

At least you will find the support you seek without having to reject someone’s unwanted advances, or be rejected by someone who wanted more than just friendship.

Do not date if all you want is friendship. 
If you seek an audience instead of a relationship;
start therapy, not dating.

I am not being mean. I am very serious in that I want you to heal.  You need a competent therapist, not a new boyfriend. 

If you carry your core hurt into every new relationship without healing that core hurt, it will surface and ruin your chances when you do finally date a great guy. 

If you have found an older man who wants to be your therapist, most likely he suffers from “The Savior Complex”, which is a whole other topic and article for another time.

Issue # 2

Some older women come across angry, negative and very bitter.  They are so bitter in fact that no matter how beautiful they are on the outside, their bitter personality will leave a bad taste in the scope of the older men who have dared to date them.

It does not matter why you are bitter. That is not the issue, nor is it a puzzle for the next older man you date to solve.

It is no man’s responsibility to teach you that all men are not the same. That's not his job.

Just like it is not your job as a woman to prove to him that not all women are the same. It is up to each individual to deal with his or her own preconceived notions.

Hint:

If you already believe that all men are the same,
those are the only men you will end up with.

When you do meet a man who is different, you simply will not have the faith required to see it through and give him a chance.

A quality older man doesn’t stick around too long if he has to convince you; because he does not have too.
He knows that it is not his job,
and he has too many other options
to be too preoccupied with convincing you.

An older woman should not take her bitterness out on an older man (or any man for that matter) that she is interested in dating.

Just like the way you do not want to have to pay the price for any mistakes other women have made against the older man you may be dating.

Every older woman who is drowning in bitterness has her reasons.

*Some are bitter from unmet, unreasonable expectations.  For example: She resents that she does not get the same attention from men at her current age, that she used to get when she was in her 20s. 

*Some are bitter because of the way they were treated by the men they was involved with in the past.

*Some women are bitter because despite their best efforts to take care of their health, their bodies are still breaking down.

*Some are bitter because they made some bad choices. For example: She left a good man to be with a new lover, and the new lover abandoned her shortly thereafter. 

*Some are bitter because they have a lot to offer; yet they struggle to find a relationship partner and do not understand why they can’t.  (This is one of the reasons that prompted me to put together this article).

You have a right to your own emotions.
If you are bitter about your life, own it.
Deal with it, and process it.

However, do not take it out on men.
 Men are not the reason you are in the situation you are in.

It is not because “there are no good men” out there. There are great men out there. You probably have met them. They usually come in the form of men you have rejected and put into the “friend-zone”.

Remember those nice guys? 

Guys who were “too nice”, to the point you weren’t attracted to them and rejected them? 

If every guy you ever dated was a “jerk”, you have to address the common element in every relationship you have ever had: You. 

You are the common element in every dating dilemma you have ever had. Until you make you better; you will not have your relationships with men get better. Be accountable for your choices, and stop bashing men because you are bitter about the way your life ended up.

In conversations about dating men, or in an actual conversation with a men while on a date, your bitterness can come through with how you interpret the way the conversation is going.

If he is sharing his preferences and interests of how he hopes a relationship will develop and play out with you, and your first reaction is to immediately say something very negative, it may be coming from a very real core hurt. 

For example: He mentions that he has to travel for business a few times a year. Is your first thought: 

A) He is insinuating that he wants a submissive housewife that never is allowed to leave the house.

Or

B) You will ask him more about where he likes to travel and what kind of vacation the two of you could take?  


If you answered “A” you are reacting with your own baggage.

THAT is an example of YOUR BAGGAGE.

If you are nursing an emotional wound, but you also do want to have a new relationship in your life, it is best that you make every effort to heal your core hurt. 

When your core hurt causes you to lash out negatively, it will shut you down from hearing what people are actually saying to you, and it will completely turn away older men who would have loved to have gotten closer to you. 

Do not suppress your core hurt. Face it, process it, and heal it.   If all you do is suppress it with “positive talk”, your core hurt will materialize in self-sabotaging and emotionally destructive behaviors that will actually make your personality unattractive, even to someone that originally liked you.

Quality older men interpret women who male bash as a red flag.

I cannot say it any more clear than that. Gender Bashing is a red flag that will cost you a great potential candidate.

Whether veiled in humor or not, male bashing is still gender hate.

Men know when they see it; male bashing jokes, anti-dating memes, and a disdain for the male gender. Do not kid yourselves ladies.

The men on your social media acknowledge it for what it is: a sign that even if you are attractive enough for sex, you are not “serious-relationship-candidacy”.

Maybe you feel justified in your anti-male rhetoric because of what men did to you in your past.

Real quality men will not be as sympathetic.

What they will want to know is how long you stayed with those men?  How often did you choose to date jerks, while rejecting the nice guys that asked you out?

Quality men will not judge you for what men did to you in the past. They will judge you on how you coped with it, and how you left it behind.

contact a love coach right now

Quality older men know that you chose to date your ex, and stay with your ex. Older men know that men generally must approach women first and make the first moves with the risk of rejection.

It is the women who choose who they end up dating. 


If you are bitter because you did not know you should have chosen the nice guys that you rejected, a quality older man is not going to want to hear you complain about it now.


Men are not the reason you are miserable
and have a miserable love life.
Your inability to chose better dating candidates did that.


Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?


Women do not male bash
because they remain single.
They remain single because they male bash.


Quality older men want nothing to do with your bitterness. Quality older men do not want to have to rescue you from yourself.

Quality men want a quality woman that expects as much from herself as she does from him, and focuses on what she has to offer as much as what she wants from him.

To illustrate exactly how important this is, I want to share some of my work experience with you.  I work as a coach for a high-end matchmaking agency. This means I coach, among other people, older men who are millionaires. These older men are very wealthy and are looking for a serious relationship. Here is where I tend to surprise older women:

The vast majority of older men, even the millionaires, would rather enter into relationships with women their own age than with women who are younger. 

Believe it or not, I can tell you from my personal experience, that over 80% of these older men WANT to date older women. 

However, they are often so disappointed with how older women behave on dates, that some of them just give up trying to date older women and instead only try to date younger women. 

Do you hear me?   

Wealthy older men want someone they can enjoy life with for the little time they have left alive. They face the reality of their mortality and know that they are on borrowed time. An older man does not want to stick around for an older woman who holds onto her misery. He has enough of his own baggage!

What he is looking for is more joy in his life. 

what to talk about on a date

I had an older male client share this story with me
that illustrates this point:

Single Steve: Things were going really well with the older woman he was dating, until one night he started getting raging texts from her!  Steve had no clue what she was texting about. She accused him of cheating on her, planning to hit her, and all kinds of negative things. Later, she wrote to Steve to say that she had “kind of just lost her cool that night and lashed out at him.” She texted to him that she was “sorry”. He told her to NEVER contact him again! He was not willing to be "some punching bag for her lousy past."


It is never a man’s job to heal you
from your past hurts.
You have to heal yourself.

It is only his job to build a future with you together.

It is an unreasonable expectation to expect a quality man to tolerate your inexcusable behaviors.

what to say on a first date

Heal first. Then find love next. Do not expect a man to create joy for you. You have to learn to find joy in your own life.

If you are seeking a man to save you, the only men you will attract are men that have as much, or even more, baggage than you do!

Consider this objectively:  Reverse the genders.

Would you want to date an older man drowning in his own baggage that constantly belittles women, expresses misogynistic comments, and then passes them off as crude humor?

If you met an older man who thinks all women are evil, selfish, “take-what-you-can-get-and-then-dump-them”, wouldn’t your guard be up?

If the older man that asked you out, posts memes on his social media about everything that is wrong with women, and generalizes all women as “gold-diggers”, “sperm stealing”, and “paternity fraud con-artists”, based on how all of his ex-wives lied, cheated and stole from him, would you be jumping at the bait to date him?

Of course not!

There is no way you would ever date a man who came across like he was going to mistreat you as revenge for everything the women in his past put him through. 

Right?

Do you now understand why an older man isn’t rushing to date you when you have bitter baggage?

An attachment to your past heartbreaks is the worst place to put your focus on if you want to experience love today.

Heal from your past, and work on making your present worthwhile, so you can have a future to look forward too with more love.

Reason # 8

Resisting Change

The social norms surrounding sex and dating evolve as society evolves. What was considered common sense knowledge in the past may not be considered common sense today. What was unacceptable in the past may be fully expected of you today. What was more than acceptable in the past might not be acceptable today.

Older women who hold on to certain dating codes of behaviors that they followed when they were younger, will do well to connect with older men that also follow and hold on to those same dating codes of behaviors.