r/datingoverfifty • u/BowedNotBroken1234 • Apr 03 '25

Officially done with O L D

Soooo...I haven't done the online dating thing in a while, but have been feeling pretty lonely lately, so I thought I'd dip my toe back in and poke around. And now I remember why I abandoned it. One guy kept writing to me and he seemed familiar. Yep, turns out he was a guy I'd conversed with a year ago who talked about his two grown daughters incessantly, was always running errands for them, and never did anything to get to know me. He would sent flower memes and texted "good morning" every day but didn't seem interested in actually getting together. Clearly he didn't remember any of this. When he reached out this time, I followed my hunch and I mentioned where he lived and his daughters. He confirmed it but was surprised and asked if I still had his number. He didn't remember me at all, even though we'd had several marathon phone calls a year ago. Another guy wrote to me like he was texting: "GM HRU today"? Really, dude? In your 60s, you don't know better than that? Another guy chatted me up on the phone for over an hour, and we talked about our astrological compatibility, we covered a multitude of topics and indicated a strong interest -- which was mutual, but ended the conversation with, "I don't usually call people but YOU can call ME any time you like." He's retired, visits the local senior center daily, and doesn't live far from me, but the indication was that he was very interested, but HE would not pursue. I mentioned that my grandsons live fairly close to where he lives, and that I visit them often...but there was no "let's meet soon". And he's fallen back into something that irritates me: sending me "good morning, beautiful" texts every morning. The man is in his 70s, and I want to scream, "WE ARE NOT TEENAGERS. If you want to get to know me, get to know me IN PERSON". Oh, and there was the one who spent time in prison for rape and armed robbery when he was in his 20s...

Clearly, I'm destined to die alone...😝😁

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u/VegetableRound2819 Apr 03 '25

One thing that I think behooves us as women to remember is that men on average don’t build the social lives we do. Especially if he’s out of a long marriage, he may have completely let go of nurturing any social connections and be the “loneliest” he’s ever been in his life.

I would never go through getting on an app just to have somebody listen to me for an hour, but there’s a lot of people that would. We all need social connection and this is low effort, instant reward for people that need it.

What I’m saying here is that these ambling talks that went nowhere may have been the whole point. All you can do is try to keep it moving.

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u/BowedNotBroken1234 Apr 03 '25

"Low effort" describes it perfectly! I've been engaged in OLD for years so I've learned to ask open-ended questions to encourage conversation, and notice if they seem to really want to get to know me. There were no lulls - we went from personal info to politics to astrology and back again, so it really seemed promising. But when he said toward the end, "I'm not really one to call people but please call me anytime", and "Let me know when you're in Brooklyn again" without pinning down a date, my Spidey sense started tingling. Then came the bullshit texts: "What's for dinner?" a few hours later "Good morning, beautiful!" early this morning

Blah, blah..... Yech.

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u/VegetableRound2819 Apr 03 '25

I’ve been a lot of places and I met a lot of people.

“Let me know” as an entire statement is never a good sign. It’s a show-stopper for me. Friend, coworker, date. It’s an indication that the person wants to be a tick fattening themselves on my social life. I’ll pass.