The Ups and Downs of Dating When You Already Have a Life

Dating is weird when you’re young, but I think it gets even weirder when you already have a life. I have dogs, a horse, a house, a career, music, friends, bills, projects, and more than enough things requiring my attention on any given day. I’m not waiting for someone to show up so my life can begin. It is very much already happening, which you would think would make dating easier.

It does not.

I also always assumed that not having children would make dating simpler. I have more flexibility, I’m not coordinating custody schedules, and there isn’t another parent permanently connected to my life. Instead, I’ve discovered that being a woman of a certain age without children can occasionally be treated like a suspicious gap in your résumé. Apparently the mortgage, career, animals, responsibilities, and fifty years of accumulated life experience are not always sufficient evidence that I have, in fact, become an adult.

There are parts of dating that are genuinely fun. Someone new is interested in you. Your phone lights up. There’s flirting and attraction and that little possibility that maybe this person will turn into something unexpected. I remain slightly embarrassed by how effective a well-timed text message can be on a grown woman with a functioning frontal lobe.

Then there is the other side of it: the conversations that seem warm until you realize you’re supplying most of the warmth, the men who are fascinated by you but somehow never ask you anything, and the strange modern experience of trying to determine whether something was connection, loneliness, affection, boredom, sex, or some confusing combination of all five.

What I understand better now is that being capable of taking care of myself doesn’t mean I don’t want someone to care about taking care of me sometimes. I can carry my own boxes. I have carried a lot of them. I would still really like someone who occasionally notices that I’m carrying something heavy and grabs the other end.

I’m not looking for someone to give me a life. I already made one.

I’m just hoping there might eventually be someone who fits nicely into it.