On the GenX subreddit yesterday, a woman asked “Do men our age still pursue women?” The context is that she’s a recently divorced GenX woman (mid 50s) who has returned to dating after being married for several decades. Apparently, she hasn’t had much success so far.
The feedback, from other GenXers was interesting. The men who responded were divorced, widowed or had never been married. Every one of them said that they wouldn’t invest much try trying to pursue a woman to date. They expressed being content with their current lives. Some couldn’t be bothered to date at all. Others were open to dating, but said they if a woman didn’t show reciprocal interest, that they wouldn’t pursue her to try to convince her date them.
Several of the women GenXers who responded expressed anger at being old and less attractive. A few said once they hit 40 or 50, that they seemed to become “invisible” to men – no longer attracting attention.
People who were married responded. They all said they wouldn’t even know how to begin dating after having been married for so long. Many said they wouldn’t date if they suddenly became single.
I did not respond but I’ve been thinking about it a bit. It appears that my lack of interest in romance is not unique for people in my age range.
I suspect that our age has a lot to do with it actually. We’re all old enough to have already experienced love, romance, marriage, divorce, dating, cheating, death, having children (and step-kids and grandkids), careers, etc.
We’ve lived through the starry eyed romantic phases, grinded through the tough phases and have found a place of relative ease and stability. We know who we are, what we value and what compromises we are willing to make for a relationship.
My own disinclination to disrupt the life I’ve built was shared across the many responses. This makes me think that the answer to the original poster’s question is,
“Don’t expect a man our age to pursue you if you’re not giving clear signals that you are interested in him. If he’s got his sh!t together and has established a good life, he’s not going to waste his time chasing someone who’s not interested.”
As for me, nothing has changed. My interest in dating is lukewarm at best. My interest in pursuing random women is zero. I always liked having a girlfriend and would be open to having one again, but it would have to be easy for both of us. My guess is if I ever date again, it will be with a woman I already know from the pool, the neighborhood, walking the dog, or someone else I run into regularly. Or maybe, I’ll reconnect someday with someone I knew in the past but our timing or circumstances didn’t align.
It’s more likely I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. I’m perfectly fine with that too. So too, apparently, are plenty of other GenXers.