#author("2021-04-09T00:21:41+09:00","","")
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https://johnston.instructure.com/eportfolios/1289/_/Play_the_Safe_Dating_Game
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https://people.instructure.com/eportfolios/107527/Home/Romance_on_the_Strip
https://hhi.instructure.com/eportfolios/4940/Home/Five_Questions_to_Know_Whether_Youre_a_Match
https://lamission.instructure.com/eportfolios/2303/_/Online_Dating_Rules
https://wjhsd.instructure.com/courses/3831/pages/the-big-night
https://shrs-pitt.instructure.com/eportfolios/18630/Home/When_is_a_date_a_date_And_when_is_it_definitely_not_one
https://dl.instructure.com/eportfolios/467/Home/Blind_Date_With_Mr_A
https://sidney.instructure.com/eportfolios/3668/Home/How_do_I_know_Im_ready_to_date_again
https://tea.instructure.com/eportfolios/13911/Home/Five_definitions_of_dating
https://auprofessional.instructure.com/eportfolios/840/Home/Top_ten_tips_for_dealing_with_a_break_up
#author("2021-04-09T08:59:17+09:00","","")

Somehow, if you are a woman admitting that you’d rather not be single — whether you’ve never married or whether you are divorced and looking for love again — people assume there must be something wrong with you if you either make that a priority or if you can’t find someone.

As midlife divorcees, the stereotypes about Sara and me are a little different than those about Eckel and her generation (30-somethings), but they are no less maddening.

Divorcees (of any age) are bitter women who battle their exes and use their children as pawns and their child support payments to become plastic Barbies to keep their fading beauty from fading too quickly, and who got divorced because they knew they’d walk away with the house, the kids and a big, fat alimony check.  Or something like that. It isn’t true for many of us — certainly not Sara and me — but that doesn’t make things better. Perception is reality for too many people.

I hate the perceptions about divorced people — we’re failures, flawed, selfish, and self-absorbed people who don’t understand what commitment and “for better or worse” means, and put our own needs (aka happiness) before our children’s need, blah, blah, blah.

Those perceptions sting.

Like Eckel, we are wrestling with the belief that there’s something inherently wrong with us — we couldn’t make a marriage work, after all. How hard is that?!?! OK, granted — there are some divorced people who are bitter, who are oblivious to what commitment means, who have selfishly put their needs before their kids’. But, please don’t paint all of us with that broad paintbrush.

As for wanting love again at midlife, well, there’s the rub: Most of us assume we won’t find someone because of our wrinkles, sags and “issues.” And, yes — it is a little harder to find people at age 40 and beyond because the pool of eligible men is somewhat smaller and there’s a certain percentage of guys who want to skew younger. Fine — we’re not interested in those types! As Eckel says:

Did we find love because we grew up, got real and worked through our issues? No. We just found the right guys. We found men who love us even though we’re still cranky and neurotic, haven’t got our careers together, and sometimes talk too loudly, drink too much and swear at the television news. We have gray hairs and unfashionable clothes and bad attitudes. They love us, anyway.