Dating at 40+, As A Woman

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm divorced. I've been divorced since 2014. Previous to that, I had been married since 1998. 

So here I am, single, a mother, I have a six-year-old and I live with my parents. I'm also 41-years-old as of this month. I am living the dream I tell ya. The thing is, as much as my daughter is the love of my life and I would do anything for her, I don't want to be a nun. I'm not Catholic and I don't think celibacy is really my thing. I mean I went to a Pure Romance party this past Friday and I was the only one there without a partner of some type. So I spent way too much money on a vibrator I don't really need. It was pretty, don't judge me. 

Dating since I left my husband has been a challenging, infuriating, roller coaster of suck. So far my best relationships were with a woman I'd known for about four years before we got together, but it ended badly nine-months later, and a man who I only met for "coffee" in a grocery parking lot once or twice a month. I did date a man for about 10 months who turned out to be a narcissistic sex addict who introduced me to the swinging scene and got progressively less interested in consent as he got bored with me. Wow I have great taste in people. 

I've tried websites. I had Tinder and tried Plenty of Fish. Tinder was an abject failure. One person had lied to me about being single and his girlfriend, his live-in girlfriend, called me at 3 o'clock in the morning. I deleted the app almost immediately after that. I hadn't even met the lying jerkbag in person. POF has resulted in some dates and I was sort of seeing someone for about three and a half months and he decided I was a negative person (actually he was the one spouting doom and gloom all the time, but his meds were off) and dumped me via text. Then I reconnected with someone after about a year and half and had a good reunion, but he hasn't responded to me in over a week, so okay... 

I know I'm not exactly the shiniest of gold rings out there, but it is disconcerting to have people meet me or check me out online and spout things like "I can't believe people aren't throwing themselves at your feet daily" and then I actually try to put myself out there and get rejected in such a spectacular fashion. 

Dating at any age is hard. But dating as a 41-year-old single mother it is downright terrifying. Not only do I have all the insecurities that come from trying to find someone I get along with, but I have the challenge of protecting my child and myself from predators, navigating the socially awkward situation of having had to move back in with my parents, and explaining that while I'm generally a pretty positive and optimistic person, I have a fuck-ton of baggage and am still wading through a fair amount of it. 

How to put that on a dating profile? 

As an added bonus, I don't really look my age, but then I have to work extra hard to maintain the illusion of youth (I don't lie about my age), because my child is so young. People assume that I would have an older and more independent child, but she's six, and therefore I don't have the freedom I would if she was older. 

The whole thing is farked and I'm exhausted. I am also lonely. AT 2am in the morning when I'm absolutely convinced I'm going to die alone and only whatever pet(s) I have at the time will be there to eat my corpse, there's not many people I can turn to and ask to convince me that everything will be alright. At least I have a dog I can cuddle. But honestly, it isn't the same. 

Judging from my limited experience I have to wonder if this is different for the men who are also dating at "a certain age." Though I think they have more freedom to pick and choose and walk away, hence the dearth of stand-up men willing to take chance on a woman starting over in her 40s. 

I'm not looking for a knight in shining armor to rescue me from my situation. I just want someone to treat me with dignity and kindness and see what happens. I want someone to put the same amount of effort into knowing me, that I put into knowing them. I just want to feel appreciated. 

In the mean time, soon enough I'll have another pretty, waterproof, rechargeable vibrator to add to the collection. At least that won't ignore me when I reach out to it.