On the one hand we seem to have easier access to meeting single, lonely, seeking people like our presumed selves , while on the other we maybe are far more selective in whom we commit to?
Do we fall in Love more easily or do we accept a half ersatz love mediated via the internet, but which ignores some of the other aspects of relationships such as solidity, co dependence, security ?
Has Love become a consumable ? Dispose after use or when a newer product becomes available?
Well everything is self centric tinged. But I do share a common set of experiences with people at the other end of the dating and love game: post divorce from a long term relationship is very much like being in tha 17 - 21 bracket when it comes to dating, or maybe a little older when it comes to Love and committment. As a friend said to me, all the nerves and uncertainties are there, like you were 17 again.
On the flip side of this is Nice Girl Syndrome. Next blog.
We can then pick each other up, and pre screen for some compatibilities....mutual level of attraciveness if not attraction itself, which is a person to person thing really. We can check we have enough in common to at least enjoy dating - avoding those girls who want to be wined and dined for example, no such thing as a free lunch girls. Avoiding the oldest swinger in town. Safe but not so safe you will settle down.
Then there is the opportunity for two timing in reality post match, or just by matching which is unfaithfulness in itself. It is going to the Friday night disco when you have a dinner date with your safe shag on Saturday. "Going out wi yer guuurl friend, that's for poofs like' as one Geordie reveller put it.
It is cetainly easier then to allow those little irritations about your new chosen squeeze to make you turn to see what other fish are in the pond. Also if there are incompatibilies of distance, or actual common interests in quality time together outside coffee and dinner dates and the eventual bedroom
On that topic there is then the thorny issue of compatibility in the sack. Over 40 that comes to physical size match, yes that is important and then preferences. Many married couples have spiced up their sex lives with games, toys, going up the the wrong un' and even threesomes. Where as many couples have split up because one partner is too sexually conservative or has in fact issues in fulfilling the other. So that becomes a clash point in a new relationship. The man wants porno sex, the woman wants to have a more affectionate type of thing than with her ex. That is a typical issue for divorcees I read.
If then you reach the compatibilities threshold, the point at which you really do wonder if you are compatible, then you have an easier way out than before the internet. Before the internet you had all the trouble of actually bumping into someone who was single and you fancied. Yeah, you could get a quicky out with the lads or lassies, subject og next blog. But building up a rapport and getting to know each other, and getting them on the hook of love....all conspired to make you stick with your current unless somethign much better fell on your lap, usually at work or in your existing social network, which was problematic,.,then again you had the benefit of face to face attraction, lust and falling in love the old fashioned way.
The old fashioned way then? Was it not just this very issue of restrictions, that we WOULD have fallen in L.O.V.E. more often if only we had met more of our types. Is life time monogamy still a social construct, shaped by culture and role modesl, or is there some biological and psychological underpinning which modern culture over rides with temptations?
I am a firm believer in and practice serial monogamy, and the odd one night stand between squeezes. But that does not answer the question. Have I just not met someone super compatible or is that an impossibility and modern stresses of economics and lifestyles mean that it is very , very difficult ?
Well the answer to that lies in statistics and in fact, most children live in households here at least, with two parents cohabiting or married. The level of single parents has stabilised after its growth period from the 70s to the 90s. It is less than a third. New partner cohabitation and step parents were not accounted for, but you get the drift. A higher proportion of divorces are perhaps quicky , pre children , get out of jail free divorces.
But why then this possibility for flicking love from one partner to another , facilitated more quickly by the internet, but always having been latent?
Well it is the two great drivers ...men want sexual variety , yes secuirty too, but sexual variety is a major driver. Women want the best mate possible. So when randy boy meets girl who wants to do better......hey presto. Partners aside, they give each others the singals of a successful mating.
The result of this, is, as with my pal Heidi, that girl often meets married, opportunistic man. Upon enjoying it, they either back off quickly home to wifey and two point four, or they play along new partner with promises of leaving and declation of love and how much better it is than her back home. They dont tend to leave because of the need for security and the shame in front of the kids and grand parents!
Tinder and its ilk, just facilitate this a little quicker and over a wider geographic area. It could be said that tinder also facilitates more successful, longer term matches and hooks up those, Like Heidi, who otherwise meet innappropriate types socially. She refuses to have anything to do with datring apps. Post divorce then Tinder is probably making more successful relationships beacuse it generates more over all. It permits otherwise painfully shy people to get to know others too at all ages.
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