Dating After 50: Are We Dating The Same Person Over and Over?

It’s 6 am on a Sunday and I am on a park bench, the sun barely awake in the early morning sky. The vibrant colors of the tulips — orange, yellow and red — shine bright in the dim morning light. With over 26,000 bulbs making up the beautiful flowery patterns, they were all the same, tulip after tulip after tulip. Aside from a few passersby, it is quiet. As I sit here in this magical and romantic setting, I can’t help but wonder, are we all dating the same person over and over again? Are we dating the same tulip just from a different bulb?

Several weeks have passed since my last relationship ended and I’ve started the process of post-breakup dating again. I have gone out with several nice gentlemen, but none that I want to spend time with on a regular basis. They’ve all been that “eh” guy; the once or twice date but not a long-termer. He’s not a time filler because you enjoy his company, but he is not “the” guy. He exists somewhere in between. You don’t want to date him, yet you don’t want to ditch him. This was how I felt after a lovely first date last night.

I came home and immediately texted my best girlfriends to say he just wasn’t the “guy.” It wasn’t that he was unattractive, a bad conversationalist, had odd habits (like spitting a rainforest when he spoke – I’ll save that story for another day) or anything that screamed Red-Flag-Run. He just wasn’t my Mr. Right.

Completely enthralled by the beauty of the tulips, I quietly laughed and snickered to myself as I realized defining my Mr. Mold is like defining the guy I should probably not be with. He is the prince of a-holes. He is tall and muscular with broad shoulders and solid biceps. He has a fair complexion, gentle eyes and a chiseled face with dimples that could melt an iceberg. He is the handsome debonair who is commitment phobic. Talks a good game. Knows how to party and have fun. Dresses well and says everything right. He is passionate, confident but not arrogant, and charismatic. He earned an A+ in Charm School. He is the guy that walks into your life and the butterflies, the passion and the lust are instantaneously pushed into overdrive. The initial chemistry is palpable and without a spoken word, the aroma of the passionate sex you envision with this man is as fragrant as the scent of the tulips in a garden.

What Mr. Mold is not: faithful, dependable, genuine and looking for a long-term relationship.

Taking stock of my dating history over the past few years, even looking at the photos on my phone, these men really were so much alike in their looks and personalities. The names changed, but taking that out of the equation, there was one look and one overall a-hole persona they all shared. They fit the Mr. Mold type through and through.

“Wow” escaped my lips, but no one was there to hear me aside from this beautiful landscape and me. I leaned back on the bench and sighed. Did I want to go on a second date? Listing all these attributes in my mind, I couldn’t help but compare the nice guy who I just had an enjoyable evening with against Mr. Mold.

Not coming up with a reason to be one and done with this nice guy, I decided, why not?  I smiled to myself, gathered my belongings and stood up.

I took one more look over at the masses of succulent flower blooms and that is when I saw a lonely lilac, standing tall and proud, among the multi-colored tulips, I leaned over to snap a photo of the beautiful purple flower and her intoxicating smell overtook my senses, whisking my thoughts to a whole new direction. Was it time to congratulate myself for the past conquests, for the notches in the bedpost, for the handsome men I bedded? Was it time to take stock in the a-holes past and move forward?

Another day, another bench, another flower garden would perhaps find the answers to those questions. But not today. Walking home, I pulled up the photo I had snapped and stopped dead in my tracks. Somehow, some way, as I was taking the picture a ray of sunlight danced over the tulip garden and landed brightly on the beautiful purple lilac. And at that moment, how could I not wonder, maybe my lilac, a mold of a different color, is somewhere out there waiting, and I just haven’t found him yet.

Stay Tuned.

Are you in the over 50 dating scene too? Share your ideal mold below in the comments section.