*Note: Men don’t care she has no arms

Women know, of course. Men are infinitely mesmerized and entertained by women’s breasts. At least in theory and at a safe distance. Up close and personal, we’re more like a horse playing poker, clumsy and misguided. It is a rare woman’s profile that does not provide some glimpse of the boobs, whether it be an incidental bit of cleavage or full on showcase, like the steak cart at Peter Luger’s. TaDaaaa…Would you like the porterhouse this evening, sir?

There is a message being passed here. I don’t know if it’s always intentional, but I know it is sometimes. There is a pose I’ve noticed several times. I call it the Rose Dawson after the drawing by Jack in the movie Titanic. Legend has it that Kate Winslet was practically hung by her heels to produce the perkiness desired. These profile pics obviously took quite a bit of wrangling. The lady is often laying on her back, head towards the camera and eyes looking longingly, but it’s the boobs that are on display, bursting explosively like a July Fourth firework. The message is, I think, I have boobs, they may or may not be real, but they’re spectacular.

Sometimes it’s an evening gown worn during some important occasion and Mom has the guns out on display. I often think it may be her child’s wedding. The hair is done, the gown is spectacular, the boobs are front and center. Bam! I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste the $3000 and 6 months of dieting it took me to look this good just for one picture in a wedding album. Some women do the bikini on the beach. These are women in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. They’ve been blessed with fantastic genes or worked their butts off in the gym. Some women are sloppy, but damn they’re proud of their boobs too. They know men are suckers for boobs. We just cannot help ourselves.

One last boob shot. You happen upon a woman who is wearing a bra on her main pic and she looks fantastic, model-like. She’s gazing into a full-length mirror wearing a thong, somehow showing off her flawless ass and her bountiful boobs simultaneously. And guess what? She lives only a few miles away. You message her hello and in moments she messages you back. This is all too good to be true, you think. Well, she’s a scam, buddy. Keep it moving.

#onlinedating #middleaged #manspov #middleageddating #lastfirstkiss #boobs

Said no woman ever. I’m balding, maybe I’m bald already. I could never figure the tipping point. Just as there are women who will not consider short or fat men, I am sure there are some who will not look twice at a bald man. Of those who will (and I don’t know what the percentage is, but I think it’s high), some have certain rules: shave it to the scalp, buzz cut it, keep it business length but grow a nice beard. Problem is every woman has a different opinion, so if you can’t please everyone, please the one you’re with. And I’m with me, so I keep it fairly short.

The universal rule all women seem to be in agreement is don’t ever comb over. One tends to look like an outrageously plumed bird or a certain orange president. Just don’t do it. Baseball caps or any hat is fine (with the possible exception of a tweed bucket hat that I personally thought lent a certain dapper air) in a picture or two, but let them see your follicle-challenged pate in at least one pic. Tell them it’s TOO much testosterone, not too little. They won’t believe you anyway.

Speaking of hats, I’ve figured out some of the tricks women (and I’m sure men) play:          1-Nothing but head shots. You have body issues. Or I should say, you believe your body is imperfect. And most likely, you’re right. Pretty much nobody has the perfect body.              2-Blurry pics. I’m thinking wrinkles, but there might be something else going on. I went out on a date early on with a blurry pic lady. She appeared quite pretty through the haze. When I met her though, she had two mountainous moles on either side of her forehead. At least I think they were moles; they may have been devil’s horns just beginning to sprout. She was very pretty otherwise.                                                                                              3-Sunglasses. You’re hiding in plain sight. Maybe you’re married. Maybe you don’t want the neighbors to know you’re on an online dating site. We see you and we know it’s you Jackie Onassis.                                                                                                                                      4-Contorted body. You’ve managed to wrestle your form into a position that highlights your best body parts. Sadly, you can’t count on being able to contort yourself the same way on a date.                                                                                                                                          5-Sucked in cheeks and kissy lips. Narrows out the face, I guess, but you’re looking a little fishy.

#baldmen #onlinedating #middleaged #manspov #middleageddating #lastfirstkiss

You can’t just go to the dance (in this case, the dating site Plenty of Fish), grab a girl, and flail around, arms and legs all akimbo. There are rules and as the new guy, I had to learn them pretty quickly. I joined the site and was bombarded with a thousand profile questions. I wanted none of it, but answer you must. If you want to know how i answered, my profile here mirrors my profile there.

After I joined, I had to enter some photos of myself. Once you insert a picture, you’re really putting yourself out there for everyone to see. This made me very nervous, because I knew despite what everyone says, it’s your looks that hook ’em or sink you. Despite this foreknowledge, I basically picked any 4 pics out of my album on the phone. I think my only criteria when I picked them was that they be fairly clear. Oh, and one of them showed me hiking-it was taken in the fall, I had a beard and and wore a tweed bucket-style hat. I thought it made me look like a health-conscious hiker. I was told later by a very nice woman who helped me revamp my profile, that it, in fact, made me look like a lost hermit. In one of the other pics, I was probably 15 pounds lighter then my present weight and clean-shaven. I looked gaunt and sickly, but I thought I was giving my viewers a variety of my possible looks. Instead I was asked repeatedly if my pictures were even of the same person. My lady friend demanded I get rid of them. I don’t know why I’m helping you enhance your profile, she said, it’s just more competition.

What I learned eventually was that height is extremely important. In fact, I’ve heard 5’11” is the magic height you don’t want to fall below. As I’ve heard, many men enhance their height. I could never understand this because your ultimate goal is to meet the woman. She’s going to realize you’re a member of the lollipop guild. You don’t have to blare it, but probably better not to hide the pertinent facts. As luck would have it, I am 6′ tall. I have been asked many times if i am really that tall. I am. I have flaws aplenty, but not in this one area.

Weight or body type. This category is fraught, fraught I say, with unseen hazards. If it was a map from the old days, it would be the area saying, Here be monsters. Sail here at your own risk. I had a friend once tell me he knocked on the door of a woman’s house. A woman he had texted and chatted up for a couple of weeks before going for a date. She had “average body” as her chosen body type and swore she had a terrific body. The woman who answered the door was enormous. This was not weight that could be explained with a week of overeating. My friend, understandably confused, tried very hard to peek around the woman to see if his date might be behind her. Ultimately, we are going to meet and the jig will be up.

So here are the PoF choices on body type: thin, athletic, average, a few extra pounds, big &tall/bbw. I put myself down as average. This seemed like the safe choice. In my profile, I added that I thought I was fairly fit, but not to expect washboard abs. The body type choices leave a lot of room for interpretation and from what I’ve seen, many women (and I’m sure men) take poetic license. Often times, women will ask me for a recent pic. I take one on the spot and send it. Like me, hate me. Here I am.

We all present the person we want others to see, maybe it’s the person we see in our mind’s eye. Maybe it’s the person we might be given two weeks notice or it’s the person we were six months ago. It’s rarely a perfect reflection and I guess that’s okay. I take it all with a grain of salt. I read one woman’s profile and she said, “If you show up looking nothing like your picture, you’re paying for the drinks until you do.” I like that attitude. I may not emulate it, but I like it.

To be continued>

That sounds a little presumptuous, but maybe you’d like to get some information about me. I’m 55 still, dammit. I was married for about 23 years. I’ve been divorced for about seven. Of those seven, I was in a committed relationship for 5 and a half. That relationship has also ended and here I am single again. I haven’t really been single since my early 20’s.

You all remember how we did it then. Maybe you’d meet a girl in one of your classes or at a bar down the shore, ask her out, bring her to dinner. etc. For any woman out there that thought the asking was easy, let me tell you, it wasn’t. I always found it extremely difficult. Nothing worse than walking up to a girl you’re attracted to, asking her out, and being rejected. I felt awful as I slinked away with my tail between my legs. I’m sure being the woman was no easier. Usually having to wait for the young man to approach. Oh god, not him, lord please, not him. His friend is so much hotter.

I went to college, played the field a bit, met my ex, married in due course, had 2 kids. We had some very good times and many not so good. We were terribly unhappy and eventually, painfully divorced. I quickly got into another relationship that lasted quite a bit of time. We did not separate angrily, but separate we did.

Plenty of Fish here I come.

An introduction-because we have to start somewhere, don’t we?

I’m 55 dammit. I don’t hang out at bars.  I’m not one of those cool guys who can strike up a conversation with any gal that catches my eye while jogging at my gym or shopping for lettuce at my grocery store.  There are many attractive women who cross my path, but are they married?  Are they single, but completely uninterested?  Are they nuts?  I was never in this position before. I really don’t know how to do it.  So I joined an online dating site three months or so ago.

What do I want to accomplish here? I want to write about my experiences with the online dating world. I’ve been wandering around for a few months. Funny things have happened. I’m learning new rules. I may have hurt some feelings. I know I’ve had to thicken my skin some. Online dating is not for the faint of heart. I’ve seen things I didn’t want to see. I’ve been horrified at times, but tickled too. I’ve chatted with some beautiful, razor smart women of high accomplishment. They inspire me to be and do better. And I’ve met several at this point. So most of what I’ll write will be about events in the not so distant past. I’ve linked the blog to my online dating profile, so there is the chance women I’ve chatted with or dated will see this. I will not, of course, post any pictures of them. Privacy will be respected, but anecdotes will be told. I’m hoping to entertain, but also to learn and teach. I hope this can be interactive.

Let the adventures begin.