I was raised on the scripture of the 1990s: Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. It was the Golden Rule. The dating equivalent of Slip, Slop, Slap. Whispered at sleepovers. Bolded in the margins of Dolly magazine. Never pick up on the first ring. Never say you’re free on a Saturday. Be the prize, not the contestant.
In my 20s, this felt like power. (It was mostly fear in better lighting but I didn’t know that yet.) I mastered breezy indifference. I timed my texts to the minute: double the time he took, plus 10 for mystery. I thought I was teaching men my value. I thought I was training them to love me.
But I am 51 now. Looking back on that first year of dating after divorce at 50 – the apps, the profiles, the quiet violence of being matched and discarded by an algorithm – I realise something uncomfortable: I wasn’t training them. I was hiding.
There is a specific humiliation in dating at midlife that we rarely discuss: the dissonance between who we are in the world and who we become the moment a man with a nice jawline delivers the modern cruelty of the read receipt – the blue tick that confirms he saw your message, and chose silence.
In my real life, I am capable. I have interviewed politicians for the BBC. I have managed budgets. I have navigated the death of parents and the collapse of a marriage. I am a woman of substance. Yet give me a “maybe” from a man I met on an app, and I regress three decades. I stare at my phone. I debate the semiotics of an emoji with a girlfriend who is also a high-functioning professional. We analyse the silence like Kremlinologists.
Meeting people sucks in midlife.
The weird thing about the overanalysis to me is that it stands athwart their thesis that they’ve learned so much since their 20s.
We didn’t have read notifications when I was in college, and texting still cost money (once we had cellphones), so even though I’d anxiously sit by my phone as one does around 20, we weren’t yet universally online at all times.
At 46, if I see a read receipt and don’t get a response forthwith, well, we’re all adults here. I’m going to assume you got the notification while busy. Both Occam and Hanlon apply to initial interaction in dating situations.
Plus, if you’re going to play hard to get, why would I be interested? I’m looking for someone to watch TV, play cards and have dinner with. I’d not mind it getting spicy later, but I have absolutely no patience for having to navigate extra steps just to get to a baseline. It wastes everyone’s time, and often a fair amount of money.
If you respect me, you’ll tell me what you want. If you don’t, well … that’s all I really need to know to seek out greener grass.