Yesterday, I attended my first Meetup event and it went well. I ended up striking conversations with several persons who all seemed interested in getting to know me. That was the self-esteem boost that I needed after a recent, major failure, and I plan on attending other events like this.
This has led me to think about signing up to an online dating site but I need an idea of what I may be getting myself into before I take the plunge.
1 - Which sites are reliable and cater to middle-aged persons looking for serious relationships ? I’m 47, male and live in Europe. Parship, Be2 and EliteDating seem to fit the bill, although the latter may be too focused on “career-driven” individuals.
2 - I’m concerned about anonymity, especially relating to my job. My company attracts over 2,000 new customers every year. About half of them meet me at one point of their dealings with us and I have regular, much closer interactions with roughly 150 of them. While my boss probably wouldn’t object to my being on an online dating site, especially a “serious” one, I would find it impossibly awkward if one of our customers, or one of their relatives, stumbled upon my profile. Let’s just say that it might make my work significantly more difficult. Is this something I should be concerned about ?
It’s still a bit too early to give this a try as I still need to get my ex completely out of my system first (I’m getting there). But I want to be fully prepared before I go for it.
I am glad your Meetup went well. I have been active in Meetups for some time, and I have gotten a lot out of it.
As for your question about online dating, it seems an odd thing to worry about. Do your company’s customers expect you to be celibate? They should know that you have a life outside of work, and that includes searching for a relationship.
I’d think about this from a couple of different angles.
First, yes, there’s always the non-zero change of a coincidence – that one of your customers stumbles across your dating profile. That’s not entirely unlike running into a customer in the grocery store, or in a restaurant, or discovering that you’re both friends with the same person on Facebook.
But, secondly, you use the term “impossibly awkward.” Are you currently active on social media? If you’re active on social media, it’s very likely that customers and business colleagues are already looking you up on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Are you imagining that you would be sharing substantially more intimate details about yourself in an online dating profile, than you do on Facebook? (Not to put too fine a point on it, but are you thinking that you would be including details about sexual preferences, kinks, etc.?)
(For someone who doesn’t want to be identified or doxxed, they may give approximate details on a public message board. Someone may give an approximate age, fudge a bit on the number of kids they have, how long they’ve been married, be vague about what city they live in, etc. in order to maintain anonymity.)
As for the dating sites, it’s not really a big deal. It happens all the time now. It’s probably not a great idea to date customers, but just being on the site shouldn’t really matter all that much.
I had just turned 45 when I met my ex, shortly before Covid. I’m 47 now. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
“Impossibly awkward” was probably an exaggeration. But I would find it awkward, sure. I’m not and have never been on social media.
I guess my concern goes back to the fact that I only used online dating for a short period around 2000-2001. At the time, it wasn’t very popular yet, so the risks of meeting someone you knew from work were lower. Plus there was still a bit of a stigma attached to it at the time ("You met on the Internet ? That’s weird). Finally, I was probably more careless then. Anyways, I didn’t use for long and haven’t since. The two women I was in a relationship with in the past 20 years, I met in real life.
I realize my question may sound a bit weird but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. Let’s just say that I’m not the kind of guy who does anything important on a drunken whim. I tend to consider all sorts of potential consequences of my decisions and this was one of them.
A friend of mine was widowed a couple of years ago after a very long marriage. She just jumped back into the dating pool for the first time since the 80s. At the suggestion of a friend of hers, she went on Bumble and didn’t really know how it worked and suddenly had a huge pile of interested men and was freaking the hell out. She was very happy to see me on there and called me in a tizzy. I talked her down and explained how to hide her profile until we can get lunch in a few days and I can show her the ropes.
Anyway, I am retired so I don’t have to worry about clients but I did see the occasional co-worker in the past and I see acquaintances once a month or so. Sometimes I’ll right swipe them but it’s never been a match.
Following posters around like this is pretty close to harassment. You are also implicitly accusing the poster of lying, which is forbidden outside the pit.
I like the philosophy behind it, women are much less likely to receive dozens of unwanted messages since they are the ones allowing the interaction to start. Plus, all of the important relationships in my life started with women making the first move, or re-establishing contact after a false start. This may translate well to online dating in my case, although I have the feeling that women on this app may be on the whole much younger than me. Again, I really don’t want to come across as a creepy old perv.
You can set an age range of acceptable potential matches in Bumble so you’ll only see women, say, over 50 years old. Likewise women can set an age range so a woman in college can set a max of 28 and they won’t ever see you.
I met my wife on eHarmony and we have been together for 10 years now. It’s probably not the kind of thing that would work for everyone (especially not someone outside of the US) but it worked for me.
I had a number of suggestions from the site and met a couple of women, including one that I was corresponding with (but never met in-person). But my eventual wife was the one person that the site had as such a strong match. I guess it was correct.
I’ll also echo what others have said; in this day and age there should be no taboo about online dating sites. They’re certainly more respectable than the classic “get drunk in a bar and sleep with a stranger”.
I don’t know how different the current culture about online matchmaking / dating, online privacy, and separation of work & personal life are between Europe and the USA.
But I suggest that the OP should be talking to others of about his age from his country for most of his guidance. What works in my quite insane corner of the USA may be utterly inappropriate in e.g. staid northern Germany.
