After 18+ years with my partner, I might be able to answer this question. 20 years ago, when I was looking, I doubt I could have formed a sensible answer.
Long-term cohabitation really seems to suit me very well. I’m an introvert, and while I’m not shy (in fact, I definitely need to be social) and can create a social life on my own, having an extrovert for a partner really helps me get out and be more comfortable in social situations. I like that I have someone to share every day life with – stories and jokes and observations. It helps a lot that we really enjoy spending time together, whether it’s working on a project or out having fun.
If something were to happen to her (Og forbid), I’d grieve deeply, but be out looking after a relatively short time, 'cause I like having someone to share my life with and would be lonely without it.
I think there have been any number of studies done that indicate that everyone needs to be touched every day. And it is need, not want. We’ve probably all heard of the studies done on babies where some of the infants were not touched at all but given every other thing they needed, and they just failed to thrive (the experiment was stopped when it became clear that the babies that weren’t getting touched were dying).
Currently single, dipping my toes back into Internet dating after 18 months off.
I don’t mind being by myself – in fact, I recently started working from home and now I’m home all alone for long stretches. I like the quiet and the free time, and I have plenty to keep myself occupied. And I already have a kid, who lives here part of the time, and a few single friends locally (and more less locally), so I’m not quite ready to be typing manifestos in my plywood cabin. My life is pretty settled in terms of work and where I live, at least for the 10 years until my daughter graduates high school. I could live this life for 10 more years, no problem. But I can’t help think that so many things are better shared – and not just sex (although judging by my daydreaming I miss that more than candlelight dinners and Scrabble). And at my age (42), so many of my friends have paired off that it’s harder and harder to rely upon the remaining single ones to keep you socialized. (Married people never go out. Married people with kids really never go out.)
I think dating in your 40s and up is quite a tangle, though. How do two 40-year-olds who own homes in different towns decide to move in together? Or spend more than one or two nights a week together? What if they both have kids? I have received messages on the dating site from recently divorced women with very young kids, women with teenagers who’ve been single for a while, women in their early 30s who “never” want kids, women in their mid-40s with no kids who are still holding out hope. Each of these presents a very different situation. Stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be clear on date 3 or date 19, but after 6 months or a year.
A friend of mine took offense when I commented that I’m looking for someone with lowered expectations, but it’s kind of true – I think the whole romantic picture of sweeping someone off their feet and creating the kind of seamless team that some people have described here seems like a real long shot in middle age. And I can’t really say it’s what I want anyway.
People have a hard time talking about this kind of thing face-to-face. Even a guy who would normally leap at the offer will think, “Wait a minute – she’s a chick! Shouldn’t she be calling me every 15 minutes?” Exactly how do you say “I’d like to spend a little less time with you” without offending someone? It’s maybe the hardest thing to do in a relationship – retain independence without pushing the other person away.
This just sounds like dating to me – “Can this person make me happy?” seems like a reasonable starting point. You have to start somewhere. I think the problem with maybe 85% of women’s profiles on Match.com is that they are selling the relationship 15 years down the line, when what they should be selling is the first date. It’s hard to sound like a fun date when all you have to say is that a relationship is built on trust and you don’t play games. Um, OK. What else will be talk about, then? The engine that drives this kind of thing (for me, anyway, and for a lot of guys and I suspect a lot of women, too) really is a mixture of lust and that (majority) part of flirting that appeals to your brain (don’t think there’s a word for that, is there?). Any considerations about making the other person happy for the rest of their lives should come later. If it never does, that’s a whole 'nother discussion.
I really love living alone and I think I always will. But lately I have begun to realize that I love my boyfriend too, and you can’t get everything you want.
The benefits of moving in together, for me, are somewhat counterintuitive. I love my space and I keep busy on my own, so I figured, why would I want to live with him? I can just fit him into my schedule. But since we don’t live together, a lot of our time is spent getting together, and when he’s just driven across town to see me I feel like we should actually DO something together. But what I want to do with him is wake up with him and go to bed with him and make dinner together and watch the news together and get on with our lives together, not just “date.”
Since I want to see him every day*, he is actually much more of an imposition on my time when he lives across town, than he would be if he lived with me.
up until now this has been the stumbling block for me - I couldn’t imagine wanting to see someone every day!
These all partially explain why I wanted to get married in general. I like having a partner, and that’s what my husband is–a romantic partner, a sexual partner, a financial partner, a household partner. I married my husband in particular because not only is he my best friend, I’m just head over heels for him.
Thornton Wilder wrote, “People are meant to go through life two by two.” I know that’s not the case for everybody, but that’s always felt the most natural to me.
I have never not been in a relationship. If my relationships didn’t actually overlap, there would at least be an obvious next candidate waiting in the wings.
Do I like it that way? It’s a tough question. I really like having privacy and time alone. I think I could dig it. On the other hand, someone’s always been around, so I might find it a very peculiar and uncomfortable situation.
I know one thing: I really like the fellas. If my husband left me tomorrow, I’d grieve like crazy. But I’d date.
I hope you’re not thinking that because I said “we make a great team,” that we are ‘seamless’ and that he swept me off my feet in an incredibly romantic manner. That is certainly not the case, and I am not all that romantic a person. Which I suppose is a good thing, since our early dating mostly consisted of him walking me home–we were too poor and studious to do much else!
I’m married, happily so. It was initially VERY hard to get used to living with my husband (then boyfriend - we lived together for two years first). I had been accustomed to having a lot of personal space and alone time, something he’s never needed. So having him around a lot and/or following me around the condo really annoyed me at first. Then, lo and behold, I realized that if I asked to be left alone to recharge, and did it nicely, he’d do it without being offended.
Now that I’m married and have a kid, the alone time is harder to get, but everytime I get it, it’s fun for about an hour then I start feeling like something’s missing.
I like having my husband there and now my kid - it’s nice to know that I can say more or less whatever comes to mind and have someone respond or just there to bounce ideas off of. I also like the touch aspect and just their presence. Also, I love my husband’s sense of humor and my son’s (even at 2, his is almost as perverse as his parents’). Both have a well-developed sense of the ridiculous that’s really fun to be around.
OK, I can kinda get this. You had an amazing experience and you’re trying to recapture it. I bet most people have had a memorable relationship experience when they were relatively young and somewhat experimental and that memory helps motivate them to find another partner. Hmmm…
But it seems to me you need to be at least interested in knowing the other prospective person as a person. Not just as a potential benefit to you.
Yeah, it’s really difficult. I’ve done the online thing on and off since about, of, '98 and it’s very different being a single, preferentially childless 40 as opposed to when I was 30. Most guys in my age group have kids and most guys in their 30’s are still thinking about them and put their age limit as 35. That’s a whole 'nother issue.
Look at it this way, the reasons can be selfish, but if its mutually beneficial, does that make it bad? If both people are benefiting, it can be a good thing. I think that a little bit of selfishness is good. If you don’t look out for your interests, who will? Think of a relationship as a partnership. It works out if both parties are getting their needs met. He gets to have someone to go out to dinner with, sex, and someone to make him feel good. Sounds like a good deal to me.
A large part of it is biological. I can be alone and would be fine with it, especially in lieu of a bad relationship, but I would rather be with someone I’m physically attracted to and whom I get along with.
Why do I have an SO? Because I love him and he loves me. No other reason. I could have gone my whole life without being married/paired up and been fine, I think, other than the occasional loneliness.
When we started dating, why did we move in with each other: Made sex easier. And the companionship was nice. He kept his apartment for about six months, at that point when the move in became “official” there was the cheaper benefit as well.
Why was living together insufficient and what drove us to marriage: The desire to have kids and the realization that I still wanted to be with this person when I was 65. Plus the legal benefits of marriage (tax situation sucks, but insurance is much nicer - and since we adopted our first, being married turned out to be a requirement for kids).
All the reasons in the OP and more. Someone to laugh with. Someone to point out stuff in the paper to, and to point out stuff to me that I missed. In any case, we knew each other for five years, never lived closer than 500 miles, stopped talking for ages, but neither of us could keep from getting back into contact. So it made perfect sense to get married.
[Why did you get married, move in together, etc. or if you aren’t currently paired up, why do you want to be?]
He asked me to move in. I’ll let you know if he proposes, though
My SO is my ultimate best friend.
[Do you do it for what you get out of it? The benefits outweigh the annoyances? Because you want companionship, you prefer to live with someone?]
Annoyances are minimal and not worth getting hung up on, imo. I have lived alone before and did very well. I like being with my SO and couldnt imagine not living with him.
[You want children? Regular sex?]
We both already have children. I do believe we both had opportunities for sex before we happened upon eachother, so yes and no. I think we both wanted more meaningful sex - or at least that’s what I wanted.
[Someone to go on vacation and out to dinner with?]
I could do that with my kids and friends.
[A feeling of security? Because you think that’s the way things ought to be? Or because you want to make another person happy?]
I feel comfortable and safe with the SO and things feel as though it is the way it should be. As far as happiness, that is not my responsibility to him (only to myself) and vice versa
I was never looking for a “mate”. I was perfectly content living life alone if I never found someone I wanted to share it with. And when I “found” her, I certainly wasn’t actively looking.
But my wife was my best friend first, and I couldn’t imagine starting and ending each day without her being a part of it. So that’s why we’re together (hopefully until we both grow old).
Honestly, when I met my wife, I was pretty seriously concentrating on getting laid as often as I could. That wasn’t as often as I’d have liked because I never did figure out how to get laid with women I wasn’t already dating.
We started dating, and I just kept the dating going because I enjoyed her company, and eventually the sex. It just sort of grew from there.
I can totally understand why it would confuse a guy, more often than not it is the woman who wants more contact. I usually tell them straight up front how I am, but I’m sure they’ve heard similar things from women who end up being the opposite of what they say they’re like.
I found myself nodding when I read what you’d written. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard, right? Still, I know that I’m my own worst enemy because I’m picky.
