Its a cold harsh dating scene when you are over 30 and alone. You have to combat not only your own expectations but those of the people you are attracted to. You are not fighting your own stereotypes but those stereotypes of the people you are trying to date.

Its not fun trying to figure out where to go and meet people. Gone are those college and highschool social gatherings where you all get drunk and pair off. You are older now..wiser...not as interested in finding someone at the local bar or club and hope to hook up. You are actually trying to find someone to get to know and eventaully spend the rest of your life with. Dating seems to loose its luster for me. Its not fun having to go and meet people you have never met before using the computer dating site or some extravegant dating service where you have to actaully pay money to have them analyse you and pair you off with someone they feel best compliments you. First you have the really good looking people who tell you that they really want to meet you and get to know you and allow the relationship to flourish but alas...they are in Nigeria and need you to help them either by giving money or some other request as an indication of your sincerity to them and to the relationship. Or better yet, you first make contact with them and its over the phone and its not them who called you but their estranged husband who is calling you becuase their mutual child found your number in their mother's purse previously unused. The husband tells you that his wife sleeps around on him and will do it to you too and that you are sinnning before God by seeing his wife. Then you hear from her that they are not even legally separated as you had previously led to beleive and that he has his own room in the house with her. Or you meet someone and they are 10 years older then what they had led you to beleive. People wonder why I have lost faith in humanity..and with my own chances in finding love..after experiencing situations like this...Who wouldn't loose hope. it does not matter if you are the sweetest girl or the nicest guy...because of those lowdown dirty people who want to use and abuse and take advantage of sweet innocent victims..those hurt innocents are no longer have the faith in love...pure and true love. They are damaged...used and whats left is a shell of their former innner beauty. What would have attracted you to them is shattered within them ...gone ...lost...and can not be returned.

Its hard to look at a book without judging its cover when you are looking for love. People always write that its not the appearance of the person but who they are inside. Its true that you should look at what qualities a person has...what moral values they possess what ambition and motivation they can produce to get what they truly want. But there has to be some type of attraction too...to make the difference between being friends and lovers doesn't there??. You have to be attracted to the person don't you...find them to be desireable physically as well as their moral and intellectual make up. Is it wrong to view a person and hope that there is some spark some interest some physical attraction without being labeled a pervert or a superficial freak or just a typical man or woman who wants to find that perfect specimen of hotness in the opposite sex.. How do you balance all this... how do you find a physical quality in a person that attracts you to them without sounding like a lowlife pig.

I guess i need to evaluate what I am looking for in a person because the social dating scene when you are over 30 is not working for me. Its just a jungle out there and there are a lot of sharks waiting to chew you up and spit you out without a backwards glance. I am looking for someone I find attractive. I want someone who is able to keep up with me if not challange me both physically and mentally. I am looking for someone who accepts that I have children and knows that my children are important to me and i have a role of being daddy to them a role I do not necessarily have to do every day but I do have a responsibility to my children. I want soemone who is interested in sports and has a a team or teams to root for even if those teams do not match up with my own. I want someone who has her won ambition and motivation inher career aspriations separate from my own. I want someone who get IT...who has figured out her life ,realizes what responsibilities she has in that life and figured out a way to cover those responsibilities and has her life on an even keel and she does not need me to steady herself in her own life. I want to complement her life not make or break her life with my existance. I do not want a one night stand or even friends with benefits. A life shared forever is far more appealing experience even right now it is but a dream..a far off dream than one spent alone which is my every day reality.

Each date I go on, I go with less and less desire realizing more and more the fear that there is no one left for me. Hope is waning and my faith is dying. Dating itself is no fun..just a continuous meat market when I fail to impress or my expectations are not equally met. I strongly beleive that each relationship that you experience gives you more information about yourself and who you are looking for when you finally find love abound. Each relationship is a stepping stone to your one true love...the one you are going to spend the rest of your life with. Yet each time I go on a date it is with increasing trepedation and with half hearted desire. I hear from people" Don't give up..have faith...she is out there..and more and more I am beleiving that she is no longer there...waiting...hoping...She is gone...why put yourself out when doing so only brings you sadness and dissapointment. I truly beleived at one recent time that I needed someone to share my life with and as time passes I am beginning to realize that my fate may be to go it alone. to much hurt to much sadness to much disappointment...no interest in those who are interested by me and those I am interested in have no interest in me..Its a cold harsh dating scene out there when you are over 30.

Sounds like maybe you need to take a break there, guy.

OMG, if you think it's hard in your 30's wait till you get to your 50's, lol, make up your mind you will have to go it alone till you meet someone quite by accident, however I did glean something from your post that I had not thought of before, each new date leads you closer to "the one", so now when I go out on these dates that don't meet my expectations, I know I am getting a little closer. Also I totally identify with the part, where you said that the ones you are interested in are not interested in you and the ones that are interested in you, that you are not interested in them. it happens to me ALL the time...good luck in your search, and have some fun,

So WOW, I guess when YOU reach 50 your just blow your head-off? IF life has YOU this down NOW.
You really NEED to LOOK around and SEE all the LESS-THAN-YOU, people in this world...
WOW, your 30 and you have all your limbs, your sight, your YOUTH
your hearing, YOU are NOT even at YOUR PRIME YET!!!!!

So, PLEASE. Its shallow to think YOUR in a BAD WAY.
Hell You could be a homeless person, sleeping under a cardboard box, nothing to eat for two days. Trying to stay warm and PRAYING to GOD for HIM to take you.
So excuse ME if I DON'T see YOUR pain from my EYES!

Is he talking about 30 as in age, well I am over 50 and I am happy

Good point! Maybe he is talking inches.
I'd be complaining too!

Jist... you left that so wide open. What to do... make pervy joke or not....hmmmmmmm....

If I was 30"... Wide and open would be my only option.

I'd be hanging out at a feed trough somewhere

I'd have to go take pictures... then post them. Or maybe take you to Mexico for a sideshow?

i think you first have to realize...and i mean really realize...
you are not what you've been thru.
the 'ugh' experiences should teach you - not become you.

look at all of that from a different corner of the room.
now you have a few more 'who not's '. which narrows down the
scope on who you are looking for.

rethink your people priorities.
if THIS is what attracted you to ladyrandom, and she turns out
to be off, maybe rethink THIS.