Online Dating Over 50 – Rules of Etiquette

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When I felt ready to be in a relationship again, I informed my friends that I was ready to date and asked for any introductions that they may have for me. I believed that introductions through friends was the best way to vet new potential candidates. At least, someone else can vouch for their character or verify they are at a minimum actual, real people (more on this later). But none of my friends seem to know or have friends who are single. When we wonder on Valentine’s Day if everyone in the world except us are coupled, I do believe that it might very well be true.

For those of us who can’t rely on our social circle for introductions, online dating seems like an efficient alternative. It gathers people who are purportedly available to meet others for a variety of relationships – friendships, activity partners, romantic partners, casual hookups, the options seem to be growing each time I check. But start exploring a little more and you can find a morass of endless possibilities. Online dating can be a free for all.

If only there could be a list of etiquette rules to follow that participants can all agree to, it would make the experience more enjoyable. Top one would be to share photos that are not sexually explicit. The second is to not ghost someone after meeting them in person, especially if one person texts the other. Letting a text be unanswered is like leaving a book without reading the ending. It leaves the answer to be inferred and for the hopeless romantic, that’s an exercise that we detest. Discontinuing chats before actually meeting in person is a potentially sensitive arena as well. How do you do it with kindness and if you’re on the opposite end of receiving no replies, what do you do? I guess you can just ask. There may be a bounty of reasons for communication to stop. It may be the conversation just stalled or they’re busy or they found someone else or they’re bored. You wouldn’t know definitively, unless you ask. One more text can’t hurt before you throw in the towel. And if you’re the one discontinuing, I think stopping the texts should give the hint. Of course, if you receive queries as to why your texts have stopped, one cursory and kind explanation is enough. If instead, you’re the party who wants to continue and have not received a response after one or two attempts, it’s best to gather up your self respect, call it a day, and move on.

I think what most of us do is hesitate to definitively close the door on anything that may have some potential, thinking something may change that will change our minds. But if you’re lukewarm about someone, have respect for yourself and respect for others and stop wasting your and their time. If there’s no passion or enthusiasm now, it’s a good sign to let go and move on. It usually doesn’t get better.

Conversation is a lost art, especially in the medium of texting. Thankfully the dating sites I’ve been on have conversation prompts because we all know how awkward it can be to meet and start a conversation out of the blue. The ubiquitous “how often do you come <insert name of place>” makes no sense on a dating site. And how do you continue an exchange that intrigues and excites the both of you? Ideally, there’s an equal exchange of questions and answers. A conversation moves along when there’s an invitation to continue. When you simply reply to a question and offer nothing in addition, you close the door on the other person to participate. There is no way forward with a dead end.

Curiosity is always critical in showing interest for the person. Otherwise, you’re just talking about yourself and as interesting as you may think that is, it’s not the best way to pique the interest in the other party. Having the other person ask us questions and listen to us is like our secret dream. People tend to like talking about themselves, we’re mostly ego centric. We just don’t like to admit it.

Chemistry through texting can be as elusive as chemistry in person and it may not translate into real life chemistry. For anyone who prefers texting over being in person either it means you’re a fabricated profile intending to scam the hopeless and lonely romantic or you have an avoidant personality. Neither of these scenarios are good.

Conversations can be even more challenging especially when the profiles are brief. We can accept that physical attraction is important but let’s not assume it’s the only consideration. Please, please add something about yourself to show a little of your personality. Posting only a photo and brief bio doesn’t do much other than cause you to swipe left. (Swiping left by the way, on Bumble at least, means you’re eliminating them from your further consideration). On a dating site, you’re one of many seeking love. It’s not like you are competing for attention but you do want to stand out among the sea of potentials. And for those who lose heart, you don’t have to have a throng of admirers to be successful at online dating. You only have to make one connection. Your true love. (Sorry, I did confess earlier to being a hopeful romantic.)

Online dating after 50 – How to spot a scam

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Most of us who venture into online dating have good intentions. We want to meet people who are available. Unlike in the real world, you may chat with someone in line at the cafe who you think is adorable only to find out that they’re married. At least in the online world, those who are here are open to meeting new people. Whether they are honest is another matter.

The online forum is unfortunately increasingly a place for nefarious people to prey upon the lonely and the emotionally vulnerable folks. Online, anyone can be anyone they profess to be. Photos can be plucked from the internet of real people to disguise their identity. A few years ago, I was the subject of an internet dating scam. He was based overseas so we never met. His profile was intriguing enough to warrant an ongoing and light banter. His overt affection was a little weird given we never met nor never talked on the phone. His extravagant bouquet of roses on Valentines gave me so many red flags, it might as well called the fire department. It all culminated in a ridiculous story of his office being raided by the government and his plea for help in the form of cash. Even then I felt compelled to be polite about ending our online exchange. As Charlie Brown would say, “good grief”. Looking back, I wonder why they and I continued our chat for so long several months. I must of been hopeful and/or bored out of my mind.

Recently in this go around of online dating, I came across a profile that gave me a start. He seemed too good looking to be real, or at least be real on an online dating site. How can someone so handsome be on this online dating site? (Not sure if this is a reflection on my own self image). We went offline to continue on Whatsapp and eventually met via video chat. Our chat was so brief that it made me think that was the end until he texted me within minutes of hanging up. He then revealed some traumatic history with his ex-wife, an exchange that seemed too intimate given we were still only in the early stages of getting to know one another. His subsequent assurance that I could share my own emotional experiences seemed intended to secure a quick trauma bond. A hook that I deflected. HIs affectionate addresses were odd since again we barely knew each other. Too quick and too soon. Love bombing on a softer scale. My Spidey feelers were up. He claimed to be a shareholder of some semi-conductors company, and he supposedly flew to Miami in the middle of the night in a business private plane. Yet he mentioned he was staying at the Marriott Four Points. Frugal or fake? Sooo fake. Is this a real fairy tale or a fairy nightmare? Fairy nightmare. A few more text exchanges as I tried to uncover additional inconsistencies made me realize what a waste of time it all was even as an entertaining mystery and when I stopped texting, the whole thing faded away. I’m assuming they went back to the app to find more unsuspecting ladies.

How does one keep their faith in all this? Next posting, I’ll delve deeper into the endgame. Why we keep trying and keep hoping…

From Being a People Pleaser to Disappointing People

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Lunar New Year 2024 came and went and I almost forgot to acknowledge it. It’s probably the least interested I’ve ever been for Lunar New Year. In the past, there were days of cleaning, cleaning out, and organizing leading up to the day, with last minute frantic cleaning in the last hour before the clock struck midnight. This year, I was lucky to have vacuumed my bedroom. It’s a testament to how clean and tidy I maintain my room that I don’t feel compelled to do it all at once. That’s progress.

I did some reflecting back over the year. If you looked for grand changes, transformative magic you would be hard pressed to find them in my life over the past year. The changes have been gradual, micro movements that have created a shift.

Since I’ve moved to the bay area years ago, I had never missed spending Tet with my mother until the pandemic hit. Things changed after that and my trips to my mom for Tet has been sporadic. Of course, my mom is disappointed and she’ll say something about how even the Vietnamese here will go all the way back to Viet Nam for Tet and why I can’t make the short trip (6-8hours) from Oakland to Orange County. But this year, her disappointment was disguised. And I didn’t hear disapproval until she inadvertently didn’t hang up soon enough before I overheard her say to her caregiver, “Oh, she’s not coming home”. What mattered weren’t the actual words but the tone in which the seemingly innocuous words were uttered. She was annoyed, supremely. It was the kind of tone that I would only hear accidentally from her. It was raw and it was authentic. I didn’t expect to hear the honesty of it. That part of her that was bruised, she wasn’t going to show to me. I was pierced to the heart to hear it. I felt like I had disappointed her. It took me a day to recover and to realize that in order to take care of myself, I had to disappoint her. There was no way around it. I knew it would be hard on me to do another trip, hard on me physically and mentally so soon after the last trip but my mom couldn’t truly understand it. She has never understood it.

That’s the hardest part to reconcile with. To take care of oneself, sometimes, you may disappoint your loved ones. That’s a hard truth to accept but alas, to not do it, I disappoint myself and that is one thing, I refuse to do any longer.

Insights From Vipassana

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I truly believe that each person will take away from a Vipassana course what they put into it. I dived with an open heart into mine. My intention for what I hoped to gain from the course was simple, distilled down to one word: Clarity. I sought Clarity in making decisions, Clarity in action, Clarity in thought, etc. Despite having a moment of existential crisis on day 3, I never wavered from my commitment of completing the course. It helped that I removed the temptations and distractions of my phone (it’s required) and that I removed my tendency to perseverate by not journalling during the course (also required). For one of the few times thus far in my life, I was fully present. I was committed to learning everything I could while I was there.

Here is what I learned for myself and about myself on and off the cushion:

  1. Accept the present reality as though I invited it. Welcome negative sensations. Negative sensations help us break the habituation of aversion. Stay with the feeling of unease, discomfort. That itch on my nose that I’m feeling? That running nose from the inconvenient cold I just developed? They will pass. Everything will change. Eventually. Relax. Let whatever it is that is bothering me right now to happen. It will pass on its own time. Don’t fight it. Because if we do, it’ll likely get worse.
    • Off the cushion: What is the present reality in: a) my relationships with past romantic parters, mom, sisters, and brothers, and friends? Accept it. Resisting or struggling with it only creates more unease. Don’t label it as bad or good. In labeling it bad, I might start having negative feelings about it. In labeling it good, I may start craving it, becoming more attached to it. Don’t be scared of it. It is what it is. Wishing something or someone to be what it/they are not in this present moment creates hope for the future, a future that may never be, but will indeed draw me away from what is available now.
  2. Be equanimous with that present reality. Be scared. Be sad. Feel the feelings. Feel them but don’t identify with them. I am not my feelings. I am not my sensations. Allow them to move through my body.
  3. Our thoughts are ephemeral. Sometimes, they pass through my mind and then they’re gone to never reappear. Some thoughts stay with us because they resonate somehow or they connect with our past. But our mind doesn’t really get stuck. It’s an illusion because thoughts follow thoughts and we connect them. Just as we connect them, we can also consciously stop connecting thoughts that are negative.
  4. Learn to not immediately react to what’s happening. When someone says something that we feel is hurtful, don’t react. Instead, take a beat. Be curious about it. Where do we feel pain? Why are we feeling it? Does it remind us of something else? Do something different than how we would have acted in the past. For most of us, our reactions are usually unconscious. We react automatically to find comfort and relief from that pain, or whatever negative emotions we are feeling without seeing how that only reinforces a pattern. A pattern that does not allow us to fully live. We protect ourselves only to cocoon ourselves from fully living, fully expressing ourselves. So one of the early steps to institute change, is to break the pattern by doing something different than our normal behavior.
  5. Accept who I am. And accept who I am not. I’ve been accused of being a sociopath, which is frankly hurtful to say to anyone unless you’re a clinician diagnosing a patient. I’m not an overtly emotional person but that doesn’t make me a robot. I do recognize that I tend to rationalize before I allow myself to feel. It was a coping mechanism for me growing up with a dad who had left early in my life and a mom who was traumatized and codependent before I even understood what those terms even meant.
  6. Be willing to speak and share my true thoughts and opinions with courage and not be stymied by fear of being judged. I get self conscious thinking that my thoughts and opinions are not going to be received well, wanting to be perceived as easy going, or good natured so that I would be liked. What a waste of time and energy! We just need to present ourselves as we are. We don’t have to be liked by everyone and that’s ok. Our energy is finite and not everyone deserves our attention.
  7. Stop speculating. Being in the same space with the same people day after day during the 10 day course, I imagined stories about who the other students were, why they were there. On the 10th day after we broke noble silence and started talking with one another, we learned the real stories that were unlike anything we imagined. A majority of our interactions in our day to day lives are like that. We have no idea what other people are thinking, what they’re worried about, yet we make up stories to tell ourselves that may have no basis in reality. Our minds are so restless because we allow it to be.

On the 10th day after noble silence ended, I felt sadness in my heart. The silence had been healing for me, giving me a reprieve from worrying about how my words would be perceived, how my actions could be interpreted. The silence gave me an illusion of safety. When it ended and the students filed out of the meditation hall, I heard voices chirp in excitement, almost as though they were bursting out. I felt disconnected from that sense of joy, alone in my sadness. I chose to go into my pagoda cell for another hour rather than join the others, who apparently felt freed from their silence. Afterwards, I walked into the dining room with some trepidation and with near disbelief at all the energetic chatter. How could all these ladies be so happy? For about 10 minutes I felt loneliness in a room full of women, eating slowly and trying to capture the silence from the moning, before my neighbor came over and stood by me. “Hi”, she said. “I just wanted to tell you how much I admired your sitting”…and for that moment on, my defenses broke down. I started chatting with my other neighbors and even with the male students who were in the hallway.

On that last day, I understood that we may be alone but we don’t have to isolate ourselves. That is a choice we can make for ourselves. I came into the course feeling like an outsider and I had held on to that feeling until the every end not understanding that it was a barrier to being myself. When my neighbor approached me in that dining room, she broke my self imposed barrier. With her kind act of friendship, I started to realize how we had all started at the same place of being strangers to one another, all us of searching for something. From that realization, I decided intentionally to be different than the day before. I would be who I was, as true to my nature as I knew how. If others choose not to like me then, that was ok. I’m not for everyone and I’m (finally) ok with that.

8. Be the person that breaks the barrier to a connection. The person on the other side may just well thank you for doing what they wanted but could not do. Reach out to a friend or a family member that you don’t normally converse with to say hi. Smile at a stranger in line for coffee. It truly doesn’t require much to make a connection.

9. Our life long challenges are not going to simply disappear after a 10 day course, regardless of how powerful it is. At the end of the 10 days, I wasn’t transformed into a person of my dreams, free of social anxiety, courageous in speaking my thoughts, but I was more acutely aware of my intuition and also the need for action. It takes work and constant awareness of our thoughts which lead to different actions. It’s work but it’s a worthwhile life long endeavor.

Post – Vipassana Course

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It’s been several months since the end of my Vipassana course. Prior to the start of it, I referred to it as a retreat but now I know better. It’s a course not a “retreat”. It was a retreat only in the sense that I was able to withdraw from the busyness of everyday living, without worrying about mundane needs like housing, obtaining food, or working for a living. In reality, it was an experiential course in mind training with a rigorous schedule that started with waking to the gong at 4 am. It challenged me – mentally, emotionally, and physically.

Vipassana.

First of all, what does Vipassana mean? Vipassana means insight meditation. Meaning if you practice this meditation you will gain insight and begin to understand reality as it is, not what you wish it to be. This meditation is perfect for me since my strong tendency is to get lost in thought, or maybe mired is a more apt word.

Vipassana brings wisdom through the living of actual experience, beyond understanding it simply from the intellectual point of view. Again, another weakness of mine. Trying to learn everything from books is only to know the superficial layer. We must go out in the world and dare to do what may cause us discomfort in order to truly gain wisdom, wisdom that can be tapped through our intuition.

I’ve been asked what I gained from the experience, would I recommend it, and why. Some people have asked me with bated breath as though I’m about to reveal something incredible, something transcendant. They peer at me as though they expect to see something different in my face, my energy, and appear slightly disappointed when they don’t.

I can only speak from my own experience but I think that anyone and everyone can benefit from 10 days of silence and meditation. To be fed and feel nurtured and protected while we delve into ourselves and really take care of ourselves. What’s not to like? From my 10 days, I learned a few powerful lessons. Lessons that came as flashes of insight during my sitting meditation, from my lucid dreams that started from day 3, and during my walks through the beautiful woods on the property. Some lessons were new and others were ones I’ve long known intellectually but only now understood by living them during my meditation course. I started with the intention of asking for clarity in my life so that decisions would be clearer and easier to make. I ended with the realization that it’s not that simple. The ten days were just the beginning to a long journey that is my lifetime.

My Path of Healing

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When did I stop saying that I was in self improvement mode? Self improvement gradually morphed into self growth mode, then has now transformed into a path of healing.

To say that we’re on a path of healing acknowledges that there first has to be something broken, something ill, something not well. It’s an act of vulnerability indicating we are not perfect and we are seeking to repair and recover ourselves to become whole again.

It’s a recognition that something happened to me and a recognition that as an outcome of what happened, that I am not expressing my true Self.

How do I know? I see it in the hesitation and the perseverating of decisions, in feelings of guilt when I choose to help myself before I help others, the stifled feelings in my chest when I do things to help my mother at the expense of taking care of myself.

I tend to dismiss the impact of traumatic events that have happened to me, dismissing them as being merely difficult, equalizing my experience as being common with everyone else’s experience, as though it means very little even to me. In effect, I minimize my life by doing this, making it small before it can get big, making it disappear before I can even make impression. It is as though I half expect someone else to want to do that to me, to judge me and my life as inconsequential. So before anyone else can judge me, I take myself out of the running. I default before I even fail. The problem of course is that I also take away the potential of ever succeeding.

Why I Write

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I opened my journal and found myself at a loss for words, or even thoughts that I think are meaningful to record down on paper. So before I even write, I am already judging myself for being unworthy.

Writing for me has always been my way of processing my thoughts, finding insights to my actions and to the world at large. Words come to my fingers as I write, seemingly without conscious thought. Is that how everyone writes? I wonder.

So I try to journal everyday. I know it’s like a muscle that I need to exert daily, otherwise it is quick to atrophy. When I get lazy and my entries become shorter and shorter, I start to worry that I’m getting shallow mentally as well, or is it torpor? Is my life so uninteresting that I don’t have anything worthwhile to share? But I stop this line of thinking before it makes me start feeling bad. If one person could relate and find hope in what I share, that is enough reason to do it.

Vipassana

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[Written in August 2023 and published in Oct. 5, 2023]

Three more weeks till the vipassana meditation retreat. I feel cautious excitement. I want to say I’m ready but I’m more nervous that something will crop up unexpectedly related to mom. Her recent hospitalizations are a sober reminder of what happened last June. After anticipating for months, I had to cancel my first attempt at attending the vipassana after mom fell and I was nominated to be the family spokesperson. Why is it always the case that the role falls on me to take care of mom’s affairs?

I want to support her but I have a feeling she doesn’t care about my needs if it prevents her from receiving what she wants. Sadly it’s my intuition talking bourne out of experience. Though I am cautious, I don’t want to be transactional. I don’t want to keep a count of what I do and do only what I know will likely be repaid. I know that’s not true generosity.

I’m looking forward to this experience but do I believe it will be transformative? It could be. Not sure what to expect. Because I already have a regular meditation practice, I’m setting my sights lower and viewing this experience as a new challenge, to be fully present for whatever happens.

Power of Prayer

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I’ve been praying a lot to God, Jehovah. Years ago, I laughed when I learned that my friend talked to God, just in everyday normal conversations. I laughed out of disbelief wondering how strange it all sounded. I don’t wonder anymore. It’s not strange at all. Instead it’s been quite comforting. Better than talking to my therapist. I don’t have to wonder if he understands or he would have a good suggestion for dealing with my angst. I simply trust that he’s hearing me and when the conditions are met, things will happen.

In the last few days, I asked for a miracle, not something huge or spectacular, just something small. Something to happen, that I never thought would happen or something only I knew the significance of. I asked because I was questioning the existence of God. I wanted God to perform and to show me his presence. But that of course wasn’t going to happen. To believe in God, there has to be faith, trust in his omnipotence. Why that must be so, I’m still not sure myself. Somehow though, I don’t think God needs to prove his existence to anyone but the reverse may be true. We must prove to him our worthiness, to be good for the sake of being good.

Anyway, after a few days of my repeated requests, I came home one night to find my sister on the couch watching Jim Carrey’s movie, Bruce Almighty. In the movie, God in the form of Morgan Freeman delivers this line to Bruce, “You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.” I guess I got my answer. I had better get working.

This moment is as it should be

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A lot of our suffering in life comes about when we are struggling with our current circumstances. It applies to all things in life, big and small. What we were hoping for turns out differently from the way we expect. Romantic relationships that we thought and hoped would be forever, end. Sudden illnesses bringing sharp changes to our lives, force us to adapt.

I’m in a transition period where I’m not going in a particular direction, no milestones to reach, no new goals to accomplish. Things are going well overall. I have a job where I can essentially live anywhere (at least in the US), I’m healthy, I get to practice yoga and go for walks in nature within a fifteen minute drive, organic and delicious foods are readily available, and I live in a safe environment as much as Oakland can provide.

It feels a bit strange to not have any conflicts to struggle through or relationship quandaries to seek understanding. I actually can think and plan and just enjoy what life has to offer.

Now I realize what it is that I’m feeling in this moment. Contentment. It’s admittedly a foreign feeling but I’m going to enjoy the moment while it lasts.

Last Sunday gave me pause though. I waited until the morning of the antique market to decide I wasn’t going but then changed my mind and went anyway later in the afternoon. On the way to the antique market, there was inexplicable congestion to the parking lot so we accepted that time was short and turned around and switched to plan B. Plan B was a disappointment when we couldn’t find the location of the new cafe and when we did find it, it was closed, an hour earlier than what was posted online. Plan C was a bust when the pop up ran out of dough two hours before the projected end. So what did I learn from this day?

If you’re going to be ambitious about what you want to do, you have to plan for it. So that if your plans don’t play out, you can at least have comfort in knowing that you tried. Then it’s up to you to find something else to give you joy. Be spontaneous. Do something new.

And if you didn’t plan for all the things you want, the same solution applies. Find something else to give you joy.

Having a plan is good. Having a realistic plan and overestimating the time you need is even better. But regardless of how many backup plans you have, forces beyond your control may still thwart your plans, leaving you wanting. Sometimes the only thing to do is accept that things didn’t turn out as you had hoped. And tomorrow is another day to try again.