If this pandemic didn’t make it difficult enough to find love, I’ve discovered that being 61 and trying to find love is no piece of cake either.  In my last blog I mentioned trying to find help on YouTube, which isn’t really much help at all.  But there were a few things I discovered that may be why I’m not having much success meeting women, especially on the “snobby women” site, which I also talked about in my last blog.

One of the “experts” on YouTube suggested that widowers (that would be me) weren’t good prospects for love or marriage.  I guess some feel that widowers are somehow still too attached to their deceased spouse and we are just looking for someone to replace them.  What a bunch of bunk!  Yes, I miss my wife, and yes, I still love her, and yes, I still think about her, especially on significant days like anniversaries.  But I’m not naïve enough to think I’m going to be able to find someone to replace her.

I would like to meet someone completely new.  Someone that I can become friends with, fall in love, and eventually get married.  I mean, isn’t that what dating is all about?  Why date if you’re not interested in marrying that person.  I wrote on one of my online dating site profiles that I’m not interested in a long-term dating relationship.  If I’m going to date someone, I want to know if we’re compatible and find out if there is potential for marriage.  I have no inclination in spending the rest of my life alone.

I suppose it’s a possibility that I won’t find anyone to marry and spend the rest of my life alone.  Is that such a bad thing?  As one of my friends said, “I’d rather remain single than in a relationship with the wrong person.”  Those may not have been her exact words, but I think it still has the same meaning.  Someone else once said “There are worse things than being single.”  I think that is absolutely true.  I also heard someone say, “There are a lot of single people out there and there is a reason why they’re single.”  I guess that could include me.  Besides, being single has it’s perks.  I can watch as much football as I want.  I can leave my socks on the floor, “eh! I’ll just pick ‘em up later.”  I can have bad manners.  I don’t have to worry about offending her if I belch really loudly, or if I cough, hack, and spit, or blow my nose loudly, or release other bodily functions.

I’ve already been married twice, divorced once, and widowed once.  I think a lot of women believe that I’m not good relationship material because of these factors.  So, I wonder what else these online dating women see in me or don’t see in me that would make them distance themselves.

I’m not oblivious to the fact that I’m overweight.  I’m guessing that’s part of it.  It would be nice if at least some of these women would take the time to get to know me before passing judgement on me solely for that reason.

So here are some other barriers to falling in love: CATS!  I am deathly allergic to cats.     Cats might be a deal breaker.  Dogs, not so much.  One of the other barriers would be religion.  I’m looking for someone that belongs to the same faith that I do.  I just think it makes things a lot easier.  My wife married me in spite of that difference between us.  She was of one faith and I was of another.  We agreed earlier on not to try and convert each other.  I think we made it work because of that.  I encouraged her to practice her faith and she encouraged me to practice mine.  Something else I worry about is, let’s say I meet a nice woman, fall in love, and want to get married.  Where would we live?  I’ve been told that sometimes he moves in with her or she moves in with him.  I’ve also heard about couples that both sell their homes and buy a different home together.

I realize that at this point when I think about such things, I’m getting way ahead of myself.  I’m probably worrying about too many “what ifs.”  I guess I should just wait until I actually meet someone that I want to marry.  But, due to my anxiety, I do think about these things and fret about them.

Is this all sounding too complicated?  It is to me.  I don’t even know if it’s all worth it.  Sometimes I wonder if I should just stay single.  But I think I’m one of those people that isn’t meant to be single.  During the last almost 40 years, I’ve been single for a total of about four or five years, including the last two.  The rest of the time I’ve been married.  That is a lot of years being married.  I guess that’s just what I’m used to.  I’m also getting used to having free reign of my remote control.

After 15 years of marriage my wife passed away unexpectedly.  My life was turned upside down that day.  I had no idea what I was going to do.  My wife and I had discussed this very thing.  We both thought she would be able to handle things much better if I died first, than I would if she died first.  As it turns out we were right.  When my wife died, I was suddenly on my own.

The first year-and-a-half things went pretty well.  I had all of my in-laws, my children, and people from church that I could visit and do things with. I didn’t think about falling in love again.  I just didn’t think anyone would want me.

Then the pandemic hit.  Once again, my world was turned upside down.  I could not visit with my children, friends from church, and my in-laws.  I was alone. At first things weren’t too bad.  But the isolation and the loneliness set in after a couple of months.  I began to think about dating and finding someone to love and that would love me.

Prior to the pandemic I was having lunch with a friend of mine.  I told her I thought I was ready to start meeting women and dating.  She said the way to meet people these days was online dating.  Online dating?  I wanted to meet women.  I wanted to have someone to do things with, like go to dinner, see a movie, or just hang out and listen to music.  You know, become friends, and see where it leads.  I had never done online dating before.  I didn’t know the first thing about it or how to go about.  So, I took my friend’s advice and signed up on a certain online dating site.  What a disaster!

I got so discouraged because none of these women would talk to me or respond to my messages or initiate conversation with me.  The only women that showed interest in me were from out-of-state.  I found out later, the hard way, that many of these out-of-state women were scammers.  I thought the women on this dating site were snobs!  Why wouldn’t they chat with me or even tell me to buzz-off?  Instead, I just got no response at all, of any kind.  So, when my subscription was up, I did not renew it.  I was offline for several months.

I don’t know how or why, but I decided to give it another shot.  It was still a disaster.  I changed my profile picture.  I changed my profile.  I updated all of my information.  I thought this might help.  No such luck!  Then I came across another dating site.  These women seemed more interested.  But, again, most of them were out of state.

I finally found a few women that would chat with me.  I’ve made a couple of virtual friends (if I can call it that).  We chat online mostly.  There is one woman that I talk to on the phone now.  We also send text messages to each other.  This is huge progress for me.

The biggest difficulty for me is to know how to go about doing all of this online stuff.  How does it work?  What do I say?  What do I do?  How often do I send them messages?  How often do I call them?  I can’t ask them out on a date because we’re all isolating ourselves due to the pandemic.  Nobody wants to risk catching this dreaded disease, including me!  I fall into the high risk category, so I have to be extra careful.

So, how do I find love during this pandemic?  It’s so completely different than when I was single 15 to 16 years ago.  I will have to go about this in such a different way, but how do I figure it out?  YouTube is no help.  The advice they give is for younger single people.  What they propose, at least in my opinion, falls into the category of “playing games.”  I don’t play games.  Love is a serious matter.  There’s no room for playing games in my book.  Besides, I’m no good at it.  I’m too straight forward and honest.  I’m not going to tell some woman what I think she wants to hear.  I’m going to tell her what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling.

I’m telling you right now!  Love in this era, during this pandemic, is tough!