Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop

Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop

BLOGGER:  RENEE FISHER

Before reading, if you haven’t read the first three blogs in the series, you can click the links below:

Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating

Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online

Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match

When Susan agreed to my rules about coffee only/60 minute maximum, she decided it would be a good idea to knock out (well, not literally) as many men as possible on a daily basis, and thus began setting up two coffee dates per weekend day, one per hour. The venue was a local bagel bakery in a crowded suburb of DC.

On one especially lucrative day, Susan managed to schedule three men, back-to-back.  She set up a 10:00 a.m. date, went in, got a cup of coffee, sat innocently at the table in a bright chartreuse shirt (easily identifiable so that no man would ever mistake another woman for her), and waited for her date.  Enter Date #1.  He found her, they chatted.  After approximately 50 minutes, she walked him out the door, said good-bye in the parking lot and then headed back into the bagel place.

She then touched up her lipstick, rid herself of the cup of coffee, and checked to make sure her mascara was still in place.  I’m not sure why Susan felt that the act of drinking coffee would damage her mascara, unless the coffee were so hot as to make her make up evaporate, in which case, it would also have been suitable material for a lawsuit.

She then procured another cup of coffee and waited for her next victim (oops, date).  Date #2 entered, and he and Susan went through the same scenario.  In 45-50 minutes, Date #2 was out the door.  For her third date, Susan re-entered the bagel bakery, and she was handed her third cup of coffee.  As she walked away from the counter to pay for it, she overheard one of the cashiers whisper to another cashier “Ah, here comes the Bagel Hooker again.”

I can relate to this.  For a couple years before I started dating my second husband, I met all of my internet dates at a diner that was directly across the street from my office.  That way, I could, at whatever moment I desired, announce, “Wow, gotta get back to the office!”  Unlike Susan, I didn’t schedule dates back-to-back.  But Susan has always been much more efficient than I was about men.

Unlike a coffee or bagel shop, this diner had a hostess who would seat people.  Each week I had one or two meetings with men.  Each time I would say to the hostess, “I’m meeting a man here but I don’t know exactly what he looks like.”  Then, after an hour, we would leave together.  After several weeks, I noticed that whenever I came into the diner, the employees would stop what they were doing, watch me, and shake their heads knowingly.

Then one morning, I met my friend Crazy Debbie for breakfast at the diner. Debbie is nothing if not memorable.   It was a weekend morning, and the diner was very crowded.  I arrived first and got a booth at the far end of the room. About ten minutes later, Debbie swept into the diner wearing a nightgown, fur boots, and a tiara.  She had a purple oval painted on her forehead.  When the hostess asked if she could help her, Debbie replied in a very loud voice, “I’m meeting my lover here!” scanned the room, located me, pointed in my direction and announced, “And there she is!”

From that moment on, I morphed from a mere call girl into a genuine celebrity in the eyes of the diner staff.

I think I’ve covered all bases now leading up to relating the actual live meetings between Susan and Her Men.  That, depending on how long this friendship lasts at this point, will await that time until either Susan accumulates more stories or until she remembers the ones that were so traumatic that she has temporarily blocked them from her memory.

Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area.  She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50  www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for  examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.

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Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match

Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match

BLOGGER:  RENEE FISHER

If you haven’t read the first two blogs in the series, you can click the links below:

Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating

Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online

After my friend Susan is contacted by men on various computer dating sites, and, after she continues to communicate with them via personal email and phone calls, she is able to eliminate most of them as not a good match for her. “Not a good match” may mean various things: One of the categories of “not-a-good-match” men include those who send her photos of their genitals.  Susan assures me that this has happened on more than one occasion.  I didn’t ask her if they were Glamour Shots or just candid.  A second category that I have mentioned before are those who have yet to master the art of “spell check” on the computer. Here’s the most recent example, caps included:

YEP   YOU  ARE  A LIVE  WITH  THE  CHEESE  AND  CRACKERS   YOU  NEE   WINE    AND  I   WORK  FOR A  IMPORTER   OF  FINE  FRENCH   ARGENTINA  AND  SPANISH  WINE   I  BE  A  GREAT  PERSON TO  GET  TO   KNOW

Another category includes men who have small children/pets/ex-wives (note: The children are small, but the pets and ex-wives can be any size) who take up most of their time.  One man told Susan he had to go to his ex-wife’s house on a regular basis to mow the lawn. Unless he was destitute and worked out handyman/lawn services with the judge as a substitute for financial support, I’m thinking maybe he wasn’t quite ready to move on.  Another had to end all dates by 8PM so he could go home and take care of his dog.  About the only women he could develop a relationship with would be the ones who worked the night shift. A fourth category includes men who have other considerations that should preclude them from entering the dating world (or any other world, for that matter). One man told Susan he had no teeth and said that his son told him it might be a good idea to wait until he had his dentures before venturing out into the dating scene.  Another man told Susan he was separated, and, when she asked him further, he revealed that “separated” meant that he was living in DC during the week and going home on weekends but had neglected to tell his wife that he considered himself “separated during his week in DC”) and then he couldn’t understand why Susan didn’t want to date someone who could have him all to herself all week long. If a man isn’t eliminated by any of the above circumstances, Susan usually agrees to meet him for coffee.  She used to meet men for dinner, but I got really tired of hearing about four hour meetings, since the length of time usually had nothing to do with the quality of the date or the intention of either Susan or the man in question to ever get together again.  The length of the meeting had more to do with Susan’s uncanny ability to have an hours- long conversation with anybody, including, in a pinch, inanimate objects. Because of this, I set ground rules for her: one hour at Starbucks or another place that serves coffee.  Not a minute longer.  Susan agreed, but she still came up with really creative ways to foil my best efforts.  In the next episode, we will explore some of these.

Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area.  She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50  www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for  examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.

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Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online

Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online

BLOGGER:  RENEE FISHER

Click here to read the first blog in the Sex in the Sixty Series – Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating

For those skeptics who might be thinking that my friend Susan’s poor results are because she hasn’t put enough of an effort into online dating, rest assured that she has been on most internet dating sites since the very first one (CaveMatch.com).  She has only excluded the ones that will result in the FBI confiscating her computer. Both eHarmony and chemistry.com have now told her they can do nothing more for her unless she “expands her search area.”  For Susan, this would mean either searching for men who are younger than her son, older than a Civil War veteran, or who are currently incarcerated.

After Susan is initially contacted by men on the various sites, she usually emails back and forth with them, using her personal email.  Sometimes a phone call or two is part of the scenario.

One man told her he lived on a boat and wrote a long email explaining that he lived with a gorgeous 18 year old Dane.  Susan assumed he was talking about a dog.  He wasn’t. Another man spent a lot of time writing to her about his fishing trip.  About the only fishing trip that ever held my attention for any length of time was the one in “Deliverance,” and this man’s email was longer than the “Deliverance” screenplay.

Susan sends me some of the emails that she gets. These are mostly from men who don’t have spell check on their computers:
“…let,s see,are there really any woman out there that are looking for true love, or are you all stell way to picky…”
“…she be my best friend, loving, caring, faithfull, understanding,be d/d free, clean about her self…”
“…i,m a BIG redskins fan, and have been sents 1969…”

One man, who seemed like a good prospect and who had a fair command of the English language, was very anxious to meet her in person.  A coffee date was arranged for the following weekend, and each day, he would tell Susan how he couldn’t wait for their meeting.  Then, a couple days before the weekend, he sent an email saying,
“I think it would be best if I canceled this Sunday…On Tuesday this week – it seems like a month ago – I met someone else online. We’ve yet to meet in person…but we spoke on the phone for an hour and a half – till her battery went dead….I’m amazed at how far, and how fast things have progressed.  Maybe we’ve each found the person we’re both looking for…the degree of emotional closeness has developed very fast.  Besides, I’m not good at trying to date two women at the same time.  So, I sincerely wish you the best. I continued talking to you about meeting because there was a certain momentum there. I really was eager to meet you in person.”

I asked Susan what the “momentum” was all about and why she thought his momentum with the other woman trumped hers.  All Susan could think of was that the other woman’s momentum was larger than hers.

Susan still has a lot of emails to sift through (something like 29 at last count), and I’ll be curious to see what she comes up with.  I’ve suggested some ground rules for her when she meets guys, like only meeting for coffee and limiting the meeting to one hour.  I figured that would minimize the damage.  As we’ll see in the next posting, I was wrong.  Very,very wrong.

Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area.  She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.

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Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating

Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating

BLOGGER:  RENEE FISHER

My friend Susan has had such a long, varied and rocky career as a dating single, that I, as one of her closest and dearest friends, listen to her tragic stories, and, as the caring, compassionate person I am, laugh myself sick.

It’s tough not to.  Susan seems to attract a lot of really interesting and unique men.  Some of them have “handles” that conjure up visions that make me a bit queasy:

pistolhead

riding cowboy

katlicker

dixiekraut

pistolpete

swabjock

Now for the actual words:

“I’m 62 but still active…”

Is he saying he is still sexually active or that he still has the ability to get out of bed in the morning?

“I haven’t been with a woman in eight years.”

If someone wrote that to me, I would immediately consult an attorney to find out which criminal offenses would result in an eight year prison term.

“Do ya judge the book by the appearance of the cover, or do ya open the cover to find out if the table of contents captures and peaks your interest enough to read more?”

Actually, I like to scan the index first, then check out the footnotes.  Sometimes, I read the jacket, but other times I flip right to the author’s biography at the end…

This one is from “Looking For Busty”: “I am an older, independent, very safe, straight man in good shape and I like very much the younger woman who is busty, local and in very good shape for extra-curricular activities.”

Hey LFB, there are about 10,000 other guys waiting in line for her also.  Good luck.

“I am looking for one woman, not two or more…”

I’m wondering about a person who has to clarify this.  Has he had negative experiences with trying to find a soul mate and instead being tricked into having group sex?

“I am a very outgoing person and I always see the glass as half full.  I’ve been told that I have a very humorist personality.”

This is also called the “Will Rogers Syndrome.”

“I’d like to volunteer this; I look and act a lot younger than I actually am.”

I’d like to volunteer this: 95% of people over the age of 45 would probably write exactly the same thing about themselves.  The other 5% would use capital letters when they write the words “a lot.”

A recent poem Susan received had these lines hidden among all the others that professed undying love:

“When someone is willing to do without,

So your life is complete”

This would stop me in my tracks.  This guy is either Bernie Madoff writing from his North Carolina jail cell or a man looking for someone to donate a kidney.

Susan was really excited when I told her I would write columns about her attempts at internet dating.

“You can be my blind author!” she exclaimed.

“I think you meant ‘ghost writer’,” I said.

Oh boy, are we going to have fun with this one.

Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area.  She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.

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Seven Reasons to Date Women Over 50

Seven Reasons to Date Women over 50

BLOGGERS: Renee Fisher, Joyce Kramer, and Jean Peelen

Single women over 50 who want to date, have discovered the terrible truth: Men over 50 don’t want to date them.

Single men over 50 are often looking for much younger women. And older men who are in less-than-perfect physical condition are often looking for women in perfect physical condition. To be fair, we also know that in many cases, this preference occurs “on paper,” meaning in the world of online dating. Put most of those same men in a room of age-compatible women, and attraction will occur. So, here’s what we propose to you men over age 50 who would like to have a real relationship with a real woman:

Put down the Viagra and spend a moment considering the following: Seven reasons why you should date women over 50.

1. Our biological clocks are gone forever. Or else, we have permanently misplaced them, along with our keys and cell phones. We’re not dating you because you’re good genetic material with which to produce offspring. We simply enjoy your company.

2. We live alone. For most of our lives before age 50, we lived with other people. Sometimes, we even knew who they were. We shared our living space with parents, roommates, lovers, husbands, children and assorted friends of our children who we discovered on couches, under beds, and in our garages. Now that we are alone, you get to be with us in a quiet, romantic setting. And you don’t have to wait in line to get to the bathroom.

3. We know that it is not our job to mold our partners. The phrase “I can change him” has been blasted out of our vocabulary by life experience. Part of the joy of being over 50 is that we now take people as they are. So settle down, relax and be happy you made the cut.

4. We don’t endlessly discuss commitment. The question “Where is this relationship going?” is about as useful to us as “Do you think the IRS will audit my return?” The joy is that we don’t spend time now in search of commitment. We simply spend time with people we like.

5. We have our own money. We like being financially independent, and we like deciding what we do or don’t do with our own money. We might agree to go Dutch, treat at times, or even enjoy paying your way, as long as that doesn’t intimidate you.

6. You don’t have to spend every minute with us. We have a close network of female friends. So you get to be with your guy friends, and we won’t feel left out. Or you can sail or play golf or whatever. If you don’t like to travel as much as we do, we can do that sometimes with our friends as well. And we won’t drag you to craft fairs unless looking for antique teapots really turns you on.

7. We will never ask you how we look in a dress. We have way too much self-confidence for that. Instead, we’ll just kiss you and ask, “How does it feel to be going out with the hottest woman on the planet?” And all you have to answer is “Great.”

We are changing the conversation about women over 50. We know that women over 50 are beautiful, sexy, vibrant, and will love you for exactly who you are. What better way to spend the years ahead.

Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area.  She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.

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Grouchy Guy: Monogamy

GROUCHY GUY: MONOGAMY

BLOGGER:  LAWRENCE JOSEPHS, PHD

Why are grouchy guys so grouchy? Why do they make mountains out of molehills and pick fights about stupid little things? What do they have to be so angry about when more often than not their girlfriends and wives bend over backwards to please them and make their lives comfortable? Is it simply that they don’t like their jobs and come home to take their work frustrations out on their wives or children? That’s part of it but there is often a deeper reason, one that grouchy guys don’t like admitting to their partners because it is offensive to women. Often times they don’t even like to admit it to themselves because they feel guilty about feeling this way.

To put it bluntly, grouchy guys resent relinquishing their sexual freedom for the sake of long-term monogamous relationships, even with women they truly love. In a nutshell, men in committed relationships become grouchy because it frustrates their pressing desires for casual sex without strings attached with an endless variety of young, beautiful, and sexually indulgent women. Though most men don’t get close to gratifying this sexual fantasy when they are single, once they are in a committed relationship they begin to privately blame their girlfriends and wives for preventing them from making their dreams of playboy paradise come true.

Men don’t like to admit this fact to women or even to themselves. First, men know it’s an unrealistic fantasy and that they weren’t really such studs when they were single. They are ashamed of this fact because at some primal level men believe that if a man is not a first rate stud he is a first rate loser. Getting married then seems like settling for second best, an admission of defeat that they couldn’t cut the mustard as a first class seducer of women.  Second, men feel guilty about their womanizing ambitions. Men appreciate that thinking about women as sex objects to be loved and left to boost the male ego hurts women’s feelings even when men don’t have any real intentions of being unfaithful.  Men fully understand that any self-respecting woman wants to think that she is well worth the price of monogamy and that it wounds  a woman’s self-esteem to realize that her grouchy guy resents having to be faithful to her as though marital fidelity is some huge, almost unbearable sacrifice.

Being in a long-term monogamous relationship means giving up casual sex with other women in exchange for enduring love and affection from a woman with whom you might hope to raise a family. In other words, being monogamous requires men to endure a certain type of sexual frustration that men find difficult to endure. Men in general are much more interested in casual sex than are women. In comparison to women, men want to have more sexual partners in a lifetime, want to have more sexual variety, have more sexual fantasies about having sex with someone other than their current partner, utilize more pornography, utilize more prostitution, want to have sex earlier in a relationship, have more willingness to have sex with strangers, are more predisposed to have extra-marital affairs, and are more predisposed to have extra-marital affairs in search of casual sex as opposed to a finding a serious lover.  Curiously, though girls usually reach puberty several years earlier than boys do, the average boy has his first orgasm at age 13 while the average girl has her first orgasm at age 15. And if boys don’t masturbate they start having wet dreams to relieve themselves. In contrast, some women can go years if not decades without ever having their first orgasm and without ever having one in their sleep. Many men just seem to be driven by their sexual desires in a way that many women aren’t and men’s sexual desires often have a more impersonal and insistent quality than do women’s.

This sexual difference can be an underlying source of perpetual conflict in long-term relationships and is often a touchy issue that is difficult to discuss without being defensive. Ultimately, men have to learn how to deal with the sexual frustrations of monogamy without dumping their frustrations on their girlfriends and wives. To some extent women help men do that not by learning new sexual techniques, not by giving them quickies every time they want to be sexually serviced, not by getting breast implants, and certainly not by looking the other way while they cheat. You can help him become less grouchy by not taking his grouchiness so personally, making fun of him when he is acting like a jerk, and setting firm limits on his surly behavior when it goes over the top. Your grouchy guy has to learn how to get over himself and you can help him do that by helping him not take his fragile male ego so seriously.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

To find out more about Dr. Josephs, click here to read his bio.

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