Lessons from a Dating Novice

After a 15-year marriage, Joaquin, a newly divorced baby boomer, was suddenly exposed to a mostly unknown world of dating, similar to what the legendary Rip Van Winkle experienced after a 20-year period of hibernation.

Should he join the rapidly evolving mobile dating app community, or should he try his hand at some of his time-tested methods of attending social functions to meet others that he participated in during his younger years?

Interestingly, Joaquin fully understood that the path he selected would dictate the types of people that he would meet. To broaden his options, Joaquin decided to try both strategies, on a short-term basis, to see which one suited him best.

A Fish Out of Water

Yet as he began this process, Joaquin quickly realized that he was in unchartered waters because the people he met online were seasoned players that immediately realized he was a novice and treated him as such. One of the first questions he was asked by Candice whom he met online was, “What are the top five things that you like and dislike in a social partner?”

For Joaquin, this was clearly a jaw dropping experience as the inquiry came too early in the game and made him feel very uncomfortable. Joaquin felt that forming a relationship should be an evolutionary process that allowed someone to carefully learn the positive and negative aspects of a person before making an assessment of whether to pursue or relinquish a true relationship. It was certainly not something, that he was in favor of doing during an initial 30-minute interactive conversation.

Completely Out of His League

Nonetheless, Joaquin realized his social limitations and knew he wasn’t savvy enough to compete with a dating connoisseur like Candice whom he had just met online. His slow and hesitant responses reminded him of someone releasing droplets of blood in the sea which allowed sharks to move aggressively around him after Candice informed him that she was moving on because she felt he really didn’t know what he was looking for in a relationship.

Next, Joaquin opted to attend book signings, museum outings and other activities to meet new people. These venues enabled him to breathe a sigh of relief since they clearly represented familiar territory given that this is how he managed his social adventures before getting married. The problem is that no one attending these social functions lived in a vacuum. After meeting Sally, at an art exhibit he attended, a personable woman with an infectious smile, he quickly realized that she lived in a hybrid world. It soon became apparent that Sally was equally comfortable using social dating apps or meeting new people while participating in social functions.

This made it quite clear to him that others had been in this game for a lot longer than him which meant that for now – they all possessed the home court advantage! After this encounter, he learned that Sally was seeing several other people simultaneously and informed him that she was not ready for a serious commitment and simply wanted to keep her options open. This experience caused Joaquin to retrench and until he was capable of leveling the playing field.

Deep State of Confusion

This was an optimal strategy, that would grant him enough time to strengthen his social dating skills and boost his confidence. Unfortunately, during this period of retrenchment --- Covid-19 made its debut with the fervor of a Category 5 storm. It swept him and the rest of his surroundings with an unfathomable force that prevented him from restarting his new life.

Over the next 12-months, Joaquin chose the path of least resistance and simply regressed to an even deeper stage of hibernation as the first, second and third waves of the virus rocked his world. Then on Dec. 11, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first U.S. vaccine for emergency use. It was important day that offerred a potential bridge towards normalcy for anyone looking forward to the end of this social and medical nightmare.

Although it took a few months for Joaquin to qualify, he decided to devote all his energies to finding venues that would offer doses of the vaccine at the end of the day to avoid spoilage. As luck would have it after several weeks of searching, he was able to get his first vaccine dose.

This lifted his spirits even further. And after his second vaccine dose several weeks later, Joaquin began to plan his new life again. However, he wasn’t sure if he would be willing to retry any of his previous dating strategies.

To minimize the risk of failing again, Joaquin opted to initially reconnect with people within his social tree to boost his overall confidence. Still, his first date had to meet two important conditions. First, the person had to be vaccinated to ensure his safety. And second, they had to be officially single to make the encounter as genuine as possible.

Cate was a viable candidate who was single, fully vaccinated and had also been a part of his social circle for over a decade. Although it was not clear whether the friendship could ever evolve into a romantical relationship --- it would undoubtedly be a good warm-up for his new life once things returned to normal.

Still, Joaquin nervously understood that he would have to be fully transparent with Cate and call their dinner outing a real date. After a long discussion, with Cate, they both agreed to meet with an open mind, given that their decade old relationship had always been platonic. To break the ice, he would need to put his mind at ease and interact with her in a way that he never done in the past.

To start out their dinner date, Joaquin ordered two glasses of merlot to help them both relax with an assorted cheese plate. Merlot was always his drink of choice because red wine included an ingredient named resveratrol, which offered heart-protecting and anti-aging benefits! It is hard to find a baby boomer that wouldn’t want to receive those positive side effects from their dining menu!

And while the days leading up to this exciting date were nerve-wracking for both, the evening transformed itself into a very comfortable event after a few glasses of merlot that felt similar to watching an old movie with a familiar friend. The effects of the merlot were magical and greatly eased all the concerns that had been previously occupying the minds of these two good friends.

A New Beginning

The dinner was so enjoyable, that neither of them spent much time fixating on what to order or even figuring out how well the entrees were prepared. As the hours passed, and their date entered a deeper stage, Joaquin learned an important lesson, namely that preparing for the future with a little help from our past can be a joyful experience.

After all, many of our future experiences are often a composite of our past sprinkled with unpredictable moments that we have yet to experience!