This is for young women, so probably not at all your dating pool if you become widowed after thirty years of marriage.
Dating is very different later in life. My dad was widowed in his mid fifties, and he pointed out that instead of looking for someone for all the milestones, he was just looking for someone he enjoys spending time with. He didn’t even need to agree with them about religion, because they’re almost definitely not raising kids together.
I do understand how you want that. I would prefer not to, though. I’m still lonely, if someone is taking advantage of me, I just don’t know it yet. I also don’t know if people expect others to be as bad as they have been in my experience.
Before I met my husband, I dated people among others who: stole my medication from me and then resold it to me, lied to me about whether they were fit to come to my country (he didn’t tell me he had paranoid schizophrenia before he left his whole support network and came to a country whose language he couldn’t speak and where he could not work), and one who murdered his mom (before we dated, but I found out during).
It took a long time to start dating again after each of those, obviously. I don’t know how I could protect myself more while still dating though. I had friends vet profiles with me and meet people sooner rather than later, but it didn’t help much.
I know how wild that sounds, but honestly I’m a relatively attractive woman with no ability to tell if someone’s trying to trick me. It’s tough, lol. I’m glad I haven’t been trafficked. I’m very excited to be in my early thirties now, because people expect me to be a better judge of character and they’re less likely to try shit. I also come off a little jaded (because I’m not dumb, I just don’t notice if people are lying)- for example, I would never try the autistic dating app, because that’s a gold mine for someone looking to trick their date. I would love to date like that, I just couldn’t trust it.
All that said, men are obviously dangerously lonely, and I understand that it’s a real, serious problem. I’m sorry you’re in that situation, it sounds awful.
(Advice if you want it, though no offense taken if you don’t want it from me 😅) Do you have close female family members (around your age) or friends (male friends’ SOs count)? I second having a woman go through your profile and picture options. Or even the autistic dating app, because not everyone is as suspicious of it as I am and you’re in a less statistically vulnerable position (though if you’re rich, maybe don’t make that clear?).
And on the other side, I’m a terrible judge of character, so getting bombarded by messages felt like walking into a car dealership- I knew the majority of what I heard was probably dishonesty, but I couldn’t figure out what.
I ended up exclusively looking for keywords instead of charisma, and figured I’d assess a spark in person. Thankfully my husband referenced magic the gathering, banjo, cats, and bondage (he just listed that he was a rigger, no crass jokes or sexualization), so I figured he was either casting a wide net or telling the truth about his interests.
"Then as our family grew and he remarried, he continued to work there because of the amazing health insurance that was provided through this employer because it was unionized. This got all four of his daughters through high school and college with full healthcare coverage."
Yeah, but New York State is not going to be a viable option for a lot of people. Bigotry in small town New York is real to the point that sundown towns are a thing, and even when they’re not, it’s a lot easier to find a confederate flag bumper sticker than an antifa one, especially if you’re out of Hudson valley.
You’re right, obesity might play a larger role in making that difficult than I was factoring in. I think a significant hurdle is also wearing wet bathing clothes in public/finding public appropriate clothes. I do also think that increasing public pools can do a lot to prevent obesity, but in extant cases, it might not be that helpful.
Depends on your situation (the availability). I have one in my neighborhood, so it’s literally 8 minutes from my house to being showered off and in the pool. I’ve been to some people’s houses where it takes almost that long to navigate the backyard.
I don’t think my situation is just some happenstance, either. I think it’s not a huge investment for an incredible health and social return anywhere (desert climates possibly excepted? I’m not sure what the environmental impact is, especially compared with a potential reduction in personal pools built/maintained). Every neighborhood should have a pool reachable within 15 minutes and residents should petition for it if there isn’t one, imo. Petitioning obviously isn’t easy, but it’s easier than you’d think
I’m in Germany and the word “evangelisch” means “Protestant,” not “evangelical,” which fucked me up for a while because I kept assuming my Christian friend would be insane at some point, but she’s just very reasonable. I finally realized that she’s just a very chill Lutheran and I was mistranslating
That’s the benefit of English- it’s not Latin and can ignore Latin-derived grammar rules