Potential is Dead, Long Live Perfection….you’ve been warned

For those who’ve been keeping up with my story, you’ll know my marriage ended, (unexpectedly for me) around 18 months ago.

After the dust had settled, as is often the temptation, I found myself dipping my reluctant and still war-torn toe into the pool of modern dating. About a year after the separation, I picked up a digital device, exchanged a few coins per month and then embarked on the awful and commodity fuelled world of online dating. We are bombarded with so many different apps, each apparently offering us an improved way of finding mutual souls. Some of these phone apps boast an experience targeted to find similar, or as they call it ‘more compatible’ bedfellows. None of these apps filter in the way they profess to, and I’ve only paid for two different services, I also got a free trial of the most famous of these new breed of digital cupids, the mighty Tinder. The less I speak about that 3 day ordeal with that brand the better. This article is not an exposé on my failed dating attempts. Not that my experiences have resulted in many physical dates. But more so, this passage is outlining how the world appears to have changed for people like me.

As always, I need to get some key criteria out. I’ve not done mass research, and I’ve only used these apps for a couple of months about a year after my marriage ended. I’m firmly what most would call middle-aged, in my mid-forties, coming out of a 15 year marriage with two young children who live with me half the time. This context is important, as I can’t say for sure if the following is true of all online dating or just those attempting the second chapter like I am. If I was to guess, I’d say it’s probably a bit of both, but probably more towards those seeking companionship later in life.

Back in my twenties, around the turn of the new century, dating was similar to how generations after generations had embarked on the courting ritual. Although online dating was around in the early two thousands, it seemed like it was something for those who didn’t have access to social outlets and so it wasn’t relevant for me. I lived in central London, and along with my friends we spent most of our evenings and weekends in the bars and pubs of the capital. Our group of friends wasn’t what you might refer to as prolific at meeting single girls, except for one of my mates. I’m sure every group of lads has that one friend who women seem to throw themselves at. We certainly had one of those in our group and it often amazed us. Unlike the rest of us, he was the only one without a steady job or anything that would resemble a targeted lifeplan, and he would make no effort to disguise that. And yet week after week, often day after day, he would somehow attract some absolutely lovely women. But I digress, so back to me – I wouldn’t even say that I was a third as appealing to the fairer sex than my aforementioned friend – who I happened to share a house with around this time. I’ve always been sociable and able to get on with people upon first meeting, but I know I did lack some confidence compared to my peers. As I rapidly hurtled towards that scary milestone of the big three-oh!, I made some significant changes in my career, abandoning the comfort of a permanent job to go freelance. I also combined some other changes in my life that enabled me to have more fun and freedom and a positive side-effect of this was I found more confidence in myself and more women began to notice me. It wasn’t long before I met someone who really perked my interest. I remember those days very well, I recall our late nights going to bars and clubs around London, fortunately it was spring and with the milder evenings we found ourselves walking and chatting (often with alcohol still on our breath) until the very early hours of the morning. Nothing was holding us back, except the need to be back in our respective offices at dawn the following morning. We didn’t know everything there was to know about each other back then. After all, I would firmly guess that we were both perhaps only about 30% of our defined selves back then. We had a general trajectory, and we had some firm values and principles, but we had so much ahead of us. We aligned on many of our early aspirations, and even if we hadn’t spotted everything about the other person at this point – there was time to allow nature to develop, our connection was real and it certainly had potential for so much more. Sure enough a deep romance blossomed into a 15 year marriage and two beautiful daughters.

Flash forward to the present day, well actually a few months ago and I find myself staring at my phone’s Appstore, looking at all these online dating apps deciding which one to sign-up for. I finally selected one that seemed more appropriate for my station in life and setup a profile and paid the subscription. As is often with these memberships, if you sign up for longer, it works out more cost effective, but surely that’s not a great advertisement for the service either. “Here, sign-up to find your new love interest instantly, but we’ll make it cheaper for you if no one likes you and you linger in the app for longer”

Texting with a stranger is very two dimensional, even in a rapid exchange of words, it’s hardly a true conversation, the chat is lacking in so much richness. It can take days, perhaps weeks in basic messaging to discover what you could probably amass in just a few short minutes had you struck up a conversation at the bar – remember those days! In this very sluggish and slow method to connect, you exert a fair amount of effort and it can so simply be discarded by the other party. Unlike the old fashioned ‘chat-up’ in the pub, you had their attention, even if it was for just a few moments whilst you attempted to hook their interest with the crude flirtatious dance.

Online dating is another victim of this connected world. Compared to the old style of bar pickups, you’re not limited by whomever is out that evening or in that location. The apps present an unrivalled pool of singles seeking a match. Unlike the real world of yester-year, all those presenting themselves through this app are looking for something, rather than being approached unexpectedly by a drunken fellow patron. No disruption to your girls night out or bonding with your besties. Everyone online is ‘on-the-park’, everyone is on the look-out.

Consider a similar search we make in our lives, when you are out on a mission to buy a new outfit for a specific reason, perhaps a looming social event. You define your criteria of what these new garments need to be, and off you go to the shops. You’re focused to find what you need, and yet shop after shop, rack after rack you just fail to find the right outfit. Even those that perhaps come close, you say to yourself, “maybe I’ll see what the other shops have to offer first”. Often this frantic shopping experience results in either no outcome or something you end up fretting with later, questioning if it’s actually the best option. Compare that, with the casual day when you’re out grocery shopping and stumble across an amazing outfit. You weren’t looking for anything, but yet found something just right. When we focus, we apply blinkers and we narrow our field, right at the point when we need to have the most open of vistas.

On the dating apps, everyone is focused and looking, they have their very exacting requirements defined on a checklist ready to tick off attribute by attribute.

My first ever date in this new second chapter, was very pleasant, we had chatted for a few days online, making jokes, talking a little about our history. I personally try hard to not mention my bitter recent history with my wife leaving, but it’s hard to blank out such a major event in your life, especially when that event was the reason, the touchpaper that led you to be dating in the first place. We all have a past, we all have a story or two to tell, but I decided that a first (or any early) date was not the place to monologue the previous seasons of this drama.

This first of first dates went well, we chatted freely, no awkward silences and we got on. She spoke about her daughter, who was around the same age as my youngest child also. She explained how she was rebuilding her life after her breakup – I could see she was also trying to avoid delving into too much detail on her recent past.

After this first date and then a second date a few days later where we went to the cinema – why on earth did I suggest a cinema outing? That was such a teenager move, I knew I had regressed several decades through this new dating world, I just hadn’t realised it had taken me back that far!

The day after the cinema date, we spoke on the phone, as she wanted to tell me that she liked me, but she felt something was off. She spoke about how she was concerned that there wasn’t an alignment in the days we respectively were child-free, and some other points about her that it wouldn’t be fair for me to explain. It was polite and I held no negative feelings that she ceased our short liaison.

I continued back on the app, and within a few days found myself texting with someone else.

I was chatting with this woman who after the initial fun pleasantries began to display some emotional scars, clearly from a past relationship and/or some previous dating experiences. Not put off and with courage she persevered. But her level of trust appeared to be in the red-zone, she even asked me to send her confirmation I was actually divorced before she would agree to meet. Unsurprisingly I never sent any such confirmation, nor did we arrange a date. I didn’t appreciate the accusation that I was somehow masking my truth. I was annoyed by this particular experience, the need to prove myself, however, my overwhelming feeling was sadness towards whatever had left her so distrusting and fragile.

As I’ve said before, I’ve only been on a few dates in recent months. Through those I’ve outlined here, made me reach the conclusion that online dating these days, probably more so for women is all about developing and refining that checklist. A tick list of what is it we are looking for. Quite often many of us find ourselves in these middle-aged years reeling from past experiences, looking for the new relationship that will improve on the last, that can somehow unpick all the heartache that has brought us to where we are today.

It is completely understandable that we do need some basic criteria, for example some people may not wish to become a step-parent, or some people are not as mobile and need to seek a match locally. Maybe it’s important that someone matches or exceed your educational level or someone who has similar working patterns, like teachers looking for a fellow teachers to spend those long summers together. Physical attributes go without saying, we do need to use these filters to channel through those people we typically find more attractive. However, if we think back to all our past loves, how many of us really stick so strictly to a particular physical type, some do, but I’m sure if we’re honest with ourselves we’re not that shallow!

I stumbled across one profile, which goes a long way to sum up this entire compulsion for an exacting match without any flexibility. This lady wrote in her profile, that you (the onlooker) must like dogs, you must be witty, you must be tall, have your shit together (this is something I’ve seen a few times, and can only guess it’s signposting to avoid past faux-pas) The bio continued saying you must be clean shaven, a maximum of two days stubble, and said actually warned that she would shave you whilst you slept. There’s an obvious humorous or whimsical notion here, but you can see the thread crying out for exactly what she wants – the perfections she seeks, with little or no room for growth. The ease in which she can swipe in the wrong direction if any of the selfies have too many whiskers – unless it was a dog of course and then they might stand a chance of the tick in the right direction.

The key point is we spend too much time focusing on strict criteria. It is like that shopping garment, we can define everything we want and it is too easy to swipe with our finger on anyone that doesn’t tick every requirement. As if we are a complex machine, where only a very exact, purpose made part will fit, as if anything else would just grind the machine to a halt.

None of us are getting any younger, and no one wants to waste time we don’t have on countless dates only for them to be completely misaligned. We all have baggage and constraints, we have children, jobs, hobbies and areas of inflexibility. Understandably some seek people who are close to our compatibility, close to our initial requirements, but how exacting does it need to be. It was back in the 1990’s when I first proclaimed that perfect love exists in only one place, our mind. For no real relationship between two people can be truly perfect, we have to accept the to’ing and fro’ing, the compromising and the Idiosyncrasies that signal a connection is real and purposeful.

We easily forget that profiles and bios are so artificial anyway. They are an attempt to spotlight and highlight who we are – but can any of us actually say that our profiles truly represent us and are close reflection of who we are.

These criterion, although devised with the right purpose, leave no room for growth, they leave no allowance to find out who the other person really is. They leave no room for potential. Back in our twenties we were happy with potential. But now, potential is dead, violently replaced with the need for that unattainable perfection