Where you're actually starting
Newly divorced vs long single vs widowed vs late bloomer. Different baselines, different first moves.
In progress5 min↓ 670 words
§ Journey
Newly divorced vs long single vs widowed vs late bloomer. Different baselines, different first moves.
The first date I went on after my marriage ended, I drove to the wine bar three suburbs away half an hour early, sat in the car park, and seriously considered driving home. I was 41. The last first date I'd had was at a uni party in 2003 with a girl I ended up marrying eight years later. Now I was idling in a car looking at a Hinge profile on my phone, trying to remember how this was meant to go. It went fine, in the end. The thirty minutes in the car park is the bit I remember.
Most of what's written about dating in your forties assumes you're all in the same boat. You're not. Four men can walk into the same bar on the same Friday night, all 42, all single, and be in genuinely different places.
Roughly, you're in one of four boats:
You don't get to pick which boat you're in. You do get to pick what you do about it.
Newly divorced needs time more than dates. The honest readiness check: can you talk about your ex-wife for thirty seconds without it leaking into the rest of the evening? If not, the next woman you meet doesn't need to be an audience for that. Wait.
Long-term single needs a forcing function more than encouragement. Pick a thing that gets you in rooms with women regardless of whether you're dating: a Saturday club, a Sunday lunch crew, a hobby that has women in it.
Late bloomer needs reps more than strategy. Aim for ten coffees in three months and stop trying to predict who's "right" before you've met any of them.
Widowed needs permission. From yourself, mainly. The first date isn't a betrayal of her, but you'll feel like it is for the first hour.
Ask yourself three things:
Three yeses and you're probably ready. Two yeses and you're nearly there. One or none and the next three months are for reading, walking, training, talking to your mates, and not for performing on a date.
You're not 25 anymore, and that's the good news.
The 25-year-old version of you was, with respect, a worse partner than the 42-year-old version. The forties dating market sometimes gets framed as "the field has thinned out" or "everyone's damaged goods". It hasn't and they aren't. The field has aged into honesty.
Know your boat. Make the first move it actually needs. Skip the bit where you pretend.
A blunt field guide to the first month after the conversation. Sleep, paperwork, the kids, and the part nobody warns you about.
5 minHow to start the talk you've been rehearsing in the shower for six months. A practical guide to the words, the room, the aftermath.
4 minWhen she ends it and you didn't see it coming. The first 72 hours, the stories you'll tell yourself, and what to actually do.
4 minA self-interrogation guide for the man considering ending his marriage. Not advice. Questions. The hard ones, in order.
5 min