Tag Archive

The previous post, Happiness from Within, was optimistic and upbeat, and I was feeling that way in spite of the trauma of losing a relationship, a relationship that had encouraged a wholeness and integration that I hadn’t really experienced before.  I took that lesson away from it, though, that it was possible to have that as a part of my life.  It wasn’t just a fantasy.

I jumped back into the dating scene right away and posted my profile on some new websites.  I shelled out $60 for a 3-month membership on the website BiCupid, liking the looks of that site quite a bit and wanting to search profiles and write emails to my heart’s content for my 60 bucks. 

What has happened since July?  Well, hardly anything.  I let my Silver membership on FastCupid lapse, although my profile is still there, and I am getting zero responses to my profile there.  My attempts to initiate some conversation with a couple of interesting, albeit long-distance, women there was met with no response.  In one case, I was actually blocked from further correspondence, and I thought, WTF??

BiCupid is an interesting website, and I’ve taken advantage of my “Preferred” status (meaning I’ve paid a lot of money to send some emails!) and have written to anyone who sounds interesting, no matter how far away they live.  I’m open to long-distance communication via email, and I’m willing to hop on a plane and make some visits should the interest be there to develop a real life friendship.  In July, I immediately connected with a 60-year-old woman in New York City, a psychotherapist in part-time private practice who was married and had a personal and professional handle on the subjects of bisexuality and polyamory.  We exchanged daily emails for a couple of months until it became glaringly apparent that we didn’t really have that much in common except for our generation and our experience with bisexuality and polyamory.  In fact, we probably really didn’t like each other all that much!  We just let it go by tacit agreement.

I made the acquaintance of one lovely woman in Texas, and we keep in touch rather sporadically.  As far as I can foresee, it’s a long-distance friendship.

Other than that….. nothing.  I forked out another $100 in October to extent my BiCupid Preferred status another six months.  I’ve exchanged a couple of emails, sometimes on a one-time-only basis.  More often than not, the emails I send out are met with no response.  All of these fellow BiCupiders I send emails to are long-distance.  There are no profiles in my age range on BiCupid that I’m interested in here in Minnesota.  I go through the whole list periodically.

Granted, I’m looking in an ”older” demographic.  35 years old is my bottom range for considering an intimate relationship with a woman unless she is truly an exceptionally intelligent and mature woman.  (I can think of one such woman on LiveJournal who is only 33 right now, a woman I’ve known since I started blogging there in 2004.  With her, yeah, I’d consider it, but Montana is a long ways away from the BiCities!  And besides, I don’t think she’s interested.)  I’m 52 years old, and I feel uncomfortable even considering sticking my toe into the demographic pool of 20-some year olds — not that any of them would be remotely interested in a 52-year-old woman who is maybe older than their moms! 

So, this narrows my options.  Nor am I exactly choice online dating material due to my own age.  I’m out of the usual dating demographics now.  When even a thirty-something year old woman plugs in an age range into the site’s search parameters, it is typically something like “28 to 45.”  A forty-something year old woman might typically plug in ”35-50.”  It seems like 50 is about the cut-off for what people are typically searching for when they fill in the blank.  That leaves my profile out of contention from the get-go.  I’m generally “over the hill” for online dating now.

I have never, EVER been in a “dry spell” like this of such duration, not when I’ve been actively trying!

It has led me to moments of despondency that this relationship with a woman, the relationship that will complete my range of emotional and sexual needs, will never happen, not beyond the fleeting glimmers of possibility it’s already seen in my life.  I’m certainly a long way from dead and/or decrepit at 52, but I feel that sand slipping through the proverbial hourglass.  It hasn’t been a comfortable, reassuring feeling.  It fact, I’ve hated it.  I’ve had moments of regretting that 17-year period of monogamy in my marriage.  I was prime dating material then when I was 25 to 42 years old, and I wasn’t pursuing it then.  (Of course, these were the years of 1981-1998.  There were no internet opportunities in the ’80s then for meeting people.  There wasn’t for me until we upgraded our computer and signed up for Internet access in December 1997.  It’s no coincidence that that 17-year period of monogamy ended soon after the Internet became part of our household!) 

Part of that 17-year period of monogamy during the years 1981-1997 (and pre-Internet) was due to the fact that bisexual individuals are invisible in our society.  This was true when I was a young woman back in the 1970s and ’80s and it’s true today.  Heterosexually-partnered bisexuals are even more invisible because the assumption is immediately made that the partners are straight.  We don’t generally walk around wearing a prominent lavender lapel pin with BISEXUAL stamped in its center.

No, in order for bisexually-oriented individuals to meet others that share that orientation, there needs to be an explicit venue for that introduction to happen.  Social groups spring up and then disband.  There really are no bisexual bars or coffeehouses, etc.  The gay and lesbian community in general would prefer that we’d just go away.  We’re a thorn in their side.  The attitude is out there in both the straight and the gay/lesbian world that bisexuals are just a fucked-up branch of the gay/lesbian community, probably really gay or lesbian but unwilling or afraid to commit to their “true identity.” We’re the the chronic “fence-sitters.”  We’re viewed with skepticism and mistrust.  We’re dismissed, not considered a positive, viable entity in the community.   In fact, I’ve heard it said that we “don’t really exist!”

The Internet has helped to bring some folks together, but what happens when that ceases to be a productive option?  I seem to be experiencing that phenomenon during these past eight months, and it has led me to the conclusion — being the intelligent individual that I am! — that I need a new plan!