2) The “wrong girlfriend” rut – learn to trust your gut feel. Since this is a chapter about how to get a date, you might wonder why I am now talking about a scenario that assumes you are already dating someone. The answer is – I highly recommend that you learn to trust your initial gut feel about any woman you meet … as those gut feels (good or bad) are often 100% correct over the longer term. Your gut feel can be somewhat of an efficiency mechanism – which means that you can learn to use it in order to help guide your decision-making with respect to continuing to pursue a particular woman. Now with that as a back drop, recognize that sometimes we midlife bachelors get hooked up too quickly with a woman who is not ideal for us. And sometimes we continue to stay with these women longer than we should because we either think it will be too hard to find a different girlfriend, or because we fear we won’t be able to find a different girlfriend, or because we resist change, etc. My message to you, my midlife bachelor brother, is – if you THINK you might be dating a woman who is not right for you, then you probably are. As I’ve aged and dated various women, I’ve carefully made a lot of mental notes about women as I’ve first started dating them. In other words, when dating a new woman, often times I’ve had a gut feel that a particular thing about her might start to bug me later on (after the hot sex wears off), and sure enough – those initial gut feels I’ve had have come true most of the time.
Here are some examples. When I first started dating Becky the hot blonde nymphomaniac – she was actually dating someone else … and had been for over five years. Becky and I wound up in bed together while she was still dating this other guy – and the first gut feel I had with her after she left him for me was “if she will cheat on him, then she will cheat on me.” And sure enough – when things started getting less than perfect between us, she strayed right away into another guy’s bed … and that pissed me off. But it is not like I didn’t see it coming. My initial gut feel about her was correct.
Then there was the sexy Latina nurse named Debi … who I was so attracted to. In the first month or two that we dated, we would go out and Debi would always drink just a little too much … but then we would come home and have glorious sex, so I tended not to focus on how much she drank. But I did remember thinking to myself that someone who drinks excessively on a regular basis is probably at some point going to really get on my nerves … and sure enough that proved to be 100% true. If Debi did not drink so much, my bet is that I would have married her – she was so perfect in every other way for me.
Then there is my neighbor, Chuck – whose wife cheated on him several times, and who finally wound up leaving him. Chuck is around 52 years old, and man was he the worst mess of a midlife bachelor that I had ever seen … especially in the first several months of having become a bachelor. When Chuck first became single, all he did was talk about suicide, and about how much he hated his ex-wife. I used to tell him that things will get better, that suicide is not a good solution … and that as soon as he lets go of all of those negative feelings, that he’ll be ready to find a new girlfriend who will make him feel wonderful again. After four or five months, Chuck finally calmed down … and then started online dating. Within a few weeks, he met a woman who he said was 48-years old, never married, really nice-looking, but a little clingy. He wound up dating her for something like six more months – but every time I spoke to Chuck, he kept telling me that she was a little too clingy and needy for him. He said that this woman would do ANYTHING for him – she even put butter on his bread for him at the dinner table. [“She butters your bread?” I remember asking him this as a double-take to verify what I heard.] After the first two months, Chuck was tired of having his bread buttered – but he didn’t leave her. Instead he kept telling me that he thought she wouldn’t last. Chuck’s initial gut feel that she was too needy or clingy for him proved to be correct. He finally asked me about good ways to break off a relationship. After letting the bread-butterer go, another several months went by – and Chuck met someone online he regarded as PERFECT. I ran into Chuck several months ago – and he introduced this new woman as his fiancé … so she must be something special. Mental note – be sure to also read my discussion of “not moving too fast” in a relationship in the next section concerning Strategies. Chuck met this new woman, and decided to propose after a fairly short amount of time. My concern for Chuck is that he is now engaged after not having been divorced for a year. In other words, Chuck is on the REBOUND … and being on the rebound essentially means that you are easily influenced, and not thinking 100% clearly. Concerning major life decisions such as marriage – you always want to be sure that your decision is based on reality, and not overly influenced by your own emotional recovery from your last relationship or marriage.
