Seriously, so you want to be in love again...

[dreamrunnerjt]

At my age and health, I am happy to live alone. I make all my own decisions and suffer all the consequences good or bad. I do like having friends. Friends to share meals with, friends to go places with, friends to have conversations and share ideas. Like this forum. It is my hope to be out there with all of you in a year or two. I really want to have a uhaul type truck to live in and will have to work for a year or two more to afford it unless prices go down. In the meantime I hope to see many people at Quartsite in 2023. I live in AZ and hope to be able to camp out there for a week and meet many, many people. I would do it this year but I already used up all my vacation time. Just checked it out, lots of stuff in January. Hmmmmm

 

[INTJohn]

Love is 4 squirrels. Jus sayin……..

 

[RoamerRV428]

ick post truly but funny I guess...ugh but that is me seeing it LOL
others will vary on it of course

 

[maki2]

I might be the one who sits plucking petals off a flower saying I love him, I love him not. With the high percentage of failed marriages it is an adequate enough system

 

[Sofisintown]

When I was young, "f-worthy" was a good enough reason to fall in love.
The older I grew, the higher my standards rose. Now I can't stand stupids, dimwits, ugly as f, braggarts, liers, meanies, and the list goes on. That leaves very few possible volunteers, residing mostly in my imagination.

 

[maki2]

Nowadays it is for me not just about judging others but realizing that I am unlikely to be able to live up to someone else’s expectations of the essential characteristics of the right mate for them.

 

[Zerpersande]

Love is an emotion caused by a biochemical cocktail that is intended to cause two humans to mate and reproduce. The seven-year itch is a real thing bc the results of bonding is more or less likely going to make it by then.

 

[rruff]

Love is an emotion caused by a biochemical cocktail

But what causes the cocktail... ?

 

[maki2]

But what causes the cocktail... ?

It is thought to be caused by Oxytocin. Women have much higher levels of it than men and the way it gets processed and used by males and females seems to differ somewhat. There are a lot of scientific studies on it but Oxytocin is not fully understood. However here is a reasonably easy to read discussion of some of what is thought about it which mentions various studies.
https://www.psycom.net/oxytocin

 

[Zerpersande]

But what causes the cocktail... ?

A product of evolution. Humans, and all other animals, jump through all kinds of hoops for sex. It’s the prime directive for animals.

 

[VanGrrl57]

I'm currently single and that's okay with me. I've been married and widowed both times and have 3 kids who are grown now, and my youngest is 26. If things work out and I meet another man, great! But if not, that's okay, too. I was lucky in that I never had to go through a divorce. Both my husbands were wonderful men.

 

[wb8vyn]

I just had to make a comment.
Married once. 62 years.
I've out lived my allotted time and still going.
I was a one woman man, not blind. My wife had a stroke and died two years ago.
I live in a 19 foot trailer at this time on my own property with a 6 bed room house that I can't bring myself to live in. Her car is parked in the garage and will rot down in there as with all of her other stuff in the house.
I planned on being gone nomading some months ago but life got in the way and me being slow and lazy for the most part, still here.
At some point I will meet and enjoy others of my vintage, some will be women.
Some how, and I have no explanation, I hope to enjoy the company and maybe companionship of a woman. Seems that I just can't make my sox match or choose what meals are healthy for me. You get the drift.
To be practical, traveling from place to place is not how women are designed for the most part, so I don't hold out much hope for a companion but maybe from time to time share a cup of something for a little while just to enjoy a different point of view would be nice.

 

[Zerpersande]

Some how, and I have no explanation, I hope to enjoy the company and maybe companionship of a woman.

No explanation required. Humans, as with all animals, are hard-wired. But h7mans are social animals and the socialization is at odds with the natural instincts. Man, like the other great apes, are not monogamous creatures. This brings to mind something I once heard and to which I have taken then liberty to modify to more suit my opinion regarding how socialization conflicts with nature.

“Marriage is an elaborate ruse. It’s an unnatural arrangement which forces its participants into an unhealthy monogamy. Like Chinese water torture, a slow accretion of petty fights and resentful compromises slowly transform both parties into howling, neurotic versions of their former selves.”

 

[maki2]

A lot of men who recently lost their long time spouse feel like they have lived out their allotted time. Being the one who is “left alone” is pretty tragic.

But truthfully at 62 years old you are just now getting to your retirement years, the years that many people have been longing to reach so they can start really having some freedom and fun.

You have a choice, you can stay stuck feeling like you have outlived your allotted time or you can realize there can be a whole lot of fun to look forward to.

 

[Morgana]

With statements like these ...

I hope to enjoy the company and maybe companionship of a woman. Seems that I just can't make my sox match or choose what meals are healthy for me. You get the drift

traveling from place to place is not how women are designed for the most part

... you are effectively cutting yourself off from the majority of women -- at least the interesting, fun, and self-respecting ones (including the ones you're talking to by posting in this forum). Who wants to be (a) pigeonholed based on their gender and (b) relegated to helping a man match his socks and choose healthy meals? There are 12-year-olds who can do those tasks. In all the time that you have been participating in this forum, have you paid any attention to the % of fellow participants who are women "traveling from place to place"?

If you need that much help with activities of daily living, maybe you should hire a maid and not try to call it "companionship." Or you could admit that you're not really that helpless. The world has changed. That kind of attitude doesn't fly any more. Male and female helplessness both used to be considered cute by some people, but they're really not any more -- no shtick works forever.

I'm sure every single person on this forum has something they were once attached to that, rightly or wrongly, doesn't fly any more. We move on or we get left behind. \_(**)_/ your choice.

You seem very attached to these expectations (at least, they haven't changed a hair, as far as I can tell, since you began posting to this forum). If they're more important to you than either fun or companionship, and if the feedback you're gotten here is so meaningless to you, carry on you're doing great! Otherwise consider pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and trying out new activities and new attitudes. There is no easy way. You just gotta do it. The old world is not coming back.

And dude, if this is really about bereavment rather than life choices, get some support for that -- it's huge. I'm sure your wife was a wonderful woman. But missing her is one thing (and you can find a good way to do that) -- trying to bring back the Ozzie and Harriet era is another. It ain't gonna happen.

 

[DLTooley]

Never sell your rig!

 

[bullfrog !]

Simplifying your life makes aging easier, mentally and physically in my opinion. Less stuff means less effort. People like myself and my wife spent many years working and developing as a team to the maximum of our abilities to handle the complex problems associated with buying and maintaining a sticks and bricks house as well as raising a family of three kids. As we have aged we are well past the peak of our abilities and realized most likely, eventually one of us will eventually be left on our own. We now work at reducing possessions which require effort to maintain or are finding the least expensive ways to keep necessary possessions without much required of us. We also insure we both practice required life skills instead of relying on one or the other to do them. I’ve become pretty good at things like feeding myself and washing clothes and my wife is getting good at paying bills and dealing with mechanics, large tasks which before we divided and specialized in to do more efficiently are now smaller as there is less to do and we have more time to do them which means even with our reduced abilities we can get them done. Forums like this one allow us to learn and gain a community with experience enabling us to imagine how to deal with the future at least as we expect it to be. Nothing wrong about missing the past but future happiness depends on your participation. Relearning or learning how to change how you deal with problems as an individual becomes the focus to respecting the results of all that work of years past. Whether you know it or not you contribute a lot to those around you when you choose to participate in things like this forum and the community in general. Hopefully that develops into you finding yourself future friends and happiness. My best advice is to stick around and see what develops without much expectation or worries. Stay active in the world around you as much as you can.

 

[abnorm]

But truthfully at 62 years old you are just now getting to your retirement years

He's 84..................married 62 years

 

[rruff]

...if this is really about bereavment rather than life choices, get some support for that -- it's huge.

I think that's most of it. I imagine it's hard to "move on" after 62 years of loving someone... no matter how well you deal with it... especially with a 84 year old body.

He's definitely in the generation where men and women had defined roles and ways of showing care and affection for each other... especially in rural areas. It seems weird... but it's not really that weird. I don't believe he's actually looking for someone to feed him and make his socks match, it's "code" for something else.

 

[WanderingRose]

My two cents…

2 years widowed after 62 years of marriage is just beginning to come out of the fog, if you are lucky, in my experience, wb8vyn.

It is a daily grind, trying to move forward and create a life on your own, and your deceased spouse will remain a shadow life at your side.

That’s just the way it is, in my experience, they are never really gone, we just learn to coexist with our past ever-present.

One foot ahead of the other, let established routines hold you up and provide some structure in your life until you are able to create new routines.

It is a process, not an event, and it does get better with time.