How's the DATING thing working for ya?

Black Barney wrote: Craniac, can you share anything about that dating students thing. This co-op student is probably not actually interested but if she is, I need to hear some of these stories to keep me from falling down an obvious hole.

ok, so OKCupid and Match.com both sound good then, I'll eventually look into those. There is another one with a terrible name but great idea. I think it's called MeatMarket and the idea is that you find a bunch of activities that single people with similar interests go to and you can just go out with the group that goes to play poker, or goes to see a movie, or goes to see art, or goes to play pool. This way you're just going out doing something you enjoy with a bunch of single people liking the same stuff and if something happens, it happens

Just that one of my favorite hippy teachers who later became a colleague was dating someone around 20, and he was approaching retirement. I felt bad for her because she always seemed out of place when meeting his grownup friends, and it didn't last. Oh, a student in grad school slept with a teacher in his sixties and I heard she got a great letter of recommendation for her PhD program. Oh, and I know someone else from another school who developed a relationship with a professor, and he left his wife and now they have two kids and seem happy. But I'm not privy to the personal details. Oh, and one of my students told me a professor who had left his wife a while ago was sleeping with a lot of students, but that he had some real mental issues. The student who was telling me this was with her boyfriend, and I got the sense that he might have graded her papers too, if you know what I mean. The thing that will get you in legal trouble is if they are your student when you start going out. I think they are changing the policy so you can't date any student, ever. It's surprising how common this is. I once had a student going through a divorce whose arm briefly brushed mine during conversation. She was a twin. That was eight years ago.

Shellhead wrote: so I took her to see The Misfits, with opening acts Agnostic Front, the Damned, and the Dickies.

Wha-?! Dude, she missed out on a keeper right there. The best show I've ever seen in my life was a triple bill of Black Flag, the Violent Femmes, and Suicidal Tendencies, but the above might have been a close second.

Shell, wow what a stressful first date! It almost sounds like Taxi Driver where Robert Deniro brings Cybil Shephard to a pr0n movie, lol. "I can't believe you brought me to this!!!"

Craniac, man I'm glad I'm not a professor. i would get into massive trouble I think. Yeah, I think these things are super common and the grading of papers and such is a common perk. Man...

I probably shouldn't have read through this thread, but I got sucked in. My wife and I filed for divorce yesterday. We've been married for 6 years and I was always happy with our relationship but everything has just gone to pot in the last year. When we were first talking about divorce it was something we both wanted and then I changed my tune and told her I wanted to stay together and she told me "I'm sorry but I still want a divorce."

With this thing on the horizon in the past few months my mind naturally goes to dating and it is 1/3 exciting and 2/3 terrifying and depressing. I definitely agree with those that have said it's better to work on something that might seem a little broken than starting all over again from square one. I'm 29 years old and we have a son that's 20 months old. I know I'm young and probably have lots of good romantic experiences ahead of me, but the thought of starting over really sucks. I belong to a pretty conservative religious community and am sure I will have experiences of people assuming things about me being a bad husband since I am divorced.

The real kicker is I'm a new mental health therapist right out of school. Some of my clients are couples seeking marital therapy. When I'm working with them I am constantly thinking in the back of my head "How can I help them when I couldn't even help myself?" Life is weird.

Tim, I don't post a lot here, mostly just lurking, but I feel compelled to offer my advice. Having been divorced myself now for about 8 years I would recommend avoiding dating until you have been divorced a while. "A while" is probably different for everybody, but I think that most of the time its hard to try and establish a new relationship with someone when going through the roller coaster of emotions that go along with a divorce. If you are like most, I think you will find your emotions will be all over the place for some time.

Just my two cents.

airmarkus wrote: Tim, I don't post a lot here, mostly just lurking, but I feel compelled to offer my advice. Having been divorced myself now for about 8 years I would recommend avoiding dating until you have been divorced a while. "A while" is probably different for everybody, but I think that most of the time its hard to try and establish a new relationship with someone when going through the roller coaster of emotions that go along with a divorce. If you are like most, I think you will find your emotions will be all over the place for some time.

Just my two cents.

Sounds right to me. A close friend of mine got divorced in 2008 after 10 years of marriage, and he was very bitter and cynical for some time after, even though he did well in family court. He started dating again almost immediately, but it took him several years to stop acting like a frantically horny sociopath. One year ago, he met his current girlfriend and they seem very happy together.

airmarkus wrote: Tim, I don't post a lot here, mostly just lurking, but I feel compelled to offer my advice. Having been divorced myself now for about 8 years I would recommend avoiding dating until you have been divorced a while. "A while" is probably different for everybody, but I think that most of the time its hard to try and establish a new relationship with someone when going through the roller coaster of emotions that go along with a divorce. If you are like most, I think you will find your emotions will be all over the place for some time.

Just my two cents.

So much this.

Long term relationships like that are weird toget over. The length of time needed is different for everyone, but if you do decide to be social with your choice of potential partners, let them know where you're at.
As if honesty being the best policy needs to be said, but in this case especially true.
Some girls I dated after break up understood this well and our relationship was fine. Others had to excuse themselves.
It took me about 4 years before I found someone I could be in a long term relationship with again after being in one for 8 years.
For a long span, I just simply wasn't interested and wanted to be single. I hate being lonely, but I grew to love myself again and it was a good thing for me, and those whom I chose to date.

Good luck, everyone. Dating, no matter the age, is just suck unless you are out to use and abuse. If if so, then good luck to those you date.

Tim, really sad to hear your news. It's insane how much new babies absolutely destroy relationships. That's what it was for me anyway.

If ever you need to talk or vent and could use some support and clear thinking, the Fort really helped me a lot. Either post openly like you have or PM me anytime, I'd be thrilled to pay forward what the Fort did for me. Just not between 6:30pm and 6:45pm, that's Barney's time.

Oh, and listen to whatever the fuck Airmarkus says. That guy's advice became scripture for me. Really helped me a ton as did many others here. We love ya.

With the realistic prospect of becoming a widower in my 40s in the next few years, like Tim I am also reading the thread when it would probably be better if I didn't. However I think death is very different to divorce, and it really depends on the circumstances. I have seen two people of my parents vintage lose their partner and the one whose husband dropped dead very unexpectedly from a heart attack never was able to move on, but the other involving a long slow decline to death was able to move on very quickly. While initially shocked I can see how that can happen as you spend years knowing you will be without them and spend years putting yourself second, so you are can get to the place emotionally where you can move on much sooner.

I hear death is easier than divorce. The finality is easier to process. Divorce feels very much like a death but you have to move on with the other person still existing. It's very difficult.

Black Barney wrote: Tim, really sad to hear your news. It's insane how much new babies absolutely destroy relationships. That's what it was for me anyway.

If ever you need to talk or vent and could use some support and clear thinking, the Fort really helped me a lot. Either post openly like you have or PM me anytime, I'd be thrilled to pay forward what the Fort did for me. Just not between 6:30pm and 6:45pm, that's Barney's time.

Oh, and listen to whatever the fuck Airmarkus says. That guy's advice became scripture for me. Really helped me a ton as did many others here. We love ya.

Thanks Barney and everyone else for the love and wisdom. This website seriously has some of the classiest people ever. MuMu, I'm really sorry to hear about your situation. It's different from divorce but still terrible to go through either way. My step-dad is a widower. It sounds like they had a really great marriage and then his wife died on a slow decline. He was someone that was able to heal pretty fast and then met my mom. Everyone's different but I still wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Divorce sucked. I think everyone who is advising you to wait for a long period (like a year, more?) is giving you the right advice. Advice I didn't follow---I got into the relationship with my now 2nd spouse after like 4-5 months. It made our relationship harder in retrospect, because I probably had a lot of shit still to deal with from the marriage. But things are still going well so far, just did our 5 year wedding anniversary and been together for considerably longer than that, so hopefully it was just an (unhealthy) roadblock for us. And god DAMN am I happier with the new spouse than I was with the old spouse, even though I was the one desperately trying to keep it together. Fuck, if you looked through this forum you could probably find ancient posts of me dealing with it.

That said, I feel for all you guys because I got divorced in my late 20s but was still in graduate school, so had access to many smart and beautiful potential partners still. My buddy has it much harder as he's dating in his 30s as a professional. But, it's still doable---he's living with someone he met from OKcupid, both phds, she has an awesome job, etc. Men and women are out there looking for decent non-shitty hookup dates, they're just harder to find... my advice would be NOT to follow some of the advice you get on the internet at large about tailoring your profile as if you're just looking for some sort of post-college fling or whatever, you're not going to bring in reasonably serious people with just that. But, of course, don't look like a total commit obsessed psycho either.

Black Barney wrote: I hear death is easier than divorce. The finality is easier to process. Divorce feels very much like a death but you have to move on with the other person still existing. It's very difficult.

In the past, I sometimes found it easier to deal with a breakup by pretending my ex was dead. I live in a big enough metro area that I almost never encounter my exes.

I've gained a lot from lurking this thread (it didn't feel right to use the word "enjoyed"), and I really appreciate everyone's willingness to share.

My marriage is in a very rocky place, and divorce looks likely. This is the first time I've expressed that thought "out loud." I'm having trouble accepting it, but at the same time I kind of fantasize about it. I'm resistant to change, but we're both fairly miserable in our current state. I can't decide if the right course is to work through it or just go our separate ways. My wife is finally seeing a therapist, and I'm more than willing to join her when the time is right.

Anyway, it's interesting to me to read about your dating concerns. For me, if we do get divorced, I would very much enjoy just being alone for at least a year. My worry is that I would prefer being alone too much, which might end up being a bad thing.

Sorry to hear about that, Gregarius. I hope things work out the way you'd like, stay or go. I think there is a level of value to be gained from spending some time alone. The one thing you want to be sure to do is limit your level of isolation. After being with someone for so long, you might find that making the effort to go out and do things with friends seems like it's not worth it. But you have to push yourself in that respect, I think.