Dating & Relationships: Maybe There's No Other Half....For This in The Musings of a Former Filmmaker Turned Writer

I’m almost forty, I’m not getting any younger and I’ve never been in a relationship, I’ve never had a boyfriend, I’ve never been on a date, I’ve never been kissed, none of that. I want a relationship though. I want to one day, get married, if I have children or if I don’t is negotiable, but I’d definitely like to get married. I don’t want to grow old and then die a “Mother Teresa.” However, it looks like that’s where I’m headed.

It’s not like I haven’t tried to change things for myself either, I have. I’ve tried to “shoot my shot,” as young people say, with men, but what I’ve found is that a lot of Caucasian men, especially Caucasian men, forty to forty-five, and over, aren’t interested in dating a black/biracial woman, especially one that’s younger than they are. It’s not because I’m ugly or fat either, oh no. Quite the contrary. I’ve been told by men and women, who were all strangers, that I’m very pretty and some even suggested that I should model because I walk on my tiptoes and have a very athletic body.

Some have said that I look a bit like Janet Jackson, I’m intelligent, I have a budding writing career with me writing my first novel. I also have a stable job, I pay my own bills, and I have my own car. I like classical music, Celtic and Scottish music, Ambrosia, Hall & Oates, Seals & Croft, Simply Red, Genesis, definitely Led Zeppelin, and much more. So I have a lot of what I would think are great qualities but.....I just don’t know what it is. Maybe men don’t want someone who’s....who’s....well, let me put it this way, someone who’s like athlete, Lolo Jones when it comes to her status when it comes to intimacy with the opposite sex (not her religious beliefs). Maybe it’s a turn-off for men, maybe it’s a turn-off for older men, to have a younger woman be interested in them. I don’t know.

There was one man on social media who I was very, very attracted to. He was everything I was looking for in a man, looks-wise, age-wise, he had (and still has) the intelligence, a sense of humor and full of charisma, and charm, from Vancouver, Canada but lives in beautiful Venice, CA....anyway, I tried leaving little hints on social media that I had feelings of attraction for him, but either he was just not even paying attention to them, or just like other white men, he wasn’t interested.

That’s how it’s always been with me. I get interested in a man of the opposite race, and it goes nowhere. I’ve tried going out to places - movie theaters, bookstores, libraries, grocery stores, but it’s always the same thing, I always end up striking out.

You know, This month, I began watching old episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond and during one episode, character, “Robert Barone” told character, “Marie Barone” (who was his mother on the show) the following:

“I’m done, I’m done dating, I’m done trying to meet someone, I’m done with humiliation, I can’t anymore. I wish I had a good reason why I’m always striking out, but I don’t. It’s me. It’s me. Most people find their other half and I just have to wake up and accept already that maybe there is no other half…for this.”

Before watching that episode, I had never heard someone verbalize so perfectly how I feel about dating, relationships, and love, but now I have, and it is kind of sad and even kind of tragic, but, I guess....it is what it is.

~ P.

Last updated July 16, 2022