The only women my age I would be interested in

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The key is the word "both". So you are both having the same common struggle. That, in fact, can draw people closer. But what Nick is suggesting is not one common struggle but rather "her" using "my" riches. Thats different.

I got the impression he more meant bringing financial stability to the table, and maybe she'd bring other things to the table. That seems different then situations where one partner is just using the other for their riches but doesn't care about bringing anything to the table that person would benefit from.

It seems like he said the part that she would "bring to the table" is being willing to overlook my age. Since she, herself does not have the age problem, that is not a "common struggle". So she won't really feel like my peer. Rather she would feel like I have some resources.

I want to actually feel like a peer with the woman. I don't want her to think of me as a father figure. I want the two of us to act as if we are the same age, since thats how I feel like anyway. I feel like time moved too fast and I shouldn't even be 41 to begin with.

My fiance often talks about a common struggle yet in the way of helping with chores which overwhelm him, besides being hired full-time hes having a really hard time maintaining a house, calling insurance, shopping, bill calculus and everything else on his own. I don't know how he handles all this life but he does sometimes feel like it's too much and for good reason. He doesn't have the luxury of relaxing enough even on weekends, especially now with us applying for a visa. Being an engineer is really hard too, he practically invents new programs from scratch ever so often, and edits them and they keep getting bugs with those edits. It's harder than being a newspaper story writer. Be creative on command. Code is really abnoxious and the requirements of 'getting it done on a timeline' are ridiculous.
Being able to help him is essential and for that I have to deal with my biggest issues though together we are invincible [or we try to be until we get things done]

And unavailable. Attractive women in their 40s and 50s are rarely single. I worked with a 50yr old who was into marathon running and looked absolutely like a model. She was single and able to pull 20yr old men on the dating scene (this predates Tinder so she was picking up in bars).

@QFT
Not sure if you are talking hypothetical or actual here?
When I was tutoring undergraduate students (back when I was around 40yrs old) I had a really attractive 19yr old blonde student who became very attached to me and would stay after class and talk to me. Her father was in the British diplomatic core in Singapore and she was sent to Melbourne to study and was feeling very lonely and unable to make friends. She wanted to be my friend and see me after work. Had I not been married the temptation to agree would have been overwhelming. She was also incredibly intelligent/articulate for her age and able to converse about anything. She had that pleasant voice. But there was also the professional code of conduct where I wasn't really supposed to fraternise with my students outside of class.

Toward the end of the semester I bit the bullet and explained (in the nicest way I could) that I was happy to continue to mentor her but would not be appropriate to socialise outside work. She was very understanding but she told me she wasn't looking for a mentor (she wanted a friend).

The moral of the story is (yes) there are girls out there who would be willing to overlook your age and not see you as only a mentor or father figure but in all the years I have worked in the university sector and perhaps thousands of students she might be the only one who fits into your category, Trying to say they are very very rare. Like hen's teeth.

I will try to PM you tomorrow when I have more time to answer. To get to tenure-track in chemistry, most places require a post doc with a certain number of quality publications. I could not do a post doc when I graduated (Great Recession era, none available), so I went into teaching community college first before working my way up to the university level. My research collaborator did become a full tenured professor starting in my type of position without a post doc, but it was a different time then.

Same. Me and my girlfriend are using each other to afford a house. I really don't want to move back with my hoarder mother and I don't think she wants to live with her mother in China. Our father's are both deceased.

If you re-read this thread, you will see the line between hypothetical and actual.

1) In the OP I talked about my dating preferences. This is actual.

2) Nick suggested I try to use my presumably-high finances to attract women. I responded that

a) I don't have such finances to begin with

b) Even if I did, this wouldn't be worth it

So the point "2b" is hypothetical. Yet, despite being hypothetical, I found it important to harp on it anyway, in order not to mislead people with regards to my preferences. Because you see, if I were to say "2b is hypothetical anyway, lets not talk about it", then everyone would assume that if it wasn't for 2a I would have been open to the idea. This would have led to the assumption that I approach relationships with a very shallow angle, which would lead to shallow advice. So in order to prevent it, I found it necessary to stress my attitude about 2b, despite it being hypothetical.

However, as far as 1, it is actual And my intent was to talk about the actual (Item 1). It was only in response to Nick that it got derailed to hypothetical (2b).



I had similar experience as a TA. There was one girl in my class who also had Asperger and she tried to be friends with me. She even said she has a couple of single friends she would introduce me to. I told her that I am not allowed to be friends with her if I was her TA.

Sometimes I wonder why is it, of all other women whom I would have gladly talked to, it happened to be the exact woman whom I knew not to? Is it because

a) She was hoping for better grade

or

b) She knew I would have to say no to her at some point so she didn't feel "threatened" the way other women would be?

As far as Asian women this is a whole other story (that woman in class was an American of European descent by the way). I get plenty of Asian women trying to contact me on dating sites who are probably trying to immigrate from Asian countries to the US. And I am just not interested: I would like a woman with European descent.

But you gave me a good suggestion with regards to trying to contact women from Europe or Russia. Since they are every bit as White as Americans so its not even a compromise. Thanks to your suggestion, I actually talked to one woman in Russia and the other one in England (although the one from Russia immigrated to America when she was 9, so she is even more American than me seeing that I immigrated at 14, but still fact remains: she talked to me a lot more than others) And I blew it in both casees. Although the difference is that Americans ignore me from get go while these two women actually gave me a chance until I blew it. Yet when I did, they left in unexpected way.

As far as the woman from Russia what happened was that before I was supposed to skype with her, I realized I needed to buy something for school, so I said I wanted to postpone skype by half an hour. Then it ended up being an hour rather than half an hour since I didn't budget my time correctly. Then, in an hour, I came to caffee where it was too noisy. Then when I went outside the caffee so that there is less noise, the connection was bad. And then when I finally found a different caffee without noise and good wifi, I was at 1 hour 45 minute mark. So she said "15 minutes left". And I was like "oh no can we skype next time". She didn't say "no" right away, yet she didn't seem too eager either. And then eventually she told me she lost interest because I kept making her wait.

As far as woman from England, I had skype issues with her too but -- unlike the russian one -- she was very understanding about them without any issues. But then what happened was that when I got upset at people at the caffee, I took it out on her and cussed her out. Surprisingly, she was understanding about it too. In fact, she could guess I was mad at someone else since she asked me whom was I mad at. Then few days later I again got frustrated (this time at my work not being as effective as I wanted to) so I cussed her out again. This time she again seemed understanding, she said something along the lines of "okay I understand take care". Then 10 minutes later she wrote me a message that she doesn't think we are a match because "she has an impression" that every time I am upset I would take it out on her. Well, first of all, why not tell this to me right away so that I can respond to her? Secondly, if "she has an impression", why not "ask me"? Thirdly, I DID respond to her right when I got that message, yet she NEVER LOGGED INTO SKYPE TO READ IT.

So both Russian woman and British woman felt the same. In case of both of these women, they appeared a lot more interested than American ones, to the point of my taking them for granted. And then in both of those cases I ran into "oooppppssss". With Russian woman it was "ooopppsss I ran out of time, I hope we can talk again" and with British woman it was like "ooooppppssss she isn't logging into skype, I hope I can deliver that message to her somehow".

Age is no more a barrier than race. In my life I've dated women both significantly older and younger than myself. My partner now is significantly younger. We have common interests, are very attracted to each other, and are emotionally and sexually compatible. All these things are far more important than age. And no, I'm not rich or even financially stable.

But I didn’t come up with age out of the blue. That was part of the feedback I had when I was asking those questions. So do you think that if someone is likable, such as you, they will overlook the age, while if someone is not likable, such as me, they will use age as an excuse? That would seem to make sense, particularly since women didn’t like me back when I was young either. Although at the same time there were three or four women from good old days that liked me (four out of a decade — not much) and now I don’t have even that.

I'm actually not very likeable. I definitely put a lot of people off with my bluntness and inability to play social games.

Perhaps you just need to be more open-minded about dating someone your own age if you feel younger people will be more challenging?

QFT I am just curious whether the instances you "blow it" (like this one with Russian girl) whether it comes from a systemic habit OR not being able to sustain the flow you initially create OR a coincidental series of bad luck?

Which brings me back to OP (see the title). There "are" people my age whom I would happily date: namely, the ones I met all the way back when I was in my 20-s. That way I am not thinking of them as "40 year old" rather I am thinking of them as "20 year old who became 40 year old". I just wish there was a way to meet those people.

I am actually thinking of two specific female cashiers who kept trying to talk to me when we were both in our 20-s and I kept ingoring them (which was stupid of me). I wish I knew how to find them. One of them was at a food store in Minneapolis that no longer exists, but I remember exact street corner it was at. The other one was at Jimmy Jones in Ann Arbor that was still there the last time I checked (few years ago) not sure whether its still there, probably is.

Actually, I "did" have "some" unexpected success finding people from the past a few years ago. I thought to myself that I really miss a certain Adventist club I used to go to, so I decided to go to an Adventist church in hopes to somehow connect to some of those old folks. This sounds crazy because that club was in Michigan and I was in New Mexico. But I was lucky: a woman in Adventist church here in New Mexico approached me to say she used to go there all the way back in Michigan. She was married though. But married or not, at least I got my past back. Plus she also shared nastalgy about Michigan too. But here I blew it as well. Even though I was every bit as excited to remember Michigan as she did, I didn't know how to express it. Plus I also asked her whether she would think of her kids as her own given that her husband is black. I apologized for it and they said they accepted apology. Yet she didn't act as excited to meet me as she used to prior to that (she called all her friends to say she met me in the desert; well not any more).

But in any case, like I said she was married anyway. So that was a missed friendship opportunity, not missed dating opportunity or anything else (unless she was going to play a matchmaker or something which I don't think she was). Still though, I wish I could meet others in the past the way I met her. If I could meet people from the past, then yes I would be willing to date the ones that are my age (see the title) provided they are still single of course.

The immaturity of my 19 y o ex was extremely hard to deal with. At 30 you just need so much more. All she wanted was to flirt and didn't listen to my feelings or anything I'd say. It's a difficult age where they have issues building their career and studies as well as issues with their parents and substance use. I really think at 30 and above you need more, someone who understands you and have more in common with as well as thinks in a different way.