I had a first date at Marker 20 in downtown Hampton last night.  It was like a time portal back to 2015, my summer of online dating, sitting outside on the patio wondering if this meandering conversation with a handsome professional would be the last or first. 

After all, I only replied to his interest on a dating app because I was curious why he was hugging a former student of mine in one of his profile photos. 

It might furrow these growing forehead wrinkles for the next hour or two to compose it and choose some photos to hit it home, but the resulting six-minute read will give you some personal, real-life experience with the scope of dating in 2023. 

I’d just as soon keep these details to myself, as it’s challenging to respect the personal details of others while exposing myself so completely in the digital age.  It seems appropriate, however, to curate virtual lessons from my virtual relationship gaming experience.  Everyone is either trying to date or knows someone who is, given the divorce rate, right?

My readership includes men and women from teens to retired, and I’m speaking to a whole, human audience here.  I’m the daughter of a strong, Italian man who instilled in me an awareness of my inherent worth and value as a child of God.  Were it not for that, I might be tempted to believe that women of a certain age, like me, are simply vulnerable, easy targets.

While my writing does, dating at my age doesn’t make me vulnerable; it just makes me more selective. I added this verbiage to my dating profile today, specifying that if a man isn’t excited about the idea of being my future husband and baby daddy one day, there’s an X-button for that. 

A little forceful, admittedly, but hopefully effective in discouraging the kind of guy who will pressure me into getting physical on a first date or send me suggestive photographs before first meeting. 

It’s been a few years since my last real relationship, and Joshua sets the bar pretty high.  I could imagine him looking down on me from heaven last night, making conversation with a near-stranger for the first or last time at Marker 20.  I’d taken Joshua there years ago. I’d had all my first dates in 2015 there years before that. 

Joshua respected me from our first date in 2000 to our last in 2020.  He had Southern charm that was more than skin-deep, spirited Christian roots that made me immediately worth more than gold in his eyes.  I was precious, priceless, beautiful, and passionately worth waiting for… old souls in a millennial-run world. 

That’s the kind of man I know will want me in twenty years when these wrinkles are everywhere.  I will always miss Josh, and because he loved me well, I know what that looks like.  I won’t settle for less than his deep admiration and respect for me, mirroring that of my own father.

If you’re starting a business, you need a partner you can trust to do what’s in the best interest of the company.  And if you’re a single woman in this brave new world of dating, keep that in mind.  Establish a baseline of value for how you want to be treated.  Unfortunately, not all men are like my dad and Josh, instead with only their best fleeting interests at heart. 

That John Mayor song is appropriate here, “Fathers be good to your daughters. Daughters will love like you do.” The lyrics sift through the generations and role-reversals, encouraging us to be intentional about the messages we send within our home, not just filtering the outside influences. 

Not all my first dates have been bad.  I met a single dad at a bowling alley, and though the conversation was decent, I was distracted by his technique.  He used the lightest ball, same as me, and sort of flicked it down the lane.  Every date teaches me something.  Bowling might actually be a good first date option, moving forward.  I didn’t realize you could deduce so much about a person’s character by the way he throws a bowling ball. 

And after that date, he was intense with the texting.  On the other side of a text conversation, I could identify an undesirable trait and the failed dating venture was still edifying, still worth my time, helping me tweak my own habits.

This isn’t a whole summer of finding a match; I’m navigating my transition from teaching to writing, and while I’d like to find a match while I’m still young enough to have children, I’m netted into a bigger web.  It’s blood and friendships deepened through years into blood. 

My brother’s kids are watching me.  My best friend Mary Beth’s girls are watching me.  I love like my father was good to me, but am I committed to the same unwavering standard that I would hold for young men pursuing my nieces and God-nieces?  Do I expect the same treatment of respect and admiration for myself that I know my nephew will render to a lady someday, since that’s how his daddy raised him and his father before him? 

Not every man in the dating pool has a sister or daughter to level with emotionally, but they all have moms. I had a father that taught me my value.  I had the love of a man that made me know my worth.  For some of the men I’ve matched with, I’m left to wonder what their relationships with their mothers must have been like or maybe how their mothers were treated by their fathers.

I’m worried about the men like them, the boys they father, the ones that will prey on all my nieces’ innocent belief that men will be like my dad, like their dads.    

Whether or not any of my encounters lead to second dates, I’m grateful for the intuition that rises up.  It’s a feeling in my gut that I have to trust.  Whether instinct or Holy Spirit, I’m motivated by the reality that I’m not looking for anyone God doesn’t already have matched in a universal web of His design. 

I’m not desperate, quite the contrary.  If I don’t have another date for a year, I’d prefer that to another creep masquerading as Mr. Right.  Maybe my updated profile will better ward off lonely men with shallow expectations.  

There are young ladies watching me.  I feel like Josh is still watching me months after his death.  Would I dare settle for less than a gentleman?

So, you want to date me?  You don’t need to ask my dad like Joshua did decades ago, but you need to be a be a man he’d say yes to.  If I settle for less, what message does that send to all the little girls watching me find our forever families?