P2YL | 42. Where can you meet eligible men you like?

Media alert: 'The women joining high-end gyms for a month – to find a rich husband'

Makes you tut-tut in disapproval at such shallow and materialistic ‘gold diggers’? 

I think, ‘Oh well, good luck to them.’



‘Improving your chances’

There is much P2YL | Part 2 Of Your (Love?) Life experience behind why I think many a woman who is neither shallow nor materialistic might improve her love- and life-chances through a little canny thinking.



Why Jane Austen was onto something

I was aggressively feminist as a teenager but even so, lingering at the back of my mind, were the words of two older, professional women with whom I came into contact at the time.

One was a famous and well-regarded author to whom I had written to ask for advice on writing as a career.

I had a deeply warm-hearted and generous reply from her with many encouraging words and some stark realism: 

‘You ask whether writing pays.

Even these days

[ie after she had become well-known and prolific]

I couldn’t do much more than barely get by

if my husband didn’t support me.’

As a teenager I had a holiday job at a public library and I well remember overhearing one library assistant (female) talking about pay to another:

‘It’s all right as a second income but you couldn’t live on it.’

The other assistant agreed.

From this I picked up that 1) the sort of work I was interested in and good at paid poorly; and 2) that many women recognised the benefits of a shared life.



How a straitened childhood shaped me

I observed all of this from a childhood spent in a struggling household.

My mother was an intellectual, cultured graduate who had married my father, a low-earning manual worker with no education past the age of fourteen. He had a good worth ethic but never earned much. She worked part-time as a schoolteacher during my earliest childhood but took early retirement after her mental health broke down.

'Love with your head, not just your heart.'

There was a rickety, anxious, and uncomfortable quality to our homelife. Witnessing the effect of living life pared to the bone surely influenced me. 

I loved and respected both my parents but couldn’t escape the nagging thought that my mother’s marital choice gave her a much darker and cramped life than she might have had.



Indeed she once cautioned me, ‘Love with your head, not just your heart.’

First marriage

Fast forward to living in my mid-twenties in a vibrant university city. It was easy to meet single, age-appropriate men via a lively middle-class church with a young congregation and lots of social events. 

Church felt the right romantic environment for me then as I valued men with intelligence and depth who sought a moral compass in life.

This is where I met and married Husband No. 1 who was training to be an airline pilot.

I wasn’t ‘looking for a rich husband’ but I did go to a place where I knew I was likely to meet intelligent, professional, spiritual men so you could say my instincts proved correct.

I loved, trusted, and respected him completely. If you want more detail you can read about what happened in My secret history.

So even though the marriage tragically ended after fourteen years I still believe we were right to marry. Many good things came out of it that have made my life immeasurably better. 

I have no regrets and think we were brought together, but marriage always carries a risk. 



Life as a divorced, single woman

Second time round I was in my forties. By this point the dating pool was much smaller.

So if I were serious about marrying again, I realised I had to make an effort and use intentionality.

The initial interest doesn’t have to be the thing that binds you together

Someone advised, ‘Just do what interests you and you’ll meet someone.’

There are a couple of potential hiccups here:

• What if your interests attract 99.9% women rather than men?

• Looking for a carbon-copy of yourself isn’t necessarily love. It’s borderline narcissism. Having a partner with some differences means each partner contributes something different and refreshing to the relationship. 
  

So I spread my interests a little more widely than my usual pursuits and I’d advise other women in the same boat to do so too.

It doesn’t matter that sport/wine-tasting/an evening class in industrial architecture isn’t your life’s overruling passion.

A vague interest and willingness to discover more is enough to reap benefits because if you meet someone you like there, you often discover you enjoy each other's company and have other things in common.

The initial interest doesn’t have to be the one thing that binds you together.



Activities with ‘M’-appeal

 Some activities I tried which I sensed would attract male participants:

• Yes, I did join an upmarket gym. The environment helped me shape up and got me used to being round men again. So when I did go dating, I felt relaxed with men and they warmed to that.

• The gym had also cottoned on to the fact that many people find themselves alone in midlife and so organised social events at which to meet other members.

• A bookclub which didn’t read chicklit but instead classic literature and history. This attracted more men than women.

• A debating club. The fact I had no intention of speaking in a public debate didn’t matter. As a club member, you could mingle and chat to other people over drinks afterwards. Slightly more men than women attended.

• A cinema club which was friendly, social, and lively. A good mix of men and women.

• An evening talk on Concorde/a day-event dedicated to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Both topics attracted ten times more men than women.

• Bridge. Actually I didn’t do this but an older widow I met said learning to play bridge had been a very good way for her to meet and get to know new men. 
  

'Taking part makes you an even more interesting and attractive person to other people, including men.’

Even if you don’t meet a life-partner at one of these activities the fact you take part in them gives you new experiences to talk about and helps make you an even more interesting and attractive person to other people, including men you may meet later.

Things that get you off your sofa are often a good idea.

Remarriage

And second time round along came the boon of Meetup groups. 

Single again, I deliberately chose a local Meetup walking group that did 10k at weekends — rather than 5k weekday walks — as I sensed the weekend group would be more likely to attract fit and active men who were also gainfully employed during the working week.

I was right. Along came Tim. Next year is our tenth wedding anniversary. I couldn’t be happier and hopefully he would say the same.

Weirdly enough he’s involved in aviation too. 

I didn’t plan this aviation theme in my life but somehow it happened and I love it.

My experience is, when you put the effort in and act intentionally and persist with a good heart, things happen, even if it takes time.

Simone de Beauvoir said:

‘It’s not a question of dreaming, it’s a question of willing.’