When it comes to dating, men can be very harsh or, let’s say… there is a double standard that quickly puts you into an undatable category!!

Summer of 2019, I started dating!! I sat across from a father in his 40s who was separated. Sipping his gin & tonic at a bar, discreetly swapping books with me, I listened to him talk about his complicated relationship with his ex-wife, his children, whom he didn’t see much of, and his therapist. He was comfortable enough to tell me about his private life, and I found myself surprised!! No, actually, blown away by it. It was my very first date since my divorce. I hadn’t dated for so long it was like another world to me. I felt absolutely lost!

Standing therein real-time, as they say, not meeting them via intentional setups or dating apps and didn’t know what to expect. Scary!

There were a few red flags (I tend to listen to my intuition now), but I was thankful for the transparency during our first few dates. As a woman who is interested in genuine connections, I found his honesty and vulnerability refreshing (to some extent) going on dates with men who weren’t afraid to share their feelings and the challenges in their lives. That’s something else! He may have been a bit of a mess, but either way, his ability to be forthcoming made our conversations flow. After all, I wasn’t interested in dating Mr Perfect or meeting a persona. That would be an utter waste of time, something that, as a single mum, I’m not a time-waster, even if it doesn’t last.

I went on two more dates after that and had some short-lived affairs; I'm not going to lie; I enjoyed the freedom and still do!

I started noticing a pattern after that. Even on our very first dates, the men were always willing (maybe desperate to do other things which I had no intention of doing so fast, so they didn’t even try). It seemed that men in this stage of life, separated or divorced with kids, often can’t hide their vulnerabilities; I didn’t need them to. But as a divorced woman and mum of 1, I soon learned that grace didn’t go both ways. More often than not, I was expected to hide my complexities or not have any at all. I sometimes wound up feeling that mentions of my own struggles or even just signs of my imperfect life could change the dynamic completely.

The double standards men have

It went like this: men would fill me in on the details of their lives. They’d tell me about how their wives had emasculated them and how they inspired & motivated them to step up or their struggles. Those with whom I felt connected, I might end up dating for a few weeks or months. But when I started to share my truths, even merely parenting challenges or just life as a mum! (the same kinds of challenges these guys shared with me all the time and wanted help with and support working through), I was often met with shifty eyes. It always feels like these guys are too busy drowning in their own issues that they simply didn’t have the emotional strength to extend themselves to me. But it could be that dating a single mum just wasn’t attractive to them. Men couldn’t overlook the fact that I had a real-life, real stuff!

I wasn’t just this woman. I had a kid, an ex, and so on. But they never asked me about any of it. They couldn’t step up to the table as they continuously went on about needing a woman who could step up.

I couldn’t stress a man if I wanted to; I’m that efficient, I don’t really need anyone. So if I want someone, it’s genuine, and I don’t need anyone to look after me. It seems very much that men worry about having to carry their partners. They're very afraid of having a leach suck the life out of what they built so hard to get. It really does dawn on men, but they miss the fact that there are women out there whodunit NEED them but want them; there is a huge difference.

I wondered if my vulnerabilities as a single mum have made me undatable. And I became so weary each time I was noticed by men because of all the superficial standards some men hold. Because letting men know that I was a real person, one who found this mascara (of which I barely even wear) at the bottom of my bag, wasn’t what they wanted. They didn’t want my real life, my stress, or my imperfections in their faces. They wanted an easygoing, carefree woman who has tons of time and patience for their drama but no real baggage of her own. They wanted a clean house with no signs of kids (even though most of them had kids of their own), a properly loaded dishwasher, and white veneered teeth.

It felt like the men I kept meeting were craving a soft place to land with no other baggage, which they hoped I could provide. So even hinting that I also had had a kid was too much for them (because of what it might have entailed), Or maybe I was too much for them. I wanted to be my authentic self so the relationship would be fulfilling for me, but doing so felt like a deal-breaker. Although I met a couple of guys who were struggling too much to have anything to offer another person, I somehow felt it was so much more genuine and true! These men had been so upfront about their own damage, yet each time, I walked away licking my wounds. I felt things had crumbled because I, the person who was expected to be the nurturer, dared to expect anything in return.

The reciprocation

The dynamic didn’t completely change, even in a relationship. I haven’t fallen madly in love with a guy or separated guy who has had his own issues but appeared to be dealing with them. Of course, they shared them with me on our second date, over a couple of cocktails. They were all very self-aware. At first, I thought it was refreshing to find guys who were trying to mend themselves rather than ask a woman to do it for them. It was complicated, yes, but who isn’t, I suppose nobody is perfect. What mattered to me was that they were working on their mental and emotional health, which struck me as mature and was a break in the pattern I kept seeing. If they were trying to work through their troubles, they wouldn’t expect me to do it for them. They would also have the mental space for a real relationship, the reciprocation that seemed so hard for me to come by.

In the end, I couldn’t see myself having any more patience, let alone wait for the good to turn bad or catastrophic. Although we seemed to get along, some situations left me feeling derailed, to not wanting a relationship at all.. altogether, leaving me to shut down.

There was this one guy I dated who seemed pretty normal and had his life together, but then again, the same problem arose; in the end, it ended after I told him he needed to be less arrogant, less self-centred and less superficial, and to apologise when he was wrong. I had been willing to support him in any way I could, and I thought it could actually work out. To my demise, I was the problem. Yet when it came to the real me, a person with my own needs, ultimately, it was too much for him to handle.

My expectations are always reasonable; I don’t ask for anything as I’m pretty easygoing, no stress and not a needy girl. But it didn’t feel like it when I kept finding myself with men who didn’t want to reciprocate. Or even step up. After letting a man’s troubles, even a man I cared for very much, completely overshadow my own, I felt certain I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. The next time a genuine connection came along, I would cut and run the second it felt like he couldn’t embrace my vulnerabilities in the same way that I embraced his. I wouldn’t allow a man to make me feel like his feelings mattered more than mine or that having emotions at all made me too emotionally needy or unstable.

Funny enough, I lost a lot of emotional attachment towards relationships and don’t feel like I NEED a man but rather enjoy the thought of maybe having someone. But oddly, as soon as they see that I’m not quite an attached girl, I don’t get jealous or make a scene; they are founded by my cut and leave without a trace strategy; they seem to come running or seem to think I’m a male version of them. Their vulnerability does not equal my “end strategy,” as infuriatingly used to that double standards men have. I would find someone better, a man who wasn’t terrified of female emotions or nothing at all.

But the biggest lesson I learned by far was that just because a person doesn’t have enough to give, that doesn’t mean you’re asking them for anything, let alone hang on like a leach. It just means you’re asking the wrong person.

Breaking the double standard!

I picked myself up from a crushing or should I say, wounded self-worth along with my self-esteem down the drain; I nervously started looking for ways I could boss up and level up. I have not been on a date since. Post-breakup was with a sly player who seemed to miss that I could look straight through him. A man who treated our dates like friends with benefits. Between us…I’m enjoying just being in my early thirties and enjoying life to the fullest because, well, life is too short, right!? My attention would always seem very limited before letting him know I had to pick up my kid. Maybe there was no real connection, or maybe I had learned not to give too much of myself away to men I felt certain were not capable of returning the favor. Either way, I just wished I was sitting at a bar, talking to the hot bartender who was interested in what I was reading.

Anyway, A few days later, this new player and I were seeing each other. He would go on to say he was free and almost hippie-like. I enjoyed his music! he had an amazing voice. I guess that kept me amused. And, he was every bit as forthcoming as the other men I had met over the past year. He wasn’t a dad or an ex-husband, but he was messy and complicated nonetheless. He knew he was floundering in life. I mean, he’d slept till 1 o’clock in the afternoon. I didn’t need to see the extent of his messiness, but who was I to judge? I left with my “end” strategy without a trace. The men I’d been around recently were floundering in their own, more socially acceptable ways. Like, you know, dumping all their agony on women they’ve just met and slipping out the second the women became vulnerable or real with them.

What was utterly refreshing was that he acknowledged his messiness but accepted me with all my imperfections. And hanging out with someone who didn’t need much from me, probably because we both knew that despite our great chemistry, it wasn’t built to last. I just wanted someone to have fun with for a while, and he turned out to be the perfect anecdote. Maybe welcoming vulnerability while keeping my expectations exceedingly low was the key to surviving the post-divorce dating world anyway. But even if the double standard continues, so will my hope that a proper break in this sort of pattern behaviour does, too.

Have you had the same experience?!!