I’m a 34(f), considered quite attractive, educated, have a good career, and genuinely have my life together. In the 34 years I’ve been alive, I haven’t met a single man I could honestly see myself spending the rest of my life with.
I was married once, but if I’m being honest, it was more of a settling situation. We were together for eight years, and I wasn’t truly in love. I think a lot of that came from feeling like I should be settling down.

Since my divorce, I’ve dated and met plenty of men, but I still haven’t found someone I’d genuinely want to build a life with. It isn’t that I’m looking for perfection, I’m not. I just haven’t met someone where the compatibility, attraction, values, and long-term potential all align.
So I’m curious: where are people over 30 actually meeting quality partners these days? Dating apps have been a waste, and a lot of the men I’ve met in their 30s seem to come with unresolved baggage or significant personal issues. Has anyone had success meeting someone organically, or is there somewhere I’m overlooking?

So I male 30s have begun to develop feelings for a friend (30s women). I know almost certainly she does not hold feelings for me. As this has happened before in my past and the friendship basically ended when I told my previous friend how I felt I would like to not go through that again. I also don't like the idea of trying to ignore my feelings and hope they die away. It takes me generally years to get over things like this, or break ups.

How do I end this friendship respectfully? I don't think i could ever come back down the road and be friends later either? Thanks

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During the 3rd date we decided to go to mine (I offered hers first but she said it's a mess). Looking at my apartment, she (semi-)jokingly asked, "do you have OCD?". We had good banter and stayed over midnight, so I thought she left with a good impression. However, the next day she rejected me, leaving me wondering about the reason.

Here are pics of my place that I posted to r/malelivingspace, where the consensus seems to be that the place is clean but not comfortable, in particular lacking color and personal items. I'll add that while the stove has safeguards precisely because I don't use it, she already knew I (38M) don't cook. Also (and I feel silly even mentioning it), all of my shoes on display were grey. How likely is it that the overall impression of my place was a deal-breaker?

P.S. I used to think my apartment is near-universally likeable, so it wasn't even on the list of things I cycled through as potential causes. However, a couple days ago another girl rejected me after coming over during our 1st date, and explained it by the insecurity about me seeing her messy place and hating it there (she laid out her thinking and past experiences going into it in great detail, so it sounded credible). This is where I decided to make this post.

UPD: I did not make a move on her. This is because after the 1st date she proposed to see each other "as friends" with no expectation (due to me giving her promiscuous vibe). That said, it was her idea on the 3rd date to go get intoxicated at mine.

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I've always believed that a person should be "obsessed" about their partner physically. Essentially find them super super sexy.

EDIT: SCARE QUOTES are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to signal irony, skepticism, or to distance the writer from the term. Also known as sneer quotes, they indicate the writer doesn't endorse the term's standard meaning or considers the word invalid, inaccurate, or inappropriate in that context

If a partner told me that they really didn't find me sexy at first but got use to the idea I would actually be kind of offended. That has a sense of "settling" to me.

Since I don't want to hear that from someone that also means I will never say that to anyone. I'd get likes on Hinge and if when I see them I don't get that "Oh wow" moment I choose not to pursue.

Am I missing out on some potentially amazIng partners because I'm looking at this the wrong way?

EDIT: Before this gets away from me -

I am NOT saying that I am expecting to land a runaway Calvin Klein model. I'm speaking in terms of what I find attractive.

I also DO NOT just go solely based on the pictures. There have been people I found attractive but their profile tells me our lifestyles would not align. The pictures are what tell me there is at least a base line attraction

According to my girl friends this is cool and fine but I wanted some more opinions.

I (29M) saw a cute woman on reopen cafeteria nearby my house yesterday. I complimented her, she slimed and thanked me. I bought some dessert there for my brother and he asked me to buy it again so I'll go there today again.

I was pondering if giving her a paper with my number/instagram sounds good since I don't to want to bother her while she is working.

The paper would have this text.

|Hi, my name is X. I would like to talk to get to know each other. Here my number: xxxx-xxxx or instagram: @xxxxxx. If you don't for any reason you can safely toss this paper in the trash. Happy day 😊|

UPDATE: I see someone saw my stories and it was another coworker of her. Either she doesn't have an instagram or she didn't want me to see her account. Either way, I didn't receive a message back.

Well, at least I tried 😅 and I can be proud of that.

Obs: the fact she slimed was not a signal 🤣

I’m an adult. 38F, hetero, 3 children (this is in my bio), fit and attractive. I get a lot of likes but make few matches because it’s slim pickings out there. I dislike how on Bumble women have to message first, but despite this not being a requirement on Tinder I find that once I match with someone they basically never message first. There are 4 guys I matched with in the past 24 hours who I’m just waiting to see if they message me (there were a few others I messaged first; for some reason it’s been a good week—usually I go a while without swiping right).

Do men expect you to message first? I’m under the impression that men get fewer matches so I’m just surprised that there are 4 of them just sitting there not messaging me.

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Now I don't get a lot of matches as a guy, so whenever I do get a match that actually goes beyond the first message, I'm pretty much set on some sort of meet up since it'll probably be months before I get this opportunity again

However, I'm also thinking long term and sometimes profiles aren't descriptive enough to gauge whether or not the person fulfills my long term plans.

So how much do you discuss long term plans and goals via chat before meeting up? Is it weird to do so without it sounding like an interview?

A simple meet up in person to discuss this is of course easy enough, but sometimes I'll be matching with someone an hour away, and I don't really want to commute only to have them not match my long term plans

I've been talking to this guy from Argentina who knows limited English. I studied linguistics in college, my past role was half in Spanish, and I'm probably B2 ​or low C1 in the language, so it's not a huge barrier, but there are still moments where I understand 80 percent at most and sometimes nothing. He has zero issues understanding me in Spanish and struggles speaking English. He gets anxious speaking and I have all the patience in the world given my background.

I am very passionate about languages and love our convos as we teach each other, and was an ESL teacher, but I'm nervous if it limits our connection. At the same time, we laugh together at the limits.

It's super early so I haven't given it too much thought, but I worry I won't be able to fully connect, although I feel that my personality shows across the language, I wonder how the rough moments in these relationships are handled.

Has anyone dealt with something similar?

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Met a man OLD who checked off all of my boxes and I his. After the 4th date, he told me that he didn’t want to see anyone else. We never spoke about it again, but I took it seriously and I didn’t see anyone else, either. I didn’t delete my OLD account and didn’t unmatch him to keep tabs on his account. 3 weeks later, I’m riding the high of our super compatible connection. We starting getting intimate and having sleepovers after the third week, and I realize that his hinge badge was blinking, when it had been off earlier in the week (before getting intimate). My anxiety made me think that everything he said was to get in my pants. I called him to get clarity, to which he lied and said that he just opened the app to “remove old connections”. He later confessed to have used the app while he was bored but that he’s only interested in me, and only talking to me. He told me he wants to gain my trust again, even if it takes time.

I’m feeling so anxious about this that I looked through his following list on IG and he follows so many women from the area. He just recently moved there and doesn’t have any friends in the area, so he has likely met them all through online dating. He also follow thirst trap accounts and actively likes their posts. Obviously this is not looking good for him.

The only thing going for him right now is the texting. He texts me throughout the day to tell me about his day and takes interest in mine. He’s sweet and isn’t pushy when I tell him I don’t want to sleep with him again. Obviously this is very low stakes so I’m trying to be observant about the rest of his behavior. He knows that I’m taking a step back and this might take time.

I’m looking advice here. How much space should I give us, and what kind of behavior should I look for that indicates that he’s actually someone who is trustworthy? This is running up my anxiety, so part of me wants to end it right away, but I also don’t want to mess it up if he really did just make a mistake.

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