This used to be way easier - and a lot more fun!

[Maybell]

Don: I put my list on my thread because that's where it belongs. Looking at it, I'm seeing, it took me quite a while to know if My Guy brought those things into my life. Partly it was absolute terror of getting hurt on my part. Partly it took a while for the relationship to grow enough to where I could see that he fit the things I was looking for (and I'm sure same on his side but I'm telling my story here). A couple of the things that were qualities that "he" had to have (height, political beliefs), My Guy doesn't have, but as it turns out the ones he does have are so very deeply precious to me that it is worth living without them.

It took several months to figure out *in that relationship* what was really important to me. Then several months more to trust in it. I had to change the way I looked at dating and just be willing to throw spaghetti at the wall and watch to see *who* people were. I only wanted the quality people who wanted me back. That eliminates a LOT of spaghetti pretty promptly.

When I say you are looking for the wrong things, it's exactly that "grocery list" mentality that you showed when you said how you've got 8 of the 10 qualities a woman says she wants on a dating site. What people want isn't usually what they think they want. If you want, say, a blond, athletic sax player, I'm pretty sure you'll find a blond athletic sax player, especially if you're willing to date someone who lives 500 miles away. But if you say, I want someone who will listen to me talk about famous sax players at 2 in the morning when I can't sleep, well, you're going to have to watch for an entirely different set of qualities, and you're probably not going to know if you've found it until you've invested some time. This isn't a lion/antelope situation. And you might end up with a brunette librarian who knows nothing about the sax, but she knows and likes everything about you, which is really what you want, right?

Finally, so what all those other people end up with new relationships fairly promptly? Maybe the widows were so good at relationships that they knew what they wanted fairly quickly, and so had an easier time seeing it. Maybe they're settling for something that doesn't really work at its core, but they are afraid to be alone. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. But what I hear from you is a guy who looks for surface qualities and hasn't really been willing to see WHO a woman is before deciding if she's "Perfect" or not. That's probably how you're showing up for these women and they can see it. If they're quality women, they don't want to be judged that way and they're dodging you.

I havent' gone through a years-long dry spell, but I did live in a highly isolating marriage for many years. It gave me a lot of time to understand what kind of relationship I really wanted for myself, and for my kids to witness. I know what loneliness feels like and how desperate a person can be to get out of it. I have sympathy for you. But you may have more luck if you see yourself as that woman's potential partner, and identify what you bring to HER table, instead of the other way around.