For those who don't do anything majorly proactive about dating...

Hello, DOT. First post here.

I have lots of different relationship experiences: several LTR's, many STR's, some flings, ONS's and everything in between. I was always in on the "action" from about age 15 to age 30.

I'll spare y'all the gory details (unless you want them), but I wound up having a very bad experience with a type of woman that, up until then, I had no idea existed. It opened my eyes to a lot of things.

That was 5 years ago and, though I do have sometimes question it or miss being with someone, I have never dated again and don't really intend to.

Being single and trying to get ahead in this world is difficult, so I adopted a strategy that would allow me to do so. It is lucky that I have always been very self reliant and outdoorsy.

So, this is a very roundabout way of answering your question, but I curtail my inner wish to be with someone (insofar as I have that inner wish) by working harder than other people to get ahead in life.

Examples:

I drive very cheap, paid-off cars. I have taught myself how to fix and maintain cars, even to the point of outright buying them to fix and resell in my spare time. My vehicle expenses are usually $0 or even money ahead because I buy cars that need work, fix them, drive them for 6 months to a year, then resell them.

I kill, grow, catch and seasonally gather a lot of my own food. Hunting large and small game, helping my older neighbors with their large garden for a share of the produce, catching lots of fish that I preserve in various ways, and gathering seasonal edibles. Morelle mushroom season is long gone now but I was just checking my trees the other day and it is almost time for the first harvest of mulberries.

I heat my entire operation (house, outbuildings) with wood. I spend a fair amount of my spare time cutting down trees, bucking logs, splitting and stacking firewood. Sometimes folks even pay me to take trees down. I spend in the neighborhood of $1,000 per year on heat and electricity for my entire 2,000 square foot house and shops.

I also have a fairly demanding job that pays decently well and takes up most of my regular time.

These are just a few examples. Do I sometimes miss being in a relationship? Yeah. Do I miss a regular sex life? Hell yes. (Although there are ways to get that, and I do.) But at the end of the day I'm too busy trying to get ahead and planning to be able to retire the way I want to.

If a woman expressed interest in joining my mission, I guess I would give it a (very skeptical) thought, but I am by no means looking.

/r/datingoverthirty Thread