by Lois Rayburn

Created on: October 02, 2008   Last Updated: March 08, 2010

DATING - THE SECOND TIME AROUND

Having been divorced eight years now, I have been dating on and off for the past three years. I have discovered that it's a whole new ball game - compared to my dating experiences when I was 16-19 years old. Everything has changed and yet some things have remained basically the same. At 40 years old dating sometimes seems more like a job than a fun evening out. The attitudes and opinions held by people in my age group, especially those I have talked to and know about - not to mention those I read about - seem to be very similar. Middle age dating is quite different from that of teenage dating, or even 20-something dating.

During high school and the years immediately following, all of my friends dated - the few that didn't wanted to. It was the proper time to date and it was all part of growing up. We didn't have to look very far for dates. There were opportunities around us everywhere! Every day of our young lives we were socializing - at school, at church, at our part-time jobs, and often through mutual friends. I remember being excited, nervous, and full of anticipation when I dated at this time. I had quite a few close friends in high school. I wasn't part of the in crowd, but I had my own clique, and I remember some of those friends very fondly. During my high school days, these friends were very much an influence on my attitudes and opinions about life as I knew it then. They were also one of the main supports in my life.

In high school I dated several boys, but during the 2nd half of my junior year and the 1st half of my senior year I dated Mike, who was my steady. Mike was tall and heavy set with blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. In my eyes he was gorgeous. He had already graduated high school and was working full-time in a factory and made good money.

Every day after school he would pick me up in his brand new, immaculate, bronze Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, which he loved to show off to all the envious senior guys who quietly admired what he had already achieved the short time since his graduation. He was out, out of school and part of the world, part of the working class - the people who had a life - who didn't have to show up at school every day, anxiously waiting for their graduation day when they too could begin living. Mike was fun, intelligent and knew lots of the same kids I knew. He lived with his mom about 5 miles from my house, in a cute ranch that was the only house on a stretch of country road that was also

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