Dating can be a stressful endeavor for men and women of all ages and walks of life; however, for many professional women, the challenges of dating go beyond the normal worries associated with navigating intimate personal relationships. When longstanding societal expectations are at odds with one's sense of achievement and self-worth, troubles are bound to arise. Professional women have had to negotiate this balancing act for decades, and unfortunately, it is not always getting easier.
After years of work in college or graduate school for a coveted degree and entrance into the professional realm, many women have spent years managing their own lives, and find that they enjoy the freedom that financial and emotional independence provides. While this phenomenon is equally true for men, many single women feel more intense pressure from families and friends to find a partner. Even the language used to characterize unmarried men and women is different: bachelor does not have the same negative connotations of spinster. Although the latter term has fallen out of general use to a large extent, professional women still face societal pressure to partner up even if that is in direct contradiction with their enjoyment of independence making the dating world a more stressful place with higher expectations than their male counterparts face.
At the same time, professional women who do jump headfirst into the realm of dating often bring higher expectations of potential partners than their younger, non-professional peers. Having had extensive university study and demanding careers, most professional women expect a high level of intelligence and eloquence from the men (or women) that they date. Finding an intellectually compatible partner is a more demanding prerequisite for professional women; without feeling that a potential partner is on the same intellectual level, many highly educated women have trouble emotionally connecting and forming serious attachments. By projecting their own expectations for themselves onto their dates, professional women sometimes run the risk of setting themselves up for disappointment when men fail to deliver. For whatever reason, either societal or physiological, high-achieving men do not seem to have at least generally the same sort of rigorous intellectual standards that their female peers do.
Having put off relationships for a career or an advanced degree, many professional women simply find dating stressful because they have been out of the pool' for a number of years. Many of their male counterparts who would fit the intellectual bill are either already married, attached, or similarly enjoying their independence without the societal pressure to date with the intention of forming a long-term relationship. Thus, women who had to sacrifice to get to the top professionally can often find that, upon arrival, their dating options have become somewhat limited. Combining high standards with a smaller pool of available men just exacerbates this challenge.
Finally and perhaps most importantly a professional woman faces the challenge of finding a partner who is comfortable with her success and proud of her accomplishments. There are still many men who feel threatened by dating a woman more financially successful than they are. Most professional women who have spent their twenties working to get ahead and have finally achieved success are not likely to give it up because of a relationship, and any potential dating partner would have to accept that fact.
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to immediately tell if the person you are seeing fits the bill in those regards. For many professional women, it takes a good deal of time and emotional investment before realizing that a person doesn't meet these standards, and being wrong can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening.
Despite this, the vast majority of professional women have been able to negotiate dating, relationships, and their career. Challenges are not insurmountable, and professional women are certainly used to facing and overcoming difficult challenges everyday.