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I feel cheated.

My wife and I were entering the period where we could comfortably plan to do all the things we’d wanted to do. I’ve never considered being alone at this stage of my life as it never raised itself as an issue. Like any marriage it had its ups and downs but separation or divorce was never considered.

However here I am, single at 55 years of age, put out to grass.

In my head I’m not far off peak. Hear me out.

If you drew graphs of my attributes against time, some are obviously in decline, some plateau but as a man, I’m in a sweetish spot? Male ego?

Physically I’m still active, fit & strong. I turn out for Search & Rescue incidents with the Coastguard and I’m still playing senior football. I know it won’t last forever but I walk down the street, day or night feeling comfortable. I’m not intimidated by the gangs of “road men”. I’m still confident that in a ruck, I would acquit myself well enough to maintain my life and pride.

Financially I’m resilient. I’ve no mortgage and a healthy sum in the bank. I understand how the system works. I have 2 children to support and I still maintain a decent amount of disposable income on a single salary.

Emotionally, yes, I’m coming to terms with the end of a 20yr marriage but I left with an honorable discharge. My wife passed but my C.V. stands scrutiny. A loving, loyal, reliable, consistent partner.

I’ve got my looks? I do have all my own hair (salt n pepper granted) and teeth (not a filling). My features are lived-in but I think I pass for distinguished.

I have life experience in spades.

I’ve got a pleasant personality, I’m a funny guy and good company.

Intellectually I am a bright chap, well read, a polymath.

I’m obviously not in any hurry to embark on another relationship but in all seriousness, is it even an option? Shall I even get a choice?

I’ve watched quite a few YouTube videos decrying online dating. It’s not a route I would ordinarily go down, but, to satisfy my curiosity, I ran a two-week thought experiment.

I set up an account: an ersatz me. An analogue. Geographically distant, Gen X as a demographic. I wanted to see what happened.

The results were less than promising.

The outcome was broadly what the YouTubers had led me to expect. It was an environment divorced from the reality of how I had previously met women.

The prevailing theory is that women are increasingly seeking men who are, in some meaningful respect, “better” than themselves—hypergamy—while men are more willing to date across a broader range. I’m not convinced the algorithms help either sex. They reduce people to photographs, statistics and a handful of attributes, and then ask us to make a decision that humans have historically made through proximity, conversation, chemistry and repeated exposure.

Whatever the reason, the experience felt profoundly artificial.

And perhaps that’s the problem. I have no idea what my “sexual market value” is, and I’m not sure I want to know. I’ve spent too long being a human being to reduce myself to a score.

My real-world experience is rather more useful.

If you take one-night stands out of my past data—a very unrepresentative sample that includes extremes of the normal distribution—I have successfully dated within a fairly limited band.

From the dating pool, I’ve only loved or properly cared for three women.

I’ve had plenty of relationships, but only three were ever contenders.

It was a Goldilocks situation.

One, a broadly homogamic match, didn’t love me enough. They had an itch they had to scratch and it wasn’t me. In hindsight, I was a cuck.

One, a hypergamic match, loved me too much. I tried, but it verged on obsession and I would never have fitted comfortably into her family.

The lady who became my wife loved me just enough.

It was an intellectually hypogamic match. That sounds extremely patronising, but 25 years together would indicate that we were a good match nonetheless.

And that’s the problem.

I know what “good enough” looks like because I’ve had it.

I know what being loved by the right person feels like.

The result of my online dating experiment?

An extremely(!) hypogamic selection.

Perhaps that’s what has unsettled me most. It’s not that I expect to find another wife. I don’t even know whether I want to. It’s that I have suddenly been dumped back into a marketplace I haven’t visited for 25 years, at an age when the rules appear to have changed and the person I would most like to ask about them isn’t here.

I occasionally seek the counsel of a Russian Orthodox priest. His view is that I’ve had a good innings and should devote myself to the Church and my community.

Perhaps he’s a little biased.

But he may have a point.

We shall see.