Are You Too Busy for a Relationship?

Posted by in dating after divorce, dating in midlife, online dating after 40 | 0 comments

too busy for a relationshipHi Sandy,

I tend not to read most of the emails I get due to the sheer volume in my inbox. Last week I read your email about the ‘busy’ woman. It is then that I realized that my match.com profile has the word busy in the first line of the profile. I’ve been on match this go round since Memorial Day weekend. They had a half price sale & I love a bargain. I was quite hesitant. The love of my life was supposed to be moving in by April 1 & around March 14 weekend, the relationship imploded. That was the last weekend I saw him. One & a half weeks later he stopped calling & no communication. It’s over. He vanished.

Needless to say I was heartbroken but I took advantage of the match.com sale. I really wasn’t interested & the few men who messaged me that I might even possibly be interested in did not reply to my emails. Whatever. Like I said, I wasn’t interested.

Time passed & I read your email about ‘busy’ & thought…..I’m ready. I edited that first line & BAM! A dozen men started contacting me. I’ve been messaging, texting & talking to one in particular. We will meet this week.

So this is my thank you. I’m still having moments of sadness about the being abandoned but I now feel excited to be in communication & starting the next dating journey. 

This busy woman is ready.

Thank you!

Sharon

Dear Sharon,

Your email made my day. While I’m sad that you went through such a tough breakup, I also know when one door closes another opens. There’s a better match out there for you. You’re doing all the right things to manifest him into your life.

I’m so glad you edited out the word “busy” from your profile and got such a great response! I’m not surprised. When men read that a woman has such a full life that she’s “crazy busy”, they often interpret that to mean, “I’m too busy for a relationship”.

I should know. In my first profile, I had a sentence about my crazy busy life. I would talk to a new guy, he’d ask what I did for a living, and I’d launch into how I was building my business, managing a new home, working three other jobs to pay my mortgage, and raising three children. I’m exhausted just writing about it!

Are you too busy for a relationship?

I didn’t feel I was too busy for a relationship, but the men sure did. My “aha” moment came when a man I was interested in suddenly stopped communicating. I wrote and asked, “Was it something I said?” I was being a little tongue in cheek, but turns out it WAS something I said. He told me he thought I was too busy for a relationship. How could I possibly time-slot him into my life?

I removed the word “busy” from my profile and my conversations with men. Having a full life is attractive. Being crazy busy is not. As Brenè Brown has said so well in this Washington Post article:

‘Crazy-busy’ is a great armor, it’s a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we’re feeling and what we really need can’t catch up with us.

I see it a lot when I interview people and talk about vacation. They talk about how they are wound up and checking emails and sitting on the beach with their laptops. And their fear is: If I really stopped and let myself relax, I would crater. Because the truth is I’m exhausted, I’m disconnected from my partner, I don’t feel super connected to my kids right now.

It’s like those moving walkways at the airport — you’ve got to really pay attention when you get off them, because it’s disorienting. And when you’re standing still, you become very acutely aware of how you feel and what’s going on in your surroundings. A lot of our lives are getting away from us while we’re on that walkway.

It’s important to be present and get off the ‘crazy busy’ cycle of life. Be clear with the men you’re meeting that your life is full and interesting AND there is space in your life for a relationship with the right man.

Thanks again for sharing your experience with me, Sharon. And best of luck on your dating journey. Now that you’ve removed the “B” word from your profile, he’s going to find you. Hang in there. He’s on his way…

xoxo

Sandy

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