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Casual Dating for Baby Boomers

If It Don’t Come Easy, You Better Let It Go…

Casual dating can be a fun time in the beginning, blossoming stages of relationships as you explore a world full of possibilities.

Tanya Tucker has a song that came out in 1988 called If It Don’t Come Easy which I heard on the radio again the other day for the first time in ages. The chorus of the song goes like this:

“If it don’t come easy, you better let it go.
‘Cos when it don’t come easy, there’s no natural flow.
Don’t make it hard on your heart, you might be better off alone,
If it don’t come easy, you better let it go.” (Written by Dave Gibson)

That’s one of my major premises about healthy relationships; love and relationships shouldn’t be hard. We make it hard by not knowing how to pick the right person – by not knowing what criteria to use in our selection process.

I read somewhere recently that no one can ever expect to be happy 100 percent of the time in a relationship, but if you’re not happy at least 80 % of the time, you may be in the wrong relationship. As ‘Dear Abby’ said in a recent column, “Love isn’t painful when the love object is the right person and the love is returned.”  One of the biggest things I see with difficult relationships amongst couples is that they didn’t really know themselves, didn’t really know their partners, didn’t take the time to know what they really wanted in a relationship or from their partner, or didn’t go slow enough—or all of the above.

Many people get into a relationship with the ‘wrong’ person by default. People start dating and make an emotional commitment long before they have enough information about their partner to know if there is enough ‘stuff’ to build a solid foundation for their relationship to withstand any challenges that will inevitably come along.

Seniors dancing in the park

I’ve heard many Baby-Boomers say that “life is too short to waste time ‘going slow.’”

Casual dating is a time to find out if there’s enough interest and compatibility to take the next step into serious dating.   I believe in ‘going slow’ because it’s been my experience that once one becomes intimately involved and has sexual intercourse they begin to see through rose-coloured glasses… it’s very difficult to see the red flags through rose-coloured glasses.

We need to go slow, at least slow enough to find out if the person is compatible in certain aspects of life: values, personality, and communication styles are just a few areas that one might want to consider.

Discovering compatibility can happen over a few coffee and dinner dates, but it’s been my experience that it takes many different situations for one’s ‘real’ character to show through – and believe me, character, values and morals are more important than what kind of job or car he or she has!

During casual dating there are three main areas that one should be looking at, they are: compatibility, communication styles and companionship. Within each of these categories, there are several aspects to consider.

RV Seniors – Casual Dining

I consider casual dating similar to window shopping. I’m just browsing, seeing what’s available; whether it’s trying on clothes to see if they are a good fit, or looking at a major purchase like furniture or a new car. At this stage in my ‘shopping,’ I’m just trying to imagine myself with the item for a long period of time, or the rest of my life before I invest my hard-earned time and money in the item.

Senior Ladies window shopping

Casual dating is similar. As I spend time with my ‘potential’ partner in various situations, at various functions, I can get a feel of whether we are compatible in areas and values that are important to me.

I’ve actually started writing a book about these characteristics and the working title is: The 8 Cs of Relationships.

For more information on when The 8 Cs of Relationships will be published (anticipated publication date late 2023) and where to pre-order your copy, please fill in the form here.

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