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I think the older we get, the fewer of the must-haves on your list you are going to find in a partner.
* Good teeth/breath - Many folks have numerous tooth and gum issues as they age
* Good health - Same as ^^^^ More and more health issues as we age
* Financial stability - as health issues hit, finances can go to pot
* Emotional stability
* Easy-going personality - as people age, most get more and more set in their ways
* Fun and good-natured
* Moral and ethical
* Squeaky clean (bathes at least once per day) - lots of folks shower less as they age
* Good listener - two words...hearing aids
* Loves to travel (short or long trips) - and is spontaneous - travel becomes more difficult with the addition of CPAPs, medications, diet restrictions, trouble walking, etc.
* Appreciation for other cultures
* Politically liberal - many people get more conservative as they age
* Spiritual and aware - Most people have long term religious affiliations at this age
* Handy and helpful - becoming less so as they get older
* Good cook or prep cook
* Interested in lots of stuff - mostly stuff that pertains to themselves or their lives
* Non-traditional - with age often comes conformity
* Artistic
So I think you might need to be a bit more flexible in your list, and that will become increasingly important as the age of possible partners increases. Others on your list would seem pretty optional to me (artistic, good cook). In a perfect world we might get everything we want. In the real world, not so much.
I found my partner when I had really just stopped looking. He appeared and was a good listener, after that all fell into place. Are there things about him I'm not crazy about? Sure. 23 years later, there are 4 or 5 core qualities that mean we will be together through the end. They are:
Loyalty
Integrity / honesty
Sense of humor
Kindness
Financial and emotional stability
She's probably the brains of the couple and he knows it. She doesn't need him to survive and he needs her?
She's confidant and he's insecure? He doesn't have much to offer but looks and he knows it?
1. He is definitely not insecure if he has "only" good looks to offer :-). But she's the one with money?
2. She used to be very pretty when they met, but something happened (typically a large weight gain). By the time she got ugly, they already had a very strong mental connection, possibly even started a family. You don't disown a family member just because they gained 100 lbs, a family connection is far deeper than that. Plus, if your partner changes (which inevitably happens with age), you always see him/her to some extent as you saw them before, not as people see them who had not known them before.
3. I have noticed something peculiar: people tend to be attracted to other people who have some facial similarity, particularly similarity of facial expression, to their own. One of the people could be rather unattractive (Lyle Lovett) and the other very attractive (Julia Roberts), but they look like a brother and sister, their lips curl the same way when they smile. Melania and Donald Trump: the same squinty eyes, square-ish jaw, and the lips protruding in the same way. I have known several cases of this similarity factor where the guy was much better looking than his female partner, but the similarity factor was strongly present. I think this similarity factor overrides conventional beauty in forming physical attraction to someone. In fact, I think it might be the main reason why people ever get to have equal mutual attraction: they fall for their own face on someone of the opposite (or same, whatever) gender.
This is just my personal theory, but there is some support for that :-). Some psychologists somewhete did a study on heterosexual people asking them to rate attractiveness of 20 or so faces of people of the opposite gender. Unknown to the experimental subject, the researchers included in those 20 or so faces the photo of the experimental subject himself/herself, photoshopped to look like a person of the opposite gender. Experimental subjects tended to rate that face as the most attractive.
Right now, at this moment in my senior life, the "perfect mate" would have the following qualities (in no order):
* Good teeth/breath
* Good health
* Financial stability
* Emotional stability
* Easy-going personality
* Fun and good-natured
* Moral and ethical
* Squeaky clean (bathes at least once per day)
* Good listener
* Loves to travel (short or long trips) - and is spontaneous
* Appreciation for other cultures
* Politically liberal
* Spiritual and aware
* Handy and helpful
* Good cook or prep cook
* Interested in lots of stuff
* Non-traditional
* Artistic
This list could have been written by me.... I would add something like "willing to leave his ego by the door"
A lot of people are going to give you crap because they view this list as "too picky."
Stick to your guns. You know yourself well enough by now to know what you can/cannot tolerate. If someone comes along that you really connect with but doesn't check all the boxes you'll figure it out...
Kind of like putting 2 cats in a room and having them duke it out until they get along.....
After my divorce I joined Match.com and POF. Went on a few dates and was thoroughly unimpressed. One guy basically offered himself up as a f*ck buddy. ON A FIRST DATE?? I was horrified. The one guy I did connect with advertised himself as "separated." I assumed that a divorce was not far behind. Turned out that though he was living physically apart from his wife, he and she were acting out some sort of psychological "cat and mouse" head game and I wound up getting caught in the middle.
I then re-wrote my profile listing what I DIDN'T want. It went something like....
Don't bother contacting me if you....
*are attached
*smoke
*do drugs
*listen to Rush Limbaugh
*watch Fox News....
You get the picture.
I got serious clap-back from a couple of guys. It was then I realized that I wasn't ready for the dating scene, and pulled all my profiles/closed my accounts.
That was a few years ago. I've since given up on the American Male Boomer. Most of my male contemporaries remind me of my father who was the "Archie Bunker" of his time." Nuf said...
So here I sit, alone but not necessary lonely--though the isolation re: pandemic is really killing me. What little socializing I was involved in has completely dried up. I feel like I'm living in a bubble with no entrance/exit.
I'm missing my kids who are up North. I'm hoping for some window of opportunity when it's safe to travel but the news only gets worse. I live FL COVID Pariahland so even if travel up there I'd have to spend 14 days in quarantine so couldn't move state to state (MA-CT-NY and back) I love my kids but we'd never make to the end of 2 weeks without killing each other....
It's all starting to get to me.
When I get into this headspace I tell myself it's time for a beach day. However, these days a "day" won't cut it--I need a freekin' beach WEEK!
Sometimes I see a handsome young guy with a overweight , frumpy, unattractive wife and wonder what happened there.
Love.
Or money! LOL Seriously, we women do get tired of having to be the brains of the whole operation.
I have a 64 year old friend who has just the most unrealistic checklist for what she would consider in a mate. And so, 20 years after her divorce, she remains single. Her first husband was a real prize (lazy, dishonest, frequently unpleasant, eventually became addicted to drugs, became bi-polar, and cheated on her) so I don't have much faith in her "picker", or her ideas of good qualities in a mate.
Last edited by TheShadow; 08-02-2020 at 11:09 AM..
Get rid of the list...perfection does not exist..and work on perfecting yourself. Then, just maybe, you'll be worthy of finding your soul mate...
This is such a repugnant thought to me - as if a person has to earn worth to deserve love.
My title "Perfect Mate" was tongue-in-cheek. Obviously, there is no perfection.
Every person in the world "deserves" love. I am worthy. We are all worthy.
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The one guy I did connect with advertised himself as "separated." I assumed that a divorce was not far behind. Turned out that though he was living physically apart from his wife, he and she were acting out some sort of psychological "cat and mouse" head game and I wound up getting caught in the middle. 
