'Dating after 40 is worse than divorce,' says man who returned to dating after 20 years
Until a few years ago, Radek felt that his life was firmly set. A long-term relationship, joint plans and the idea that dating was a chapter he had finally closed. But when they broke up twenty years later, he found himself in a world that he thought worked very differently than he remembered. And returning to dating in his forties came as a much bigger shock than he expected.
"I felt like I was in a strange time."
Radek is 43 and has spent most of his adult life in one relationship. When he decided to try dating after a break-up, he felt, in his own words, like someone who had "slept through two decades of development". Nowadays it's more like going through a catalogue of people. Except you're not a commodity - and yet you start to feel that way," he says.
The first weeks were full of adrenaline. New conversations, quick coffee appointments, the feeling of suddenly having options open to him that he hadn't thought about in years. But the euphoria was quickly replaced by fatigue. "I had, like, four chats going on at once. At one point I realised I was answering almost automatically," he laughs bitterly.
A date that ended before it began
Radek describes a few experiences that he feels describe contemporary dating well. One of his first dates, he says, ended within twenty minutes. "We were sitting in a café, talking about work and travel. Suddenly the guy said he had to leave because he wasn't feeling the 'spark'. He was polite, but I went home feeling like I had failed some test."
Another time, he encountered the complete opposite extreme - being too open during the very first messages. "People now share things that I would have saved for a third or fourth date before. Trauma, former relationships, sometimes even intimate details. You feel like you skip a few phases, but paradoxically it doesn't lead to more closeness."
The biggest frustration for him is ghosting. He describes a situation where he and a man had been texting for almost a month and were planning a weekend together. "The day before we left, he stopped replying. No argument, no signal, just nothing. I sat with my bag ready and looked at my phone. At that moment I thought, this is really worse than a breakup."
At first, he took it personally. But gradually, he says, he realised that it was a wider phenomenon. "There's always someone else on dating sites. People feel that if they disappear, nothing will happen. But there's still a person on the other side."
The body, age and the pressure to be perfect
Radek also talks openly about the pressure to look good. He has started exercising more, addressing his clothes and profile pictures. "Suddenly I felt like I had to compete with guys ten years younger. I know it's not healthy, but when you scroll through the profiles, you start to have doubts."
At the same time, he notices a strange paradox: people want authenticity, but they're also superficial. "Everyone writes that they're looking for honesty. But the algorithm will still throw out mostly the most polished profiles. It's a bit like a reality show - only without the camera."
"Dating in your 40s is worse than divorce," he says without exaggeration.
When Radek explains his statement, he says it's not a dramatisation. "The breakup was painful, but it had a clear framework. Here you're still in limbo. One date goes well, the next three don't, then you hear from someone after a week and you don't even know if you want to continue," he says.
He admits that returning to the dating world has forced him to reassess his own expectations. "I used to feel that a relationship had to come quickly or something was wrong. Today, I know it can take time. And that it's okay to tell myself I'm going to take a break."
Despite the disappointments, Radek doesn't claim that dating is only a negative experience. Thanks to them, he says, he met people he would never have met otherwise and learned to talk more openly about his needs. "One date didn't go well, but I left feeling like I was finally authentic. I would have tried to fit in before, but not anymore."
But he also admits that online dating can be mentally challenging. "After a few months, I felt like I was judging people by a few sentences and they were judging me. And that starts to change you."
The hope that comes beyond apps
Today, Radek hasn't completely rejected dating sites, but he has stopped relying on them as the only way. He's started going to community events, seeing more of his friends and openly saying he's single. "Maybe it's a paradox, but when I stopped looking at all costs, I started to breathe better."
His story may sound harsh, but it also reflects the experience of many people returning to the dating world after years away. "I'm not saying it's hopeless," Radek concludes. "I just wish there was more talk about how challenging it can be. Because when we're silent about it, everyone feels like they're the only one failing."
