Carolyn Lee Arnold - Fifty First Dates After Fifty: A Memoir

PRAISE FOR FIFTY FIRST DATES AFTER FIFTY

This is no mere memoir, but a handbook on how to date the adult way. By reading Arnolds entertaining and upbeat story of voracious exploration, Generation X, Y, and Z can learn everything no one ever taught them about effective communication, self-care, emotional responsibility, and joyful sexual freedom. If dating is in your future, this inspirational book is for you.

Robin Rinaldi, author of The Wild Oats Project: One Womans Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost

This book will have great appeal to other seekersmen and womenespecially those who are older or long for a deep sensual connection to others. Carolyn is such a role model for other middle-aged womenunafraid, unabashedly sensual and assertive. I love how brave and brazen she is!

Julia Scheeres, author of the New York Times best-selling memoir Jesus Land

Carolyns goal of fifty dates was a brilliant way to find a partner, and her communication skills, honesty, and appreciative regard for her dates would help anyone - not only in dating, but in all ones relationships.

Chas August, Relationship & Intimacy Coach

Carolyn Arnolds dating stories in Fifty First Dates After Fifty will be inspiring for any woman who worries that life has passed her by and that its too late to attract a life partner. There will be bad dates, broken hearts and dashed expectationsand some hot fun along the way. Carolyns stories of dating resilience and persistence show us that finding a deep love is possible at every age.

Sasha Cagen, feminist life coach and author of Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics

Fifty First Dates after Fifty is not your typical dating book. Carolyn boldly shares the raw vulnerabilities of being a person truly living life on her own terms. Youll be rooting for Carolyn all the way through as she tries, fails, feels, picks herself up, dusts herself off, and courageously moves forward into her next new adventure... funny and engaging... I was hooked at the prologue. You will be too.

Wendy Newman, author of 121 First Dates: How to Succeed at Online Dating, Fall in Love, and Live Happily Ever After (Really!)

FIFTY
FIRST
DATES
AFTER
FIFTY

Copyright 2021 Carolyn Lee Arnold

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-211-0

E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-212-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021914649

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

To all the brave older women who are looking for the right partner, may you find him or her; to Jim, for being the right partner for me; and to my fifty dates, for being the right path to Jim.

A ll the events in this story are real, told from my own perspective, with my own name. To protect the privacy of the other people in this story, all of their names and many geographic, chronological, and identifying characteristics have been changed.

Y oure still sleeping with other guys?

George asked this in a voice shrill enough for the other diners in the cozy Ethiopian restaurant to hear. Several looked over at usa middle-aged white couplewith expressions ranging from annoyance to amusement.

I had suggested this romantic Berkeley spot for our fifth date because I thought that George, who performed with an African dance troupe, would like Ethiopian food. It was a bad place to have this discussion.

But I told you that on our third date, I whispered in a low voice, trying to discourage eavesdropping by diners who were still looking our way. Before we slept together.

You said you had other lovers then, he said. But why would you keep seeing them?

Cause theyre my lovers, I said. They support me while I look for a partner.

George leaned back in his chair and shook his head in disgust. Wispy strands of long brown hair had come loose from his ponytail and swayed on either side of his thin face.

How could you do that to me? he asked with sorrowful brown eyes.

Inside, I was sighing. I didnt want to hurt him. George had his own, traditional dating rules, and I had violated the one that said stop sleeping with all other men after you spend a night with me. It was monogamous dating. And while I eventually wanted a monogamous partner, I was not interested in committing to one man while I was still dating.

I wondered how much time and how many apologies I owed this sweet man before I gently extricated myself from what he thought had become a relationship. My experiment of dating men who were outside of my usual circle was not going well. Could I only relate to men who, like me, had attended personal growth workshops on relationships?

I was fifty-eight years old, and I had a goal of finding my life partner by going on dates with fifty men. George was date number 31. Id started the project with great optimism, but now that it was more than halfway done, I wondered if I would find a partner of any type by the fiftieth date.

It had been over a year since Id said good-bye to Peter, and I was determined to go on, no matter how long it took. Date 32 was scheduled for Saturdaya walk around the Berkeley Marina. This guy looked promising... a fifty-six-year-old therapist from Marin County.

P eter, I love you, I honor your journey, I set you free.

I gazed into Peters blue eyes, twins to my own blue irises. Even in the low candlelight in my living room, his eyes twinkled over his tan cheeks; his wild white hair still looked like a blond halo to me. Peter and I had been together for seven yearsfive years longer than the two he had said he was good for and five years longer than my longest relationship. Tears pressed into my eyes as I imagined letting go of this man, who I still believed was the best partner for me.

Carolyn, I love you, I honor your journey, I set you free, Peter said kindly, but free of tears. I believed that he loved mebut not enough to stay with me. He was ready for seven months of traveling in Europe and India, ready to be single again.

How could I let go of someone who had been my perfect match for seven years? Peter was a happy Buddhist beach boy in his late fifties, living a mellow retired life in Hawaii. His upbeat attitude and peaceful home had provided an oasis for me, a new age California girl in her late fifties living a hectic professional life in the Bay Area. Good friends for a year before becoming lovers, we could talk about anything and end up laughing. He would say, Great! and mean it, after anything I said. He bought me giftsan iPod Nano to have music when I ran, a snorkel and fins for my visits to Hawaii, pillows when mine had lost their fluff, and clitoral cream to help me have better orgasms. How could I let go of someone who bought me clitoral cream? Even though I was making plans to date other men, it was hard to imagine being with anyone other than Peter. I would need more than a letting-go ceremony for that. Luckily, I had a plan.