Tips for dating with "niche looks" in my 40s

[Anonymous]

What kind of women are you seeking?

[Anonymous]

collecting tattoos,

Big turn off for most people, especially educated people, your equals. Join a biker gang. Maybe there are some washed-out professionals there, iving their best life.

[Anonymous]

Guessing that the weightlifting/muscles/tattoos are overdone.

I am a short woman and I dated short and normal height guys.

I'm attracted to a guy in a fine suit with a great shave. Basically the "every woman crazy about a sharp-dressed man" look. I'm looking for great eyes and a good laugh. And attentiveness and concern for a date.

What I'm not interested in: bulgy muscles, muscle shirts, discussion of gym time, being around sweat/stink, non-gym exercise hobbies like jogging and at home lifting.

I don't like tattoos either. I think they are favored by people with emotional issues. And they rarely meet aesthetic standards for design, placement, coherence of theme. A great smile would distract me.

You can do whatever with your gym hobbies. Just don't discuss it on dates.

Curtis Mayfield was very nice-looking when sporting carefully-trimmed facial hair, nice glasses, turtleneck and a blazer. Looks less good in 1970s clingy shirts, crazy caps, etc.

https://www.google.com/search?q=curtis+mayfield&oq=curtis+mayfield&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQABiPAtIBCDUxODZqMGo3qAIAsAIB&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#ebo=0&sv=CAMSXhoyKhBlLWRZZDVQX2NNZ0I5NnFNMg5kWWQ1UF9jTWdCOTZxTToOdkhpcldFRWZKWnh5b00gBCokCg5ONFRON1JKczAwUTZRTRIQZS1kWWQ1UF9jTWdCOTZxTRgAMAEYByCC64XKDTABSggQAhgCIAIoAg

https://share.google/yZbbXY7fdme4E78nk

https://share.google/7pYWUQ28WWT57x8xD

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCvFxNInzl8RDrv9OtBHCi9w

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are kind of short for a guy.
With your career I would expect someone who is more nerdy-looking. The tattoos throw me off and are a turn-off for me. I could get over one, or two, but a “tattoo collector” nah

Are the tattoos clear from your profile? Same reaction re unexpected tattoos here. Many who would otherwise probably be attracted to your profile would screen out for that so this may surprise people based on the rest of your profile if theyre not visivle/clear from that.

[Anonymous]

How old are you? How old are the women you are dating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Law.partners have bad habits of talking down to people, acting like the smartest person in the room even about topics they know very little, trying to run the show and delegate "deliverables" in and out of work.

psychologist married to law partner who has seen this play out tons of times

Law partners, doctors and professors are all super guilty of this. Or anyone who is put on a pedestal for giving out "expert" advice as their job from day-to-day.

[Anonymous]

If people do not stick around after a few weeks or after a few months...it's not your looks. It's something about your communication with them or your personality or you targeting people who aren't fundamentally compatible beyond surface stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tattoos are definitely a turnoff for the majority of women. Especially a lot of them.

This. Tattoos are likely a turnoff for most women who are your professional equals. Your professional life is white collar, but your hobbies lean more towards blue collar, likely making you unrelatable to both types of women.

Yes, tattoos are trashy and I don’t know a single lawyer who thinks of himself that way or wants to date a trashy woman. I would honestly recommend therapy for it.

[Anonymous]

Your professional equal will have no interest in your tattoos and hobbies. You don’t say what type of women you are seeking but if you tell us that, we can tell you why it’s not working.

[Anonymous]

Just going to be blunt it’s your height and the underlying need to overcompensate for it. Your post is a lot, don’t be a lot.

[Anonymous]

Curtis mayfield-are you African American? Do you date African American women? White womsn? All races?

[Anonymous]

Lots of responses so I will not break them out into quotes but will try to address them all.

By in my 40s I mean I just turned 41 a few weeks ago. Women that I date are in the 32 - 47 range recently but that has adjusted over the years upwards as I've gotten older. When I was in my 20s I was trying to date women in the late 20s - early 30s range. The level of tattoo coverage I have is essentially a bodysuit, meaning my body and limbs below my neck down to my ankles is all covered, except for my armpits and ribs (and no job stoppers like on the neck/hands/face). The tattoos are very clear from the photos of me on my OLD profiles. For the past few years I've been getting small pieces when I travel but my heavy collecting days are behind me since I'm pretty much out of space.

I am African American. I do not discriminate across any race or ethnicity, open to dating whoever in that regard. I don't tend to find blondes attractive but I have dated a few of them. I would be open to dating black women but my lack of religious belief usually stops that in its tracks. I would consider myself an atheist but I am extremely laid back about it. I'm not going to snap at someone for inviting me to their church or anything but I'm also not going to go unless its a big holiday and we were meeting with family.

Type of women I'm seeking: There isn't really any one type. The one dealbreaker is that she has to be passionate about something other than work. Would prefer if it was some type of hobby that keeps her active but it doesn't have to be. As I state above, open to all races; if she's goth thats cool, if shes type a businesswoman type thats cool too. I would prefer if every "life issue" doesn't result in the belief fo the worst case scenario happening. For example, dated a woman that whenever her boss asked for a meeting she claimed she was getting fired and her career was over. That became exhausting very quickly. I'm not joining a biker gang because I've dated women whose fathers were in motorcycle clubs, both outlaw/1% and normie clubs and the personality clash was just too much. Also, I get hurt enough BMXing I don't need to get hurt riding a motorcycle too, hahahaha. She doesn't have to be a gym rat / super fit and if she is then I would prefer her not being enhanced as I'm natural and am planning on staying natural. I find that I'm most physically attracted to Greek/Italian women and mentally/emotionally attracted to women that are more creative/artistic or at least have that element to their personality even if their actual job is more corporate/traditional. Fine with women taller than me.

Talking down to people: I happen to work in a very collaborative space in my legal practice so luckily I don't engage in such behavior even at work and I try to not slip into interacting with people in that way. I make it a point to never tell people you can't do this or that and am willing to talk through things with folks but the final decision lies with them unless its the type of decision where both people need to agree on a plan of action.

Topics of conversation on dates: I ask a lot of question about their hobbies and their goals. Does work drive them or their friendships or relationships with family members or what? Are they more bougie or salt of the earth? Flashy or low key? Are their friends from a wide variety of socioeconomic groups or all just rich/all middle class/etc? I'm not talking about myself too much because I'm not super interesting really and I haven't really accomplished too much in my life in my opinion. What kind of music are they into? Do they go to concerts or prefer to just listen to the music at home/in the car?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of responses so I will not break them out into quotes but will try to address them all.

By in my 40s I mean I just turned 41 a few weeks ago. Women that I date are in the 32 - 47 range recently but that has adjusted over the years upwards as I've gotten older. When I was in my 20s I was trying to date women in the late 20s - early 30s range. The level of tattoo coverage I have is essentially a bodysuit, meaning my body and limbs below my neck down to my ankles is all covered, except for my armpits and ribs (and no job stoppers like on the neck/hands/face). The tattoos are very clear from the photos of me on my OLD profiles. For the past few years I've been getting small pieces when I travel but my heavy collecting days are behind me since I'm pretty much out of space.

I am African American. I do not discriminate across any race or ethnicity, open to dating whoever in that regard. I don't tend to find blondes attractive but I have dated a few of them. I would be open to dating black women but my lack of religious belief usually stops that in its tracks. I would consider myself an atheist but I am extremely laid back about it. I'm not going to snap at someone for inviting me to their church or anything but I'm also not going to go unless its a big holiday and we were meeting with family.

Type of women I'm seeking: There isn't really any one type. The one dealbreaker is that she has to be passionate about something other than work. Would prefer if it was some type of hobby that keeps her active but it doesn't have to be. As I state above, open to all races; if she's goth thats cool, if shes type a businesswoman type thats cool too. I would prefer if every "life issue" doesn't result in the belief fo the worst case scenario happening. For example, dated a woman that whenever her boss asked for a meeting she claimed she was getting fired and her career was over. That became exhausting very quickly. I'm not joining a biker gang because I've dated women whose fathers were in motorcycle clubs, both outlaw/1% and normie clubs and the personality clash was just too much. Also, I get hurt enough BMXing I don't need to get hurt riding a motorcycle too, hahahaha. She doesn't have to be a gym rat / super fit and if she is then I would prefer her not being enhanced as I'm natural and am planning on staying natural. I find that I'm most physically attracted to Greek/Italian women and mentally/emotionally attracted to women that are more creative/artistic or at least have that element to their personality even if their actual job is more corporate/traditional. Fine with women taller than me.

Talking down to people: I happen to work in a very collaborative space in my legal practice so luckily I don't engage in such behavior even at work and I try to not slip into interacting with people in that way. I make it a point to never tell people you can't do this or that and am willing to talk through things with folks but the final decision lies with them unless its the type of decision where both people need to agree on a plan of action.

Topics of conversation on dates: I ask a lot of question about their hobbies and their goals. Does work drive them or their friendships or relationships with family members or what? Are they more bougie or salt of the earth? Flashy or low key? Are their friends from a wide variety of socioeconomic groups or all just rich/all middle class/etc? I'm not talking about myself too much because I'm not super interesting really and I haven't really accomplished too much in my life in my opinion. What kind of music are they into? Do they go to concerts or prefer to just listen to the music at home/in the car?

This made me laugh! Please stick with non-black women.

[Anonymous]

If your celebrity lookalike is Curtis Mayfield that's one strike already. Dude was hideous. Great voice though.

[Anonymous]

Few gentle suggestions:

Know what you want as an end goal, especially with age 32-47 year old women. We don't need to know here, but whether you don't want to get married, or open to marriage and no kids, or want marriage and kids (these are things that save you and the person time and can help hone in on the best mechanism to meet people. For example, while a fan of in-person/online/etc., if you're not getting results and want marriage and kids, consider a matchmaker.)

Tell every male and female friend you're looking for a great woman. So they are looking out for you.

Given you have a law degree, which requires a lot of reading/studying, this can make you interesting to a lot of women. Consider asking women what they're reading, talking about books you're read, etc.

Rooting for you, OP. You've got good things ahead.