Where do I Meet Eligible Singles of Substance?

Choose how over where.

For those of you seeking a loving partnership, we have more gems of wisdom from Celebrity Matchmaker, Rachel Greenwald.

One of our community members asked Rachel, “I’m over 50 years old. Where do I meet eligible men who are of substance?”

This was her response:

Well I think you have to examine the question first and the way you phrased it about using the word, “where.” A lot of people ask me, “Where do I meet the right men?” The key point of focus is that you’re using the wrong word. It’s not about where you meet them, but how do you meet them. Let me explain that. When people use the word “where”, there’s an implication that there are physical places that great men are sitting around just waiting for you, like at an event or at a party or the bar. Or, at a class where you might have a mutual interest in Russian history or something like that. That’s the problem, because when you’re over 50 and frankly when you’re over 40, there just are no physical places where large quantities of men hang around.

“The key point of focus is that you’re using the wrong word. It’s not about where you meet them, but how do you meet them.”

So, by using the word, “how” do I meet them in your question, you really switch your frame of mind. You start to think about the difference. With the word, “how”, it implies more of a strategy. You need a strategy to meet eligible men of substance. So, let’s think about that. How do you formulate a strategy to meet people? It’s a construct that defies Hollywood movies and the romance of meeting someone spontaneously. But, I don’t think that romance is dead in the strategy for going out to find great men. I think you have to look at it this way: that the romance begins after you meet and in developing a close relationship with someone, not in the search for love. The search for love needs to be very proactive and very well thought out, because if you’re over 50 years old, you already have a life. You have a great job and lots of friends and family and you’re really busy and you have to figure out a strategy that is going to work with the limited amount of time that you have. So, in summary, start by asking the right question, which is “How do I meet eligible men?”

“The romance begins after you meet and in developing a close relationship with someone, not in the search for love.”

Your strategy could consist of a couple of major steps:

1) First of all, you shouldn’t do it alone. You should have a friend or support person in your life who is on this journey with you, because it can get very discouraging. There are going to be highs and lows. Whether you hire a Dating Coach or get a best friend or a sister or somebody in your life who really cares about you to help you on this journey, that’s the first step in your strategy.

2) Second, you need to get great photos taken of yourself and I’m going to talk about that at the Conference (RLR Summit) in the process of effectively dating online. So, I’m going to put that aside for now. You can see where I’m going with this…that there’s a multiple step strategy that is going to help you locate the men that you’re looking for.

3) Perhaps most importantly, you need to think about your definition of substance. Because, far too often I see women who are looking for men of substance; however, they make very superficial judgements when they meet somebody. They’ll say, “He’s not tall enough for me.” Or, “He has completely different interests or a completely different background than the man I envision.” So, they don’t give him a chance to find out if he does have substance because substance is not going to show up on date #1. It’s going to show up on the 3 rd or 4th date when you really get to know somebody and they’re relaxed and they’re opening up and being more authentic. So, I would leave it there for you to reframe the question, “How do I meet someone?” and to allow yourself the time and space to get to know someone without making superficial judgements.

“Far too often I see women who are looking for men of substance; however, they make very superficial judgements when they meet somebody.”