How To Find Love When You’re Too Old To Play Games
Finding love as you get older may seem like a daunting task. Between all the ghosting, fake profiles, and endless swiping with no real results, you may think it’s easier to be alone. Or you may be wondering how to find love, particularly if you’re too old to play games.
Simply being burned out from dating doesn’t mean it’s time to give up on the desire to share your life with an ideal partner. Instead, learn how to find love without the frustration, heartbreak, and game playing.
No matter your age, if you want to know how to find love, and it’s been elusive for you, learn to change your mindset to align with your goal. You may even begin to enjoy the dating process.
How To Find Love When You’re Too Old To Play Games
People play emotional games in their relationships because they aren’t emotionally aware or mature enough to take responsibility for their behavior. If you feel like you’ve done the work and are ready for something different, then here’s a new approach to lasting love that takes all the drama out of your search.
Finding love as a mature adult is different than when you were younger. In your teens and twenties, almost everyone you meet is single and open to new experiences. You meet people in school, through your friends, at parties, or a job. It seems like there’s an endless supply of romantic possibilities.
As you age more people are married or in a committed relationship, and it feels more difficult to meet new single people, and the ones you do meet may have baggage from their previous relationships.
If you’re focused on the negative, you’ll find more of what you expect to find. Your past experiences have clouded your perception of love and relationships. You’re clear on what you don’t want, but that won’t bring you any closer to finding the lasting love you desire.
If you want to know how to find love when you’re feeling like lasting romance has passed you by, then you’re ready to take a new, more adult approach to love.
Start With An Attitude Adjustment
All of your heartbreak and frustrations along with your dating horror stories can leave you feeling jaded about the possibility of finding love again. If you want to know how to find love again, then making an attitude adjustment will help the entire process.
Love by its nature is limitless. It doesn’t discriminate. There’s no higher power deciding that love isn’t in the cards for you.
Start by examining your negative thoughts and feelings about dating and relationships. Get curious about yourself and see if those beliefs are true, or if they’re here to protect you from getting hurt again.
If you approach every opportunity with a negative inner dialog about how it won’t work out, then you’re going to be predisposed to finding fault. Keep an open mind but stay unattached to any outcome.
See if you are looking for someone to look past your negativity and discover the diamond in the rough inside. This is asking a lot of someone else, especially a stranger who doesn’t know you have a heart of gold. Allow yourself to shine your light so that others may see the real authentic you.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? By being curious about yourself and in addition, curious about your dates, you create a space for a connection to form.
Let Go Of The Past
You may be holding onto hurts and disappointments from your previous relationships that left scars on your heart. These old emotional wounds are blocking you from finding love.
When you hold onto past wounds you’re energetically keeping yourself attached to the past. Maybe you feel regret for the choices you’ve made, or you’re still feeling hurt because of a past betrayal. The hurt and judgment of the past can cause you to feel more cynical about love in the present.
Cynicism is difficult to overcome if you’re unwilling to release the hold the past has on your heart. Think of a glass that’s already full, there’s no room for something new to be poured into it.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Develop a regular practice of forgiveness.
Everyone makes mistakes in love because there’s no manual for how to do love. Your parents probably weren’t the best examples, and all the movies, books, and songs make you believe that love just magically happens by accident.
Lasting love doesn’t just happen, it takes some awareness, maturity, and new skills — just like everything else in life that’s worth having.
Forgive yourself and your exes for their mistakes and bad behavior. Grow from those past experiences rather than allowing them to keep you from your goal of lasting love with your special someone.
Learn From Your Mistakes
As you’re doing the work of forgiving yourself and others for mistakes made, also learn about yourself, and your ability to be more forgiving to yourself and others.
Every negative experience presents an opportunity to discover more and grow into a better version of yourself. Look for the Golden Nugget that transforms your past mistakes into treasure.
Approach your past relationships as a treasure trove of learning that can teach you to choose better partners, to communicate more clearly what you desire, and to reveal areas where you can become a better person.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Learn from your mistakes and use them as fuel for growth. When you find the Golden Nugget you’ll release yourself from the hurts and disappointments of the past, freeing you to create more love in the future.
Get Clear On What You Really Want
Most people who are struggling to create lasting love are clear on what they do not want but are a bit fuzzy or generic about what they do want.
Can you create a vision of your ideal relationship? Can you see yourself with an ideal partner who will stand by you as your love grows deeper over the years?
If you can’t see it then you can’t create it. It’s impossible to create from lack. You can’t create the opposite of what you do not want.
Rather than being in reaction to the past, like looking for someone sober if you were with an addict, or someone faithful if your ex cheated, or someone who’s a good communicator because your last partner wasn’t, instead embrace the discovery of your true heart’s desire.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Become clear on the dynamic you desire between the two of you. Learn new communication skills and practice them regularly.
Have a clear vision of your true soul partnership and allow it to inspire and motivate you through the dating process.
Take A New Approach To Dating
If you believe that lasting love just happens by accident then dating is like playing the lottery. You never know what you’ll get and the odds are against you. However, if you take a conscious approach to dating then it can be the best tool for creating lasting love with an ideal partner.
The old approach says that you should just grin and bear it, hoping that you’ll meet cute at Starbucks. That you’ll just know when you meet the “right” person.
This leaves you and your free will out of the equation saying you have zero control over your love life. It may be true that you can’t control another person, but you do have one hundred percent control of yourself.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Stop dating backwards. Slow down the dating process. Date more than one person at a time. Relax, take your time, and allow people to reveal who they are before you commit and go exclusive.
Dating backwards is when you give someone you barely know the benefit of the doubt just because you feel some attraction or hope that they could be “The One.”
If you meet someone you’re attracted to, don’t rush to exclusivity. Don’t date with rose-colored glasses and see them for who they really are. Hold off on sex until you can have an adult conversation about what it means to you — whether that’s exclusivity or it’s just hooking up.
Dating like a grown-up means that it’s okay to have uncomfortable conversations about what you want and need in a relationship. It means that you value being authentic over being easy to get along with. Never sacrifice your authenticity for approval.
Valuing yourself through the dating process ensures you’ll meet people who value you too.
Lean Into Conflict
Most people are conflict avoidant. You probably learned to pick your battles in your relationships. Or maybe you thought that being easy-going was the key to getting along. If all you do is avoid conflict through the dating process, then you’ll never meet your ideal life partner.
Conflict is unavoidable when you share your life with another person who is a completely different person than you. When approached consciously, conflict can create a deeper connection between you so you grow closer through the years rather than grow apart.
When you’re dating someone, it’s important to discover if the two of you can navigate conflict together. Can you get past your differences and create a deeper connection? Or are you unable to find common ground or understanding? Or worse yet, do you end up with the same kind of person who dismisses your feelings rather than taking time to see your point of view?
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Don’t brush aside your differences. instead use conflict as an opportunity to discover more about the stranger you’ve met, to find out if this is an ideal match for love to last.
Act As If You Already Found Love
How would you go through your day if you knew without a doubt that you and your beloved are going to meet? What would be different about how you moved through the world?
When you act as if you already have what you’re looking for you are more relaxed, confident, and able to be yourself. You won’t take rejection so seriously because you know your soulmate is out there.
You don’t take any rejection personally because it just brings you closer to your goal. If it doesn’t work out with someone your only thought is, “Next!”
It’s time to stop playing games with yourself and your dates and start getting serious about finding love. Take a more conscious approach to finding love and you’ll not only find the love you desire, but you’ll find joy in the process.
How to find love when you’re tired of playing games? Hire professional help. If you’re curious about how we help our clients join us for a complimentary Soulmate Strategy Session. Take us for a test drive and see why we’ve been able to help thousands find their beloved life partner.
About the authors
Orna and Matthew Walters are dating coaches and founders of Creating Love On Purpose with a holistic approach to transforming hidden blocks to lasting love, and the authors of Getting It Right This Time. They’ve been published on MSN, Yahoo!, YourTango, Redbook, Newsweek, Best Life, and have been featured guest experts on BRAVO’s THE MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER with Patti Stanger, and as guests with Esther Perel speaking about love and intimacy.