As frequent contributor to a Facebook Group we follow, Steve posted something in a midsingles Facebook group this week that made us both stop scrolling.
He's 52 and single, and he wrote about going to Costco and standing in the bacon aisle — thick cut, low-salt, turkey bacon, pre-cooked — and realizing it was the most options he'd had in a while. He chose the thick cut salty one, walked out with it, and thought about that old phrase: choose your love, and love your choice.
He wasn't really talking about bacon, obviously. He was talking about what it feels like to want options, to actually have them, and to still go home alone wondering if you made the right call.
One hundred and seventy-nine people responded. We read every single one.
Scott
What struck us most wasn't the laughing emoji replies — though there were plenty of those, and honestly they were great. It was what was underneath the humor.
One woman said she's figured out her "type" — not too thin, not too thick, firm but not overcooked, just the right fat-to-meat ratio. Another said she gets decision constipation with dating and has decided God is just going to have to arrange it for her. Someone else said she's decided to wait until the Millennium because by then only the good ones will be left standing and the odds improve considerably.
All of it funny. All of it a little heartbreaking. All of it completely true.
Here is what we notice when people joke like this: it is a very efficient way to say something real without having to be too vulnerable about it. The bacon metaphor does a lot of heavy lifting. It lets people say, this is hard, and I am tired, and the options feel weird, and I am not sure I even know what I want anymore — and get a laugh instead of a lecture.
We are not here to give you a lecture either. But we do want to say the quiet part out loud.
Laurie
One of the comments that stayed with me came from a woman named Mollie. She said something like: we are different now. We are seasoned, smarter, more reserved. We used to look past the red flags because we were confident and determined. Now we see them clearly — and that clarity is disorienting.
She's right. And that experience cuts both ways.
On the one hand, you actually know yourself better now. You know what drained you in the last relationship. You know what you need emotionally. That is genuinely useful.
On the other hand, that same hard-won awareness can start to function like a wall. Mollie noticed it herself — she said she no longer has a "type" and is trying to stay open. That is not naivety. That is wisdom. Because some of those airtight checklists we have developed are less about standards and more about making sure no one can ever get close enough to hurt us again.
Which, fair. But it also means no one can get close enough to surprise you with how good it can actually be.
Scott
There is something else worth naming here. A woman named Jessica described showing up to activities over and over with optimism, finding four women for every man, coming home with nothing, and then turning around and doing it again. She said she has started focusing on supporting others and building friendships, and treating a date as a bonus rather than the goal.
That is a genuinely healthy reframe, and we want to honor it.
But we also want to say: if you have been reframing for a long time and the loneliness hasn't actually gotten lighter — that is worth paying attention to. There is a difference between healthy detachment and slow resignation. Between giving yourself permission to enjoy the journey and quietly giving up on the destination.
You are allowed to actually want this. You are allowed to still believe it is possible. And that does not make you naive — it makes you honest.
Laurie
The comment that made me laugh the hardest came from a woman who said she goes to Costco for the frozen fruit and protein powder, sticks to her usual list, and goes through self-checkout.
We all know that person. Some of us are that person.
Self-checkout has a lot going for it. Nobody judges your cart. Nobody asks too many questions. You are in and out and nobody gets hurt.
It is also a very lonely way to go through life.
Here is the thing about self-checkout in dating: it tends to look like keeping everything very surface level, keeping your calendar full so you never have to sit still long enough to feel the ache, meeting person after person and never quite letting anyone past the pleasantries. It is efficient and safe and it generates almost nothing.
The people who actually find connection in midlife — and we have watched this happen, it is real — are the ones who are willing to be a little inconvenient. To let themselves be seen before they have decided if someone is worth it. To sit with uncertainty instead of always knowing exactly what they came in for.
Scott
Steve ended his post on a note we want to come back to. He mentioned that the cashier seemed to be checking him out, the story seemed promising, and then it took a turn for the worse.
Someone asked if he had asked her out. He said the story took a left turn, sort of like my dating life.
We have both been in that moment. The promising thing that quietly deflates. The connection that did not quite connect. The version of the story you were already writing in your head, slightly ahead of what was actually happening.
That is not a failure. That is just what this is sometimes. The promising thing fizzles. The story takes a left turn. And you eat some bacon and start again in the morning.
The question we want to leave you with is not whether to keep trying. You already know the answer to that one, or you would not have read this far. The question is what you are bringing into it. Whether you are going in genuinely curious, or going in running a quiet audit. Whether you are protecting yourself from the last relationship, or actually present for this one.
Nobody masters that overnight. We are certainly not claiming to have. But it is the thing worth working on, because it is the thing that actually changes outcomes.
Laurie
Last thing.
Steve picked the thick cut, salty bacon. He committed. He walked out. And even if the metaphor ended in a slightly melancholy punchline, he showed up, had some fun with it, and let himself want something.
That is more than a lot of people are doing.
You do not have to have it all figured out. You do not have to have the list perfectly calibrated or the timing right or the wound completely healed before you are allowed to want connection. You just have to be willing to keep showing up — with a little self-awareness, a little humor, and possibly a Costco membership.
We will be here when you are ready to go a little deeper.
Scott Turing and Laurie Pascal are the relationship mentors at Unchaperoned Life, a community for midlife singles who are done performing and ready to actually connect — with themselves first, and then with someone worth showing up for. Got something you want us to weigh in on? Send it to advice@unchaperonedlife.com.