It goes against 30 years of training.

So you made no choices about your own behavior in those years, eh? It was all stimulus-response. Pavlovian knee-jerking. Puppeteers pulling your strings.

Thank god you've clawed back some control over your own actions now, eh?

male driven cultural suppression of female sexuality

I doubt that this chick's sexuality has been suppressed by anyone or anything at any time, unless repeated hungover morning Walks of Shame count as a form of suppression.

Almost gets it. She played the dread game. It worked but most dread game players -men and women are needy and hiding it. I bet she was really needy and that drove them away. Dread doesn't really make you love anyone, just fear losing them. It has its uses but as a day to day strategy it is retarded.

She is right to drop it now though. Now she is not the 20 something prize with working ovaries and no brats. Now she is a charity case. Better ask for what you want. Would have been better from the start but never mind. Bet you did OK anyway when you took Beta's shit and ran at menopause. It worked out till now. Now it gets harder. happily we can just say "Manout"

Sheesh, she has one amazing hamster wheel. Its like a wheel in a gyroscope. She can hamster every angle. She is having her eggs harvested at 38 because of non committal men. She only wanted FWBs for a while. She only had one non committal guy. A Chad wanted to marry her for 6 years. She thinks the patriarchy exists and benefits men after a life of calling the shots with them and dumping them, only getting once burnt with a player.

Ok lady you are a perfect example of an attractive woman (I am assuming the photos was of an attractive woman before it was covered up?) who played the field and rode the carousel tell she was all ridden out. I bet she will trey to "settle" in the next few years. It won't work. She ruined herself by enjoying her options.

So I am retiring the strategy. I am done auditioning for the role of Cool Girl. She was exhausting to play – and frankly, the reviews were mixed. I’m replacing her with a woman who texts back. Who says what she means. Who admits she wants to be held. It is a terrifying bet. It goes against 30 years of training. But I’m betting on this: The right man won’t want a challenge to conquer. He’ll want a partner to rest with. And God knows – I am ready to rest.

One tiny problem there... that right man was 30 years in her past. Your average 50-year old man has too much experience with women and not enough attraction for aged hags for her to have a realistic chance.

Most men actually want and benefit most from relationships

Oh yeah? Are those men all using time machines to get women who put real effort in a relationship, instead of just spreading her legs and expecting her man to spoil her for it?

I don't even get what the hamster is doing anymore, what does the modern woman actually believe she's contributing in a serious relationship that compensates all the shit she demands?

Jesus man, it’s time to move on. I get she was a hoe and not LTR worthy.

But it’s been a month, and you are going through old messages. (Not new ones, right?)

You’re giving her rent free space in your head, 1 month AFTER the breakup. Time to move on. Nothing you learn from here will make you feel better.

On the bright side, glad to hear you are out and about with other ladies!

Brevity is often valued in writing, so I've decided to help her out. Free edits, you're welcome ma'am.

In my 20s, this felt like power. (It was mostly fear in better lighting but I didn’t know that yet.) I mastered breezy indifference. I timed my texts to the minute: double the time he took, plus 10 for mystery. I thought I was teaching men my value. I thought I was training them to love me. I was attractive.

But I am 51 now. Looking back on that first year of dating after divorce at 50 – the apps, the profiles, the quiet violence of being matched and discarded by an algorithm – I realise something uncomfortable: I wasn’t training them. I was hiding. and am no longer attractive.

Larger cities increase anonymity and the ability to dispose of reputation. Better for high volume "training" if you are careful enough to keep your activities from being something that gets put on blast on social media.

Smaller towns are better for vetting, since so many people know each other, it becomes real damn hard for the town bicycle to hide that she is the town bicycle.

Use both for what they are good for depending on where you are at in your life.