I never thought I’d be dating in my forties. I imagined that by now I’d be arguing over which Netflix show to fall asleep to with someone I’ve been with for years, sharing a joint savings account, maybe a dog, maybe a kid, maybe both. But life, in its stubborn refusal to stick to my so called plans, had other ideas.

And so here I am. In my forties. Dating.

But not in the way I thought dating in your forties would be. Not transactional. Not jaded. Not full of people asking for your attachment style before dessert. Instead, I find myself dating like I’m seventeen again.

It starts with those little text messages, the kind that don’t say much but still make you smile. A “how was your day?” or a random link to a song. I find myself paying attention to how long it takes to reply, how many emojis are too many, how to not sound too eager but also not disinterested. It’s hilarious, really. I’m a grown woman overthinking punctuation. But there’s something tender about it. Something innocent. Like the very early days of MSN or SMS, when we used to wait by the phone and reread conversations over and over again ( or was it just me?).

We meet once a week. Occasionally twice if we’re feeling wild. There’s no pressure. No counting days or questioning intentions. Just two people showing up, week after week, slowly folding into each other’s rhythms. We talk. For hours. About nothing and everything. About childhood, about work, about the weird things we’ve been through and the even weirder ways we survived them.

It takes time before anything physical happens. Not because we’re avoiding it, but because neither of us is rushing it. There’s something sacred about the in-between. The space before bodies speak, when the mind still has the floor, just right before the heart takes over.

And what’s most surprising is how okay it feels. How natural. How unthreatening. There’s no urgency. No panic. No script to follow. It’s slow, yes. But in a world that pushes everything to happen faster, faster answers, faster intimacy, faster endings, slowness feels like rebellion.

And in that rebellion, there’s comfort.