I think I would have a very difficult time hearing how tough it is for white guys who are dating right now. I am not too empathetic that way. I also have difficulty "allowing" people to disagree with me, and working on that for the past number of years has been really helpful to my relationships and myself. There is a thing where you can listen to what people have to say and if it's not helpful to you, let go of it and move on. Prolonged arguing or position taking or shaking heads about how they could possibly think that. People see things differently and have different ideas about them. So what? Doesn't mean you can't have a marvelous time together. If I eliminated everyone from my life who had major disagreements with me, I'd have no one.

I might understand about feeling like not going back to T. A few years ago, I walked out of a session after 20 minutes, not angry so much as feeling like "you don't understand and you can't help me." I thought I might not go back. But I did, and I'm glad I did, as I've come some distance since then.

I'm a few years past the death of my spouse and I'm still not close to being open to dating. I was married a long time and this whole online dating thing is just not something I'm into. The last time I was dating, people had to call each other on landline phones. So I think you're really brave to be willing to date-- in fact, I think being willing to risk another relationship after whatever kind of relationship loss you've suffered, incredibly courageous.

I do think a PP is onto something by pointing out that you can't do anything about the pool of potential dates, but you can control how you interact with them. I would like to be empathic about what the recent political events have done to how men feel about dating, I would like to understand their sense of vulnerability and not scoff at it or be sarcastic about so sad for you and all that or lecture about male privilege and the shine's off on the patriarchy. I'm not there yet, but I think in general that learning to understand how other people can see things very differently and being okay with that is good for being a partner or a friend. Unless you're into that whole mind-meld thing.