Dear Michael:

I am in my 40s, and the older I get, the harder it is for me to find guys who I really want to date. Am I getting too picky? If so, is this bad or good? When I was younger, I easily got laid and found plenty of men who I considered potential boyfriends. Now, I rarely meet anyone who has both an attractive body and personality. Does this mean I’ll probably be alone for the rest of my life because my standards have gotten higher as I get older and wiser?

Not Sure This is a Good Thing

Dear Not Sure:

First of all, I hope you can relax when I tell you that you are totally normal. It’s common for most of us to get more selective as we get older. With wisdom comes discernment.

When we’re young and experimenting with who we are and what we like, any guy looks like a possible lover. We usually don’t have very refined “filters” yet. In our 30s, we start to fine-tune who we are, what we want and don’t want in our work, friends and lovers, and naturally narrow the scope of what we find acceptable and desirable. Not that we have to become bitter and rigid. We still – if we’re emotionally healthy – keep meeting new people all the time, but we don’t just automatically open our lives, our hearts and our legs to them.

As we enter our 40s, most of us are clear on what we want in a boyfriend/partner. We’ve probably been on dozens (hundreds?) of dates and slept with many, many men. We have clarity about the kinds of guys we really connect with, those who are merely OK and those who are unacceptable.

In the course of therapy, most of my clients realize they want the same basic qualities in their lovers that they have in their closest friends, plus sexual attraction. If your boyfriend is radically different (morally, ethically, personality- or interest-wise) from your best buddies, there’s probably something off. Similar values and ethics are among the most crucial commonalities for the happiness and longevity of a relationship. After all, as you and your future husband get older, what will the two of you do when you no longer go out all the time? If your conversation doesn’t flow, if there’s not much laughter, you have radically different ideas of what’s right and wrong, and you haven’t much in common, your relationship may not make it. A recent article on loving relationships in Psychology Today claims, “You may be attracted to your opposite, but if you want the relationship to last, you need lots in common as well.”

All this makes it harder to find people we really like. The good news? With the decrease in quantity of relationships comes a big increase in quality. Focus on the quality rather than quantity of potential boyfriends. You’ll have to work a bit harder, but what I call your “boyfriend radar” is likely to be highly attuned to what you like, so you won’t waste your time dating dozens of men who don’t click with you.

Boyfriend radar is about knowing yourself and what you like in a man. Use it wisely and put yourself in situations where you’re likely to find your kind of guy. If you want someone who meditates and is into film, consider joining a gay meditation group or volunteering for the gay film festival. If you want someone who’s athletic and high-energy, a gay sports team or gym may be a good place to start.

Boyfriend radar works everywhere! So don’t rule out places like Ralphs, the patio at your local coffeehouse or your fellow audience members at Diversionary Theatre. You can’t predict where you’ll meet a like-minded guy, but if you know yourself and what you want in a man, your boyfriend radar is likely to be so finely tuned that when you meet a potential boyfriend, you’ll recognize him right away. One client of mine said, “I know when I meet a guy, if my heart starts to beat faster, this is a sign that there’s some potential there.”

One last point to consider: You mention you want someone with “an attractive body and personality.” Please remember that the body of a healthy and strong 45-year-old is usually quite different from that of a similar 25-year-old. If you’re holding your peers to such high physical standards of youthful perfection, you’ll severely limit your potential dating pool. Those of us who are older (myself included) may eat well, exercise and work out, but it’s doubtful we’ll have the smooth skin, firm butt and flat abs of someone much, much younger. So cut yourself and your potential lovers some slack and give your boyfriend radar more room to roam in.