Even the over 50 set has No Sex & the City

This may come as a shock, but I NotSamantha have a mother.

A mother who is currently getting more play out of her online dating than I am. *Here is where the irony of me joking about how I sometimes feel like the parent rears its ugly head.* However, even with her getting dates that are successful there are some pitfalls for her too. And since I truly believe that while we are not total byproducts of our environments, we are influenced by them heavily.

NotBettyBoop (my mother), was just recently asked by the guy she was dating NotTidewater, if she was "clingy". She recounted this to me in a recent phone conversation and I was shocked, because of all the people in my family she's not what I would call clingy. If nothing else she's the mother bird that pushes us out of the next and lets us fall or fly. She's there to pick us up if we get to bad off, but for the most part any mistakes we make are our own.

She continued that while she did feel particularly attached to this guy, she didn't think she was too clingy, and then she said he asked her if she was "needy", both bad signs to any dater. At this point she said she was ready to cut her losses and move on. But this left me with several questions...

1) Does age and maturity not count for anything in the dating world or are we doomed to have the same issues no matter how long we struggle with the opposite sex?
2) How can you assess the level of dependence of one person on another given two dates?
3) Is this what I have to look forward to if I don't find 'the one'?

The conversation finished with her saying she had written a letter and planned to send it out today "for closure". Unfortunately, she just opened a whole new can of "huh?" for me and this dating thing.