Online Dating For Singles Over 60
So here you are. Sixty something, single again, and whatever it was that got you here, the worst of it has passed. You have decided something needs to change. Nothing dramatic. You would just like somebody to have dinner with who is not one of your children.
Now think back to your last first date. Decent odds it was with the person you then spent thirty years married to. You were what, nineteen? Twenty two? Whatever the number, the world it happened in is gone. The drive-in is a strip mall. The mixtape is in a museum. And the whole business got quietly rewritten while you were busy raising a family and holding down a job.
Let us go through what has actually changed, because it is less than you are afraid of.
You are older, and it helps more than it hurts
The obvious point first. You are not twenty, and neither is anybody you are going to meet, which strips a great deal of nonsense out of the process. Pulling up outside her house on a borrowed motorcycle with no muffler would not land the way it did in 1979, and that is no loss, because what you have now is better. You know who you are. You quit performing about two decades ago. People notice that, and at this age they actively prefer it.
Everybody shows up with a history
You included. They have probably been married. There may be grown children, grandchildren, a business nobody will sell, a parent who needs looking after, a dog with strong opinions about visitors. None of it is aimed at you.
When the ex calls in the middle of dinner, that is his past, not your present. When hers turns up to collect the grandkids and looks put out to find you in the kitchen, that is not about you either. The only thing that has ever worked is saying it out loud early: here is what I am comfortable with, here is what I am not, what about you. You are both far too old to be sulking about something neither of you has mentioned.
You have baggage, and so does the other one
Everybody does by now. The real trap is not the baggage, it is the temptation to rebuild your last marriage out of new parts. Do not. This is a different person, and if you are honest with yourself, so are you. Let it turn into whatever it turns into. It might be better. It will certainly be less predictable.
Leave the suitcase at the station. You can always send for it later if you find you miss it.
What has not changed at all
The important part. Everybody wants somebody, and getting older does not excuse you from it. If anything you are better equipped than you were: you know what you want, you know what you will not put up with, and you have stopped burning years on the difference.
Two practical notes for this country. Distance is real, so be honest with yourself about how far you would actually drive on a weeknight before you set your search radius wide. And you will read a lot about romance scams, because there is a lot to read. Do not let it keep you home. Learn the warning signs once and you will never get near the trouble.
So take a breath and sign up for an online dating account. Worst case, you get a few good conversations and something to report at Sunday dinner.
Author: Judy Porter.
Look who else just joined
