5 Things You Didn’t Know About Dating for Seniors
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Dating for Seniors
With the obsession that today’s media has with youth and appearance, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s only the young who are looking for companionship, that dating is a young person’s game.Well, it’s time things changed. We are all living decades longer than we once did, and are staying fitter, healthier (and in some cases, friskier) further into our wisdom years than ever before. At the same time, older adults over 55 find themselves single and looking, either through divorce or the tragic loss of a husband or wife they loved for many years.Let’s take a look at five things you probably didn’t know about dating for older adults:
1. Age DOESN’T matter
It seems counter-intuitive to say that people characterized by one attribute — how old they are — don’t care about age when looking for a companion, but it’s true. Young people are incredibly age-prejudiced, to such an extent that age is the second-most filter criteria used to find a match on online dating sites.Adults over 55 are far more flexible in their approach to companionship. Part of this is probably the wisdom that comes with age, but even more significant is an essential truth about how age works. Once you get into your fifties and beyond, the actual number of your age becomes less and less significant. Far more important is what shape you are in, how healthy you are, what activities you can do.
2. Neither do looks
Another stunning aspect of dating for young people is how much looks matter. With pretty much every online dating system on the market today, the photo is all-important. This reinforces a message that young people get hammered with on a daily basis: nothing matters more than how you look.We’d be lying if we said that appearance wasn’t important at all to the over-55 demographic, but it turns out to be a much lower priority. Maybe this is because older adults are wise enough to know that looks have very little to do with whether someone is going to be a kind, loving and caring companion. Maybe it’s because the physical nature of attractiveness changes when you get older, or maybe they know that being “hot and sexy” is more a function of your personality than how you look.Whatever the reason, most older adults will tell you that how someone looks is doesn’t matter much in their search to find a companion.
3. It’s not drinks, it’s dinner
One thing we have been struck with has been the important role that dinner plays in the social (or not-so-social) lives of most older adults. Nobody likes the idea of spending years cooking for themselves and eating alone. And always being the lone single person when your married friends want to catch up for dinner starts to become a little tiresome. More than any other activity, dinner is where older adults feel the isolation of being alone most strongly.This is why, for many older adults, a dinner date is the most important first step towards finding companionship.
4. Not everybody is looking for love & marriage
The fundamental premise behind most dating services for young people is that the ultimate goal is to find love and marriage. While this is true for some older adults, it is far from universal.Many seniors really are looking for companionship and nothing more. Some are seeking someone to have dinner with, some are looking for someone to travel with them, others are looking for someone to share their favorite activities.It’s always fun to have attraction, romance, and flirting. For many people at this stage, that is enough. For others, it’s more. There is an entire spectrum of dating that goes far beyond the marriage-oriented online dating services available today.
5. Trust is hyper-important
Yes, trust is important to everyone, no matter how old they are. But for a retiree on a fixed income, who has heard countless stories of peers being taken advantage of both online and in the real world, trust takes on a special significance.Is this person who they say they are?Are they authentically interested in me, or are they after something more?Or, as we have been often asked by older women considering prospective male companions: are they truly looking for companionship, or someone to nurse them through their later years?
In conclusion…
In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, all the differences we’ve described above lead most older adults to conclude that online dating is not a positive experience at all. The online dating sites which market themselves as being for 55 and older are simply re-branded versions of dating sites for younger adults. None of them recognize that there are fundamental differences in what matters to older adults and what they’re looking for.Source: Andrew Dowling , The Stitch Blog Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net