The Dating Game

In 1999, Cissy Wechter found herself alone for the first time in almost half a century. At age 62, she lost her husband of 44 years to lung cancer, and as Wechter grieved the loss of her partner, she thought she would never be able to get back out into the dating market.

“For two years, I just thought I never wanted to even have coffee with another man. I just thought I was through,” she says.
As Wechter points out, it is devastating to lose a partner at any age. She says it took her time to get back into the dating mindset, but eventually she met someone. Wechter says she wasn’t on the lookout for a relationship – it just happened to fall into her lap. And while the relationship didn’t last, her desire to continue dating did.

“It was a reminder that I was still a woman. Not [just] a mother and a grandmother, but a woman. And even though it didn’t work out, it reawakened the feelings that I had, both physical and emotional, and that made me realize that I should not eliminate the idea of having another man in my life,” Wechter says.
She has since written the book Sex & the 60’s: How to Survive as a Senior Woman in Today’s Dating World, detailing her and others’ experiences in the world of “senior dating.”

In their retirement and near-retirement years, people tend to find themselves alone for two main reasons: death and divorce.
Both events take some time to get over, but eventually people feel the urge to get back out on the dating scene, says Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her most recent book, Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love and the Sensual Years details her romantic liaisons in the five years after her divorce.
“Whether it ended badly though divorce or sadly though death, the good times were good enough to overshadow the bad, and most people don’t want to give up on love, no matter how difficult it might have been to maintain it... they have those memories, they want more,” says Schwartz.
Tom Blake, columnist and author of Finding Love after Fifty: How to Begin, Where to go and What to do, became involved in the topic of finding love in middle age when his wife left him in 1993.
He declares, “Loneliness is just a tremendous driving factor. People say, ‘Well I’m okay with my life, the only thing that’s missing is just somebody to share a movie with, and a conversation after coming home from work.’”

Once someone feels the urge to date again, Blake points out that it can be difficult for the newly alone to figure out how to get back out on the dating market. Some people have been married for the majority of their life, and it is hard to even know where they should start the search.
“They don’t know how to start or begin. Maybe they have a few friends who say, ‘Oh you ought to do this,’ but it’s very daunting for some, because for many of them dating again was the last thing on their mind,” admits Blake.
In fact for some, it is their first real experience with dating. “Some people got married early... they were married for 30 years and they’ve never had any dating experiences,” says Schwartz. “They don’t know if they’re acceptable or attractive, they have no idea of their quote-unquote ‘market value’ and they feel inept and worried, but they’re motivated because they’re lonely.”
For anyone getting back out on the dating scene, Wechter, Schwartz and Blake all have the same advice: get out and do what interests you.
“Do what you love to do, but do it where there are going to be other people doing it,” says Schwartz. She suggests joining a club, going to cultural events, trying new sports or activities, or joining a political campaign.
Schwartz says it is important to focus on meeting lots of new people and forming social groups, rather than simply searching for someone to date. By expanding one’s social network one will be introduced to new people – and if they’re patient, one of those people will be a suitable candidate.
Blake says that anyone getting back on the dating scene has to realize that it will take time to meet a new “special someone.” One can’t go out with the purpose of meeting a new partner – they should just go out to have a good time and make new friends.
“When happens is when we worry about it is we try too hard, we come off as desperate, and that doesn’t work,” articulates Blake. “So when you get out and you’re relaxed and you’re enjoying an activity, bam, that’s when the unexpected will probably happen.”

At this wired day-in-age, another popular place to meet other singles is on the Internet. Schwartz is the relationship expert for Match.com, and says 20 to 30 per cent of the people on their site are over the age of 50.
“I think the Internet is the way to go, because there are just so many people looking, and that is the place to find them,” says Wechter.
Schwartz says online dating can seem daunting at first, because people 50 and above are often not technologically-savvy or don’t like the idea of putting their face on an anonymous site. Over time though, she says singles choose online dating even if they were originally turned off by the idea, because there is a large pool of people in their age-range.
“It’s about the only place there are age-appropriate partners in large numbers,” states Schwartz.
One problem with online dating is the fear of scams, but Wechter points out that “people can lie to you no matter how you meet them.”
Schwartz says the most important safeguard against scams is to rely on is common sense. “There are some scammers out there, most people are good people, but it doesn’t take much to ruin your faith in the system,” she says. “If something feels odd to you or wrong to you, it probably is.”
She says to meet people for the first time in public places, and to not give out home telephone numbers or addresses until you know them well. Schwartz says a major sign of fishy business is when someone asks for money, or seems to fall in love too quickly.
Blake says loneliness can lead someone to make bad decisions because they are blinded with the desire to find a mate. He says that women have to be especially careful, as there can be scammers who prey on the recently widowed.
Schwartz adds there’s nothing wrong with checking out someone’s story. “If they say they work at a law firm, go Google them, do a little due diligence.”

“I think it’s pretty common that men your own age are looking for someone younger,” says Wechter of her experience as a 60-plus woman on the dating market. Rather than complain about it, she says she embraced the phenomenon in reverse.

“I ended up with somebody considerably younger,” Wechter owns up. “Within a 24 hour period, he was carded when he ordered a drink and I was offered a senior discount at Alamo car rentals.” The relationship has since ended, but she says that women shouldn’t rule out a relationship with a younger man, as long as they’re careful that their partner is interested for the right reasons.

However, Blake writes a newsletter for single people over 50, and says that men being drawn to younger women is the biggest complaint he hears from women.

“These men, I get pretty mad at them and I go after them pretty hard. They live in an illusion of grandeur. They’re only kidding themselves, because really, they’re going to be better off with someone close to their age,” says Blake. “Someone who remembers the songs back then, who can share memories of what happened historically, and has similar aches and pains and issues of aging.”

Blake tells the story of a friend who spent many unhappy, single years dating younger women. Once he took Blake’s advice and started dating within his own age range, Blake says he was immediately a happier person.
Wechter, Schwartz and Blake all say that it can be difficult to get back out there, but everyone has to take the plunge if they want to start anew.
“If you were looking for a job, you wouldn’t wait for someone to knock on your door and offer it to you,” Schwartz declares.

“Realize that you are just like everybody else, you’re not going to be meeting people who are perfect,” proclaims Schwartz. “Somebody is going to love you and want you because you are bright, interesting, accomplished, you’ve learned a lot, you have some wisdom, you show your good heart, you share interests with them, or you meet them doing something that you both show your passion in.”

Rosemary Quipp has completed a bachelor of journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where she graduated with highest honours in journalism and political science, specializing in online publication, radio and international reporting. Ms. Quipp has been passionate about international affairs since her adolescence, and after her third year of university, she traveled to East Africa with the Rwanda Initiative. There, she worked at Rwanda's largest English-language daily paper, The Kigali New Times, for two months, and then traveled to Tanzania where she climbed Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro. She has also been to Costa Rica, the Netherlands, St. Maarten and both coasts of the United States, where she learned to surf.

Upon graduation from Carleton University, Rosemary received the Marjorie Nichols Memorial Award, an award given to a graduating student who shows "exceptional promise as a future journalist." Her work has been seen in Centretown News, The Charlatan, Capital News Online, Global Flux, The Low Down to Hull and Back and now Retirement News Today. She has been heard on CBC Radio “One's The House” and CKCU's “Midweek”. Rosemary grew up in a log cabin in the Gatineau Park region of Quebec, Canada, attended Canterbury High School for the Performing Arts where she studied theatre, and currently calls Ottawa's Chinatown neighbourhood home.

The Dating Game “One more time from the top: Starting a new relationship”

The Dating Game
“One more time from the top: Starting a new relationship”