(For what it’s worth, according to survey data, people of all ages seem to agree that online dating leaves a lot to be desired.)īut apps, for all their frustrations, can also be hugely helpful: They provide a way for seniors to meet fellow singles even when their peers are all coupled up. He and others I talked with were tired of the whole process-of putting themselves out there again and again, just to find that most people are not a match. Al Rosen, a 67-year-old computer engineer living in Long Island, described sending out so many dating-app messages that he had to start keeping notecards with details about each person (likes concerts, enjoys going to wineries) so that he didn’t mix them up on phone calls. In fact, many gay bars have become something else entirely-more of a general social space, as younger gay people have turned to Grindr and other apps for hookups and dates.ĭating apps can be overwhelming for some older adults-or just exhausting. “They were sending me all white men,” she said.īill Gross, a program manager at SAGE-an organization for older LGBTQ adults-told me that the spaces that used to serve the gay community as meeting places for potential partners, such as gay bars, now don’t always feel welcoming to older adults. “And men who aren’t people of color are not that attracted to black women.” She recently stopped using one dating site for this reason. “There aren’t that many black men in my age group that are available,” she explained. The only way she can seem to find a date is through an app, but even then, McNeil told me, dating online later in life, and as a black woman, has been terrible. Now her friends don’t seem to have anyone to recommend for her, and she senses that it’s no longer acceptable to approach strangers. “So many wonderful dates.” She met her former husband when she went to brunch by herself and saw him reading a newspaper she asked whether she could share it. “I went on so many blind dates,” she said, reminiscing about her 20s and 30s. Wendy McNeil, a 64-year-old divorcée who works in fundraising, told me that she misses the old kind of dating, when she’d happen upon cute strangers in public places or get paired up by friends and colleagues. Getting back out there can be difficult, though. Read: Why it’s so hard for young people to date offline “Some people might not have thought about repartnering,” notes Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago. But that longer lifespan also means that older adults, more than ever before, have years ahead of them to spark new relationships. And as people are living longer, the divorce rate for those 50 or older is rising. Throughout their adult life, their generation has had higher rates of separation and divorce, and lower rates of marriage in the first place, than the generations that preceded them. She’s in good company: More than one-third of Baby Boomers aren’t currently married. “You’re thrust out into this cyberworld after the refuge of being in a marriage that-even if it wasn’t wonderful-was the norm. She tried to use dating apps, but the experience felt bizarre and daunting. Her marriage of 33 years had recently ended, and she didn’t know any single men her age in Longview, Texas, where she lives. When Rhonda Lynn Way was in her 50s and on the dating scene for the first time since she was 21, she had no idea where to start.
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