Kathryn's Blog: Over 50?

Over 50? Better news all the time

I’m “feeling” a trend: Internet dating is going to be increasingly populated by older singles, while the younger ones will gravitate towards Facebook, Twitter, mobile and video dating.  What do you think?

Online and Over 50: Dating for the Dated
Posted By: Jon Sobel

Online dating isn’t just for the young. In fact, it’s not even mostly for the young.

It might come as a shock to Twitter-happy tweens, but the Web itself is a mere youth: if it were a person, it would just be graduating high school about now. Yet, in a new twist on the old saw that youth is wasted on the young, it’s older folks who are making the best use of the Web when it comes to searching for that special someone.

According to a survey conducted in early 2006, the odds an adult 40 - 58 in a relationship met his or her partner through an online dating service were just 1 in 33.33. For those 59 and older, they stood at an even slimmer 1 in 100. But this situation appears to have changed. Match.com, one of the leading online dating services, reports that 1 in 5 of its members is 50 or older—and that demographic is the site’s fastest growing segment.

A 2009 survey of adults in the UK who had dated in the past year found that the over-55’s were the most active online daters: 1 in 1.61 (62%) of them had joined a dating site, almost three times the rate of 18 - 24-year-olds. These mature singles had an average of 8.2 Internet dates and met an average of 2.4 sexual partners online.

Aligned with this trend, a 2010 US study of newlywed couples found that those who’d met online tended to be older, and less likely to be in a first marriage, than those who’d met in a more traditional way.

One might have expected the opposite—that younger people, more comfortable with technology and the Internet, would be the more active (and successful) online daters. But young people typically have more active real-world social lives, and hence more opportunities to meet people in the flesh. Older singles, by contrast, are more likely to have children, time-consuming careers—and an understandable aversion to the loud, youth-oriented bar and club scene. And as time goes by, older people get more accustomed to using the Internet.

Perhaps the greatest dating challenges await the retired. Today’s seniors are less likely than in the past to be able to count on their grown children to take them in and care for them if and when that time comes, so many single seniors are highly motivated to find a companion. But they have relatively limited opportunities to meet eligible singles. As one retiree active in online dating put it, either you move to an assisted living community with a built-in social scene, a proposition which is often quite costly, you take up bridge, or you learn how to post your profile on the Internet.

Given these choices, surfing for love and companionship seems mighty attractive.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.05.10 at 9.53 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Dating Tips • What the Research Says • 0 Comments

Older and marrying for the first time?

Here’s an article that really “gets it” about Internet dating and the enormous benefit it has been to older people looking for love, in particular, the never marrieds, who it appears are now getting married and never before rates.

SOME WAIT TO TIE THE KNOT
By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

When she was still single in her 40s, Debra Siegel made a list of qualities for her yet-elusive perfect husband: honest, family-oriented, a hard worker and physically fit.

But the years passed and the list went unfulfilled.

“When I hit 50, the bells went off,” she says. “I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.”

That’s when she took what she calls “drastic action.”

Her future husband, Dan Furlin, was of a similar mind.

“I didn’t think marriage was in the picture for me,” he says. “Once you hit 50, you don’t want to go through the rest of life without your soul mate. I was a little bit more aggressive.”

Both went the online dating route and met within months. The Dunedin, Fla., couple are both fitness-conscious and vegetarian. They were also both natives of New York state, and each had lived in Los Angeles. They moved to Florida — Furlin to Clearwater and Siegel to Orlando — before meeting online. They married in 2003.

Siegel-Furlin, 56, and Furlin, 58, are among a small but growing group of older adults marrying for the first time after age 45. Years ago, these older singles would have been known as the “spinster” neighbor or the confirmed “bachelor” friend. But now, longer life spans mean 50 is the new 30 — there’s plenty of life ahead. That, coupled with the baby boomer “never-wanna-be-old” attitude and a greater number of aging singles in the population, makes it more likely that those who want to marry actually will.

A USA TODAY analysis of Census records of Americans ages 45-55 shows that the percentage of those who said they had never been married in 2006 had doubled since 1990, and the percentage of those who were currently married had dropped by 9%.

It’s fairly difficult to get a real handle on this segment of the singles population because no federal entity tracks first marriages at specific ages. The closest count is the median age at first marriage, which in 2006 (the latest year for which data are available) was at its highest point: men at 27.5 and women at 25.5, according to the U.S. Census.

A tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is available just for a 20-year period, 1970 to 1990, shows that in 1990, only 0.4% of women and 0.6% of men married for the first time at ages 45 to 49.

According to the most recent data from the federal Survey of Income and Program Participation, which includes marriage, 13% of those who wed in 2003 were 45 and older.

Internet dating has largely made it possible for many of these later-life first marriages. It’s only in recent years that some sites have started monitoring that demographic. Among them is Yahoo Personals, based in Santa Clara, Calif., which reports a 33% increase from January 2006 to November 2007 among users ages 45 and over who say they have never been married. Since 2005, Match.com reports an increase of almost 10% of new members 45 and older and who have never been married; these now make up almost 14% of its members.

New patterns, new people

“As people get older, they tend to find themselves in fairly established patterns, so the ability to meet new people goes down over time. They’ve got to do something new if they want to meet different people,” says Craig Wax of Dallas, senior vice president and general manager for Match.com for North America.

Brian Lebowitz, 57, and Lise Goldman, 53, are to be married June 22. They met online almost two years ago and found out at the time that they lived within blocks of each other. Lebowitz, an attorney, lives in Washington, D.C. Goldman, who works in economic development, now lives in suburban Chevy Chase, Md. Lebowitz says his job and his hobby as a book collector took up most of his free time. But when he turned 55, he decided to give online dating a shot.

“I’d pretty much given up, but then thought I would give it a try and see what it was like,” he says. “Some people — myself included — would be more comfortable starting off communication by e-mail rather than going up to somebody at a party. It’s a less threatening way to go about it.”

Goldman says she always wanted to be married. She had been engaged twice — once in her mid-20s and again more than a decade ago — but she says it just wasn’t right until she met Lebowitz, whom she says is intelligent and kindhearted.

“There are wonderful people still out there who are hiding away in their work,” she says. “He’s an international lawyer, so he needs to work evenings a lot. That’s been one of the blessings that kept him away from the dating scene.”

Dating websites have been reinventing themselves since online dating took off in the mid-1990s. They’ve refined their methods, largely emphasizing a more scientific approach, which often includes compatibility and personality testing. Others have focused on niche marketing, including Spark Networks, whose online dating sites include JDate for Jewish singles, as well as CatholicMingle.com, InterracialSingles.net, BlackSingles.com, LatinSinglesConnection.com and PrimeSingles.net. That site, as well as lavalifePRIME and BOOMj.com, is among those offering social networking for these older singles.

LavalifePRIME surveyed 1,001 adults ages 45-65 in the USA and Canada last month who are not in a serious relationship and found almost one-third (31%) have never been married.

Carl Weisman of Redondo Beach, Calif., author of So Why Have You Never Been Married?, conducted an online survey for the book and found that 48% of the 1,533 bachelors ages 40 and older who responded said they were afraid of marrying the wrong person.

“They’d rather go to the grave unmarried than marry someone wrong,” says Weisman, 49. “The No. 1 fear is marrying the wrong person — more than not marrying at all — by 10 to 1.”

In addition to the online survey, Weisman conducted lengthy telephone interviews with 30 men. He says writing the book changed his own perspective.

“I was interviewing men 10 years older than me, and I felt like I could look into my future. I was not necessarily afraid, but I realized if I didn’t change things, it was not going to change,” he says.

Just weeks after completing the book, Weisman says he met a woman at a wine-tasting event and they now live together. They’ve talked about marriage; by the time they tie the knot, he expects they will have known each other three years.

Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who developed a personality test for Perfectmatch.com, says the Internet has given never-marrieds new hope for matrimony.

“If you were 50 and you went to a dinner party, what’s the chance of meeting a good selection, if any, of eligible people? People would show you the one person they knew who was single, and you would consider that person very closely, even if they were slightly disturbing, because you weren’t going to meet many,” she says.

Despite being engaged in her 20s, Stacey Kono, 48, of Beaverton, Ore., says she really didn’t think about looking for a husband when she was younger because she wasn’t sure a long-term relationship was for her.

Web of happiness

“It was never on my list of things to do. I just wanted to go to work,” she says. “Because I am financially stable on my own, I did not need a partner.”

Her husband, Terry Kono, 51, also was focused on his career. Because he’s in the military, he was moving at least every three years, which he says made developing a long-term relationship difficult.

But as they got older, both decided to try eHarmony, a site that matches members based on a lengthy compatibility questionnaire.

And they didn’t limit themselves on location: He lived in South Dakota; she was in Las Vegas. They dated for two years until he was transferred to Virginia. She moved to Virginia, and the couple were married last year.

Unlike the Konos, Richard Elliott,54, a software engineer from Bedford, Texas, says he had always wanted to be married, but “it just never happened.”

“I thought I’d buy a house and pool and work on an immaculate lawn, and I thought somebody would just show up. You get all these things and it makes you more attractive, but it doesn’t work that way. You have to get out there and be more proactive,” he says.

In his 40s, he says, he sold the house and bought a sailboat, which led him to meet people. He was in a short relationship with a woman 15 years younger, and after they broke up, he decided to look online. That’s where he met his wife, Cindy. They dated for a year, were engaged a year, and now they’ve been married a year and a half.

Cindy Elliott, a marketing manager, 49, says she had been in a five-year relationship during her early 30s and then figured it was too late for her.

“There was a time when I thought, ‘It’s just not going to happen.’ But the World Wide Web is a wonderful thing,” she says.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.01.10 at 8.41 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Love Shies and Late Bloomers • Singles Only! • Still Single? • Dating Tips • Where are the Good Men and Women? • Proactive Dating • 0 Comments

Fianlly - a vote against plastic and for real women!

A while back, I was taken on a tour of Second Life and walked through a choosing and purchasing of an avatar there, and was it a scary experience!  Try as I might to tone down what my Second Life life would look like, all I could some up with was a body and image that looked like I had taken an extended vacation at a plastic surgery mall. I have been increasingly concerned about the pressure on women (and men too) to be perfect, young and hot. Clients I have from the Los Angeles area report how stiff the competition is with the surgically gorgeous. Now here is an article from the New York Times where is says Hollywood—yes, Hollywood—is now looking for “real” unaugmented actors for parts. Take a look below, and hope that it spreads to the rest of the country. Wrinkles and gray hair are beautiful!

A Little Too Ready for Her Close-Up?

By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: April 23, 2010

In small but significant numbers, filmmakers and casting executives are beginning to re-examine Hollywood’s attitude toward breast implants, Botox, collagen-injected lips and all manner of plastic surgery.

Television executives at Fox Broadcasting, for example, say they have begun recruiting more natural looking actors from Australia and Britain because the amply endowed, freakishly young-looking crowd that shows up for auditions in Los Angeles suffers from too much sameness.

“I think everyone either looks like a drag queen or a stripper,” said Marcia Shulman, who oversees casting for Fox’s scripted shows.

Independent casting directors like Mindy Marin, who worked on the Jason Reitman film “Up in the Air,” are urging talent agents to discourage clients from having surgery, particularly older celebrities who, she contends, are losing jobs because their skin is either too taut or swollen with filler. Said Ms. Marin: “What I want to see is real.”

Even extras get the once-over. Sande Alessi, who helped cast the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, said she offers to photograph actresses in their bathing suits, telling them they can keep the photo for their audition books.

Professional courtesy? Not exactly. Moviemakers prefer actresses with natural breasts for costume dramas and period films. So much so that when the Walt Disney Company recently advertised for extras for the new “Pirates” film, the casting call specified that only women with real breasts need apply. By taking a photograph, Ms. Alessi said, “we don’t have to ask, we will know.”

The move toward “less is more” is being propelled by a series of colliding social and technological trends, more than a dozen film and television professionals said.

Cosmetic enhancements remain popular, with 10 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States in 2009, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. At the same time, the spread of high-definition television — as well as a curious public’s trained eye — has made it easier to spot a celebrity’s badly stitched hairline or botched eyelid lift.

Men, of course, are not immune to the youthful lure of a surgeon’s scalpel. But it is women, to the surprise of no one, who are being scrutinized most closely.

Botox is the enemy in a post-“Avatar,” 3-D infatuated Hollywood, where the ability to crumple a mouth into a frown is as vital as remembering one’s lines. More startling is how young plastic surgery devotees have become. In January, the actress Heidi Montag was on the cover of People magazine touting the 10 cosmetic procedures she received in one day. She is 23.

“The era of ‘I look great because I did this to myself’ has passed,” said Shawn Levy, the director and producer of “Date Night” and the “Night at the Museum” movies. “It is viewed as ridiculous. Ten years ago, actresses had the feeling that they had to get plastic surgery to get the part. Now I think it works against them. To walk into a casting session looking false hurts one’s chances.”

Few in Hollywood are willing to admit to a chin reduction or mini eyebrow lift. (Remember when Jennifer Grey admitted to a nose job, a move some say hurt her career?) Celebrities instead are more open to discussing a former drug problem or sex addiction, because there is less concern a confession of that sort will harm their careers. But with so many types of cosmetic rejiggering, results are often painfully obvious and difficult to correct.

Ms. Shulman of Fox met with an agent recently to discuss hiring an actress who clearly had work done. “What did she do to her face?” Ms. Shulman said she asked the agent. “He said, ‘Nothing.’ I shrugged. I’m just not going to argue. I said, ‘She’s not for me then.’ ”

Head shots, too, are no longer reliable. Ms. Marin said she sometimes checks AwfulPlasticSurgery.com, a celebrity Web site that chronicles the surgically enhanced, to confirm suspicions about who has done what. When Ms. Alessi was casting “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2007, she received hundreds of head shots. Some of the actresses who arrived for auditions, though, looked nothing like their photographs.

“They would have these huge puffy lips and frozen foreheads,” she said. “You said to yourself, ‘Oh, I can’t use you.’ I don’t mind if they do a tiny bit of something, but it can’t be obvious.”

An actor can even lose a role if a director suspects surgery, whether it was performed or not. John Papsidera, a casting director for the “Batman” movies, said he and a director (he declined to say which one) recently debated whether to hire an actress in her early 20s to play a teenager falling in love. The actress was talented and naturally pretty. But what stopped the director was his suspicion that, at such a young age, she already had breast implants.

“We looked at film where she was topless and it was like, ‘Maybe,’ ” Mr. Papsidera said. It wasn’t a period film, so authenticity was not an issue. Instead, the possibility of implants became “a point of reference,” he said. “It was more of, ‘Where is that person coming from as an actor?’ ” She did not get the part.

To outsiders, such conversations can seem almost cruel. Youthful perfection is prized in Hollywood despite the seeming canonization of older actresses like Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Betty White. But a talented 35-plus actress who has had particularly good surgery can still find work. At that age the backlash is not against plastic surgery or Botox itself — everyone seems to be doing it, right? — but its poor execution.

“Behind the scenes, you have so many conversations,” said Mr. Levy, the director, referring to his discussions with studio executives about leading ladies. “Why did she do that to herself? She was beautiful. She was great. But now we can’t cast her.”

Rarely, though, do studio executives share their concerns with actors, he added, citing politeness as a reason.

Perhaps they should discuss it. After all, the executives and producers who criticize others for having too much plastic surgery often feel the same pressure to look young and attractive. Their judgments about others, then, are not only subjective, but deeply personal. (Several studio executives did not return calls or declined to comment on their views on cosmetic procedures.)

Carrie Audino, a casting director on “Mad Men,” said: “I do think there are times when you sit in a casting session and listen to what someone thinks is beautiful or handsome, and there is this very skewed outlook based on their own insecurities. Because they have issues, they have an issue with someone else.”

Still, there is something to suggest that the new attitude is beginning to take hold. Last week Sharon Osbourne told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show that she was going to have her breast implants removed this summer and give them to her husband as paperweights. Lisa Kudrow, in a recent interview with New York magazine, seemed happy to own up to the fact that the face viewers saw on an episode of “Cougar Town” was hers, age lines and all.

“Look, time marches on,” she said. “You still want to look good, but there’s a line between looking like yourself and looking like a character from a Batman movie.”

Of course, there are still times when having cosmetic surgery can pay off. The buzzworthiness of a reality television star seems to soar depending on her cup size or clipped waist. (Think of Jwoww from “Jersey Shore.”)

Last November Ms. Montag, who starred in “The Hills” on MTV, underwent 10 cosmetic procedures including liposuction, buttock and breast augmentation and Botox. Her reward? A torrent of media attention kicked off by a flattering January cover story in People magazine, including before and after photos.

Critics made fun of her, and her own mother was shocked. “She was looking at me almost like I was a zoo animal,” Ms. Montag told People of her first visit home.

But she said in an interview that she is convinced she made the right move. She wants to be a movie actress, and some parts have begun to come in. She recently starred in a video directed by Ron Howard, and she said she was hired for a cameo in an Adam Sandler movie.

Both parts poke fun at women who’ve had too much plastic surgery.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 05.06.10 at 8.51 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Books, Movies, and TV • 0 Comments

A cougar by any other name?

I’ve been pretty uncomfortable about all this business about older women dating younger men, a phenomenon that’s become called “Cougars.”  While theoretically I am not opposed to age differences one way or the other, what I didn’t like was the predatory slant that “Cougar” implied.  That aside, well why not?  This article below makes some points that I had not thought of, and says that younger men are now starting to seek out older women for particular reasons.  What occurred to me is for guys 35 and under, going older has a lot to be said for it.  I call it the Magic 35—for men 35 and under, the competition from other men for the most attractive women is very stiff.  Going older might be a very good route for these men.  (I’ve underlined the parts that I liked best.)

Field Notes In Cougar Territory, Cubs Take the Lead
By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER

IN the swirl of attention around older women coupling with younger men, it seems the guys are increasingly the ones on the prowl.

Over the last year, Amber Soletti, a founder of OnSpeedDating.com, has been playing host monthly to “Cougar/Boy Toy” speed-dating events. And despite research to the contrary, it is the men, she and others say, who are clamoring for more.

“We’ve had to turn away men at every event,” she said. Ten men were on the waiting list at the most recent one.

Casey Mizzone, 31, a teacher from Hoboken, N.J., made the cut at the “Cougar/Boy Toy” night on Nov. 4 at the Watering Hole, a New York bar. He had been wait-listed the previous month. Older women, Mr. Mizzone said, “are not so nitpicky, so naggy; there’s not a lot of pressure.”

He was one of 16 men to get a chance to meet, for four minutes each, the 15 women at the OnSpeedDating.com event, which typically draws more cubs than cougars. The men were 23 to 31 years old; the women 35 to 56.

Ms. Soletti said the lure for the men is that older women are more sophisticated and, frankly, more sexually experienced.

The women “are in their sexual prime,” she said. “If they can please her, they feel like they rock in bed.”

James Insinga, 28, managing director of a Manhattan real estate firm, said he finds younger women “are about getting married immediately, having kids.” He said the older women he dates are easier to talk to and more enticing, including an “adorable” friend of his mother’s (but it “would be dicey” to tell Mom).

Barry A. Farber, a psychotherapist and the director of the clinical psychology program at Teachers College at Columbia University, said “dating an older woman may free the man from the pressures of the ‘baby hunger’ that a relationship with a younger woman might bring.” An older woman, he added, “may well take him more seriously than a woman his own age and will overlook the relatively small flaws.”

It is not, however, a new idea. In 1745, Ben Franklin in his “Old Mistresses Apologue” advised men that “in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones.”

“They are so grateful!” he added, rather indelicately.

And into the 21st century, men have started Web sites to chase and give advice about dating older women, such as Urbancougar.com, where “cub chronicles,” “cougar confessions,” cougars of the month and listings of “dens” are posted.

There are more men than women among the 200 that have signed up for the first International Cougar Cruise, a three-day sail from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico, Dec. 4 to 7.

Rich Gosse, the organizer of the cruise and the chairman of the Society of Professional Singles, based in San Rafael, Calif., said that when he started running younger men/older women parties a year ago, the focus was on “cougars wanting the younger guy.” Now the men are “more excited about this phenomenon than the cougars.”

Not too long ago, Mr. Gosse said, a 20-something male wouldn’t admit to dating a woman over 40. “Now it is a badge of honor,” he said.

At a cougar speed-dating event at R. C. Dugans, a bar and lounge in East Meadow, N.Y., last month, 8 of the 10 men attending said they would date Patricia Polenz, a 48-year-old Northport, N.Y., divorcee with five children. Her first husband was 20 years her senior.

Ms. Polenz said the younger guys were “a little refreshing.”

“They are a little more eager to know me,” she said, “they are more willing to be accommodating than men my age.”

In fact, a recent study of 4,500 British singles conducted by Parship, a British online dating service, said 20 percent of men in their 20s and 22 percent of men in their 30s would date an older woman.

For the last six months, Andreas Anastasopoulos, 27, a graphic designer from Hamilton, N.J., has been dating Erin MacCord, 41, a divorced mother of three teenagers and a nonprofit development director from Burlington, N.J. Mr. Anastasopoulos said that women his age are into “immature partying and drinking, and being stupid and irresponsible” and he is “past that.”

He thinks her children are great. “I have younger sisters that are their age,” he said.

Brandon Solomon, 28 and a real estate project manager, sat next to Ali Addesa, a 44-year-old accountant, during the East Meadow speed-dating event, which was sponsored by WeekendDating.com. He said he would be willing to date 8 of the 11 women at the event, who were nearly old enough to be his mother, and wondered if they might consider him “a trophy.”

A booth away, Fred Guarino, 34, of Middle Village, Queens, and the owner of a heating and air-conditioning company, said, à la Ben Franklin, older women tend to be more appreciative, especially those “who have been married and divorced and have seen how bad things can get.”

“Young girls today, they take everything for granted,” he said.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.13.09 at 7.50 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Over 50? • Dating Tips • 0 Comments

Dating after the death of a spouse

Sometimes I get questions from women who are dating or thinking about dating a man who is a widower.  Divorced men and particularly widowers are prime candidates for remarriage, as the stats in the following article make clear.  While it is ideal for the newly single men to have some time to adjust to their loss and figure out how to live single, in truth, these men may move quite quickly into a new relationship.  These guys tend to like being coupled and married, and will start looking around to get that way pretty quickly.  Even though they might still be a bit risky, for many women, it makes good sense to look at the recently divorced or widowed men seriously.  They can be good mate material and likely will not stay single long.

Death do us part; then on to Match.com

Vicki Kennedy makes for a striking widow. Now that she’s said she won’t fill her husband’s senate seat, she has stepped firmly into the national conscience as a public figure of grief. The First Lady holds her hand at presidential conferences and liberals everywhere speak her name at prayer circles. At 55, she might some day remarry. But the odds are against it.

If things were different and Vicki passed before Teddy, chances are he’d be married this time next year. In fact, men are four times more likely to remarry after losing a spouse; 61 percent of men start dating within the first two years, compared to just 19 percent of women. It’s ironic that the same men who hem and haw about being dragged into marriage — there’s a reason women set ultimatums — are the ones who rush to find a ball and chain so soon after losing their spouse.

I’ve toured the circuit of grief groups; the women there often titter about the widowers who come to troll for dates. “They can’t do a load of laundry,” the women say, throwing their hands up in exasperation. “They don’t know how to cook for themselves.” With older widowers especially, men who served as breadwinners while their wives tended the home front, the transition to forced bachelorhood can be rocky. They’re suddenly left wondering who will fold their socks or dust the TV stand.

But, really, it’s more than the housework. My feeling is that there’s a companionship that develops in marriages, a profound understanding that’s hard to duplicate. We learn the most intimate details about someone over the course of a marriage: how they sleep with their mouth open or litter the sink with hairs after they shave. It’s these same details that grate on us over time, that drive couples to alcohol, recreational drugs and — worse — marriage counseling. But what we gain in this exchange, this soul-level knowledge of another human being, is a partner who knows us just as intimately.

Abel Keogh, who lost his wife when he was 26 years old, echoes this feeling.

“In my case, I really missed being married,” he says. “You can share your problems, your joys. You take pleasure in their life and they take pleasure in yours.” Mr. Keogh has gone on to write a book on grieving for men, “Room for Two,” and runs the online Facebook group, “Dating a Widower.” He tells men who have lost a spouse and are considering dating again to take a step back and evaluate the situation. “Make sure it’s for the right reasons,” he says, “and not just because you’re lonely.”

Which is good advice for all of us. So often we rush into relationships wanting to be known and we are quick to dismiss our partners when they fail to comprehend us fully. Instead of dashing headlong into a break-up at the first sign of discord, we would be wise to stick with some relationships for the long haul. To know someone fully — and to be known by them — takes time. For most of us, that means a lifetime.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.22.09 at 9.42 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Over 50? • Singles Only! • Newly Single? • 1 Comments

When your parent starts dating

I hadn’t really thought about the problems that the children of older adults dating online might cause.  Of course!  Adult children often have difficulty acknowledging the sexuality of a parents, and there is nothing like their parent dating to stir up those feelings.  On the other hand, adult children can be quite supportive of the online adventures of their parents, particularly if the adult child has computer skills and online dating experience themselves.  When my mother was widowed 10+ years ago, I encouraged her to try Internet dating, even took her online and showed her around.  Mom’s reaction was “Who is going to be interested in a 75 year old woman?”  Well, Mom proved herself wrong, because she found a guy—not online, but in her retirement community.  They married when she was 81 and he was 86.  And I am proud to say that I helped. 

See this article below for more about older adults dating and their children’s responses.

OMG—my mom is online dating
By Lorna Collier

(LifeWire) —On her second time around, 51-year-old divorcee Susan Potter decided to try online dating to find her perfect match.
Todd Anderson pointed his widowed mother Eunice to eHarmony where he had found his own wife, Tracy.

Todd Anderson pointed his widowed mother Eunice to eHarmony where he had found his own wife, Tracy.

But she ran into an unexpected obstacle: her daughter, April, 31, who became furious with her mother for even trying after she launched her Internet search for men last spring.

“Every time I would go online, she’d have a hissy fit, and say I wasn’t safe, and yadda yadda,” says Potter, a nursing instructor from Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

“There’s creepy people out there,” says April, a medical coder from Lena, Illinois.

“Online, they are complete strangers, and they can lie to you about anything and everything.” Plus, she points out, her mother “hadn’t dated in years and years and years.”

Susan eventually quit online dating—after too many miscues with men who, indeed, were not who they portrayed themselves to be—and joined a singles club.

She thinks that she has now met “probably the love of my life.” But April was so upset with her mother’s online dating that she refused to meet the boyfriend for eight months.

Dating goes gray

As the baby boom generation ages and once-married boomers become single again, they increasingly are turning to the Web in search of dates.

The number of eHarmony.com users who identify themselves as 45 years or older and divorced has more than doubled in the past eight years, says Gian Gonzaga, senior researcher for the site, which has had 20 million members since it started in 2000. Registered users ages 45-64 jumped 9 percent from 2007-2008, Becky Teraoka, the site’s public relations manager said.

And given that many older boomers are parents with grown children, it’s perhaps unsurprising that conflicts occur.

“What people worry about most is the well-being of their parents. They’re concerned their parents are out of the loop of dating and going to pick someone who is going to treat them badly,” says Stacy Kaiser, a Southern California psychotherapist who works with the women on “DietTribe,” Lifetimes’ reality show about five female friends who try to lose weight and get fit. Kaiser is also a former consultant for the Jewish dating site JDate.com.

Kaiser says she often counsels parents and children on working through issues that arise when a parent begins dating online. One of her clients hacked into his mother’s e-mail account and, posing as her, sent rejections to potential suitors.

Another followed her mother to an outdoor Starbucks rendezvous and repeatedly drove past her mother and her date, yelling at her. The mother eventually had to shout back: “Let me live my life!”

“It’s like the children try to take on the role of the parent,” says Kaiser.

For some children, this new role can mean supporting and encouraging a parent who is dating online, rather than throwing up roadblocks. When Eunice Webb, a 73-year-old widow and retired teacher in New Prague, Minnesota, grew lonely and contemplated buying a dog for company, her son, Todd Anderson, suggested she get a man instead.

A month later, Eunice met Lonnie Webb. They married in 2006.

Anderson had reason to believe in eHarmony, having used the service to find his wife, Tracy, whom he married in 2005. “When it came to my mother, I had absolutely no reservation. My mom’s a pretty cautious person,” he says.

Keep details to yourself

Still, says Kaiser, for many grown children, having a parent suddenly jump into the dating pool—and a virtual one at that—is a shock, especially if the parent begins dating numerous people, and perhaps having sex with new partners.

“When it comes to the sex thing, I tell parents, ‘Your adult child might not want to hear all the details,’” says Kaiser. “They may not even want to hear that you kissed.’ People are uncomfortable imagining their 60-year-old mother making out in the back of a car.”

Kaiser does recommend parents and children in this situation keep lines of communication open, but children need to realize that “their parents have a life; their parents are grown up.”

Meanwhile, parents need to recognize their child’s concerns. If a new boyfriend or girlfriend is now in the picture, says Kaiser, it’s important for the child to spend time with that person, “to develop their own relationship.” She recommends activities that both can enjoy, such as attending a sporting event together.

PerfectMatch.com founder and CEO Duane Dahl, 46, put his enterprise to the ultimate test when he helped his own mother, who is in her late 60s, enroll in his service.

“I think by spending time with our parents and helping them, we put them in a position where ultimately they can use the Internet to pursue friendship, companionship and even romance,” says Dahl. “This is a great opportunity for us to help our parents and educate them.”

But there is a limit. Dahl admits he didn’t advise his mother on what to post. “I didn’t want to be too involved.”

Instead, he reviewed some practical online tips with his mother and then directed her to his site’s services which provides advice and insight to all members on optimizing their photos and profile content.

And she must have taken his advice to take her time because he says, “her search for romance—and male companionship continues!”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.14.09 at 6.36 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 0 Comments

Andy Rooney and Older Women

Drew and I usually watch “60 Minutes” on Sunday evenings, and while I could skip Andy Rooney at the end, we watch him too, because Drew likes the crusty old guy.  He thinks they belong to the same club.  A friend sent me the following piece by Rooney, and it is certainly worth reprinting here for the giggle.  However, Andy is over 80, I am pretty sure, so that makes him twice the age of the women he is talking about.  So that’s a little odd, don’t you think?  Why isn’t he writing about women over 60 or 70?

60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, ‘What are you thinking?’  She doesn’t care what you think.  If a woman over 40 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it.  She does something she wants to do, and it’s usually more interesting.  Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant.  Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.  Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved.  They know what it’s like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age.  You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.  Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest.  They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one .  You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.  Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal.  For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress.  Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’, here’s an up date for you.  Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage Why?  Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

posted by Kathryn Lord on 08.04.09 at 8.00 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Just for Fun • 1 Comments

The age ceiling goes up for Internet daters

My first job out of college was as an Activities Director in a nursing home.  The place was pretty sex-phobic in 1972.  I made a big stir by making sure that the activities room was stocked with Playboys.  I am sure the library would be bigger now, and have some stuff for the ladies, too.  Just ten years or so later, I was doing workshops on sexuality and aging, even being on a CBC morning talk show talking about sex for seniors.  My mother’s remarriage at 81 to a man who is now 90 is not that unusual.  Several new couples at their retirement facility have since married as well.  While these folks grew up before computers and the Internet age, that doesn’t mean that old dogs can’t learn new tricks, because many of these older singles are now getting computer savvy and trying out dating sites.  I love it!

As seniors live longer they find ‘love expectancy’ also grows
Frank Greve

WASHINGTON — Murray Katz, 82, a retired senior federal patent-appeals examiner, has made a transition that lies ahead for millions of Americans.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t see women who were in their 60s and 70s as women,” he said recently. “Now, it’s amazing. The men I know are all looking at 80-year-old women. They’re our friends. We listen to them. We dance with them. We have sex with them when we can. It’s beyond comprehension.”

For many it’s unimaginable. But one of the things new under the sun since Katz was a boy is an 18-year increase in U.S. life expectancy, much of it spent in healthy retired life.

Those who are living through it spend their time in the traditional American way: pursuing happiness. And so it is that seniors today aren’t just dating more, they’re the fastest-growing users of Internet dating services and the fastest growing group of cohabiters.

To be sure, older men remain in short supply and millions of widows decide that meeting one man’s needs was enough. A few million more are ailing beyond caring. Still, there more couples than ever like Eleanor Robinson and John Kunec.

She’s 85, a Scrabble player, poet and table tennis champ whose social hub is the bustling Holiday Park Senior Center in Wheaton, Md., just north of Washington. He’s 83, fit and friendly, a retired government accountant. Both are widowed.

As surely as she carries his harmonica in her tote bag and they finish each other’s sentences and watch ballgames together, they’re a couple.

“I never had a relationship such as I have now,” confided Robinson, a Roman Catholic school girl from West Philadelphia who married at 19 and was widowed 54 years later.

“It’s like I’m a kid,” she said. “When I’m with him, I’m caring for him, and when I’m not with him, I’m thinking about him.”

Her beau — still a term in their set — had less to say. But Kunec’s a fine harmonica player, and the first tune out of his mouth during the intermission at a recent senior center dance was a stately rendition of the old Ray Charles hit “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”

Nonetheless, the couple maintain separate houses and marriage isn’t in the picture. “The complications wouldn’t be worth it,” Robinson explained. “I’ve limited income that I’ve decided to share with my grandchildren and I wouldn’t want to interfere with his family.”

Multiply this by a million or two, drop the ages by a decade or more and you have a more accurate picture of what many seniors are up to these days, or would like to be.

Longer healthy life expectancy is part of the explanation. There are also more men around, thanks largely to better drugs and treatments for diseases that more often afflict men, such as heart disease and cancers of the prostate, colon and rectum.

Seniors are also richer, their constant-dollar incomes more than triple what they were in 1960. Sex is hardly out of the question, thanks to Viagra and its cousins, which about 14 percent of senior men use, according to an AARP study.

Finding partners is easier, too, the Internet being a superior resource to barstools or the friends of friends. According to Mark Brooks, a consultant and newsletter writer who tracks the Internet-dating industry, the number of seniors joining online dating services has risen at double-digit rates annually since 2003, the most of any age group.

But attitude changes are probably the biggest factor in the expanding social lives of seniors.

A generation ago, romance among the elderly was widely derided, said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist who’s studied dating among older adults.

“Falling in love at an elderly age was seen as somewhere between unwise and dementia,” she said. In the parlance of the day, only “dirty old men” pursued sex. Cohabitation was not just low-class, as the term “shacking up” implied, it was morally “living in sin.”

Today, the elderly find remarriage fraught with headaches: It threatens some pensions. It alarms children worried about inheritances. It comes with love-testing anxiety about liability for a new spouse’s future health costs. So remarriage rates among seniors are flat.

Instead, Schwartz said, “People who wouldn’t have let their daughters into the house if they were cohabiting are now doing the same thing.”

According to Susan Brown, a demographer at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, cohabiting among older people increased 50 percent from 2000 to 2006, based on census figures.

The total — 1.8 million — counts only couples who live together full time and were willing to admit it to census interviewers. Part-time cohabiting — traveling together, sharing a summer house, spending weekends together — is up at least as sharply, according to seniors and people who work with them.

Does anyone in their age group disapprove?

“Maybe in the red states,” sniffed Eve Jacobs, 87, of Friendship Heights, Md., a labor demographer who still publishes in the field.

Opposition is more likely from children whose widowed parents are newly in love, said Joanne Wilder, a Pittsburgh lawyer and the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

“Many of them take a pretty dim view of this behavior,” she said, and their parents know it. “Matrimonial lawyers see a lot of people looking for ways to break things to the kids,” Wilder continued. “They’ll say, `My daughter will kill me!’ or ‘They really like her, but I don’t think they’d like it if we got married.’ “

Consequently, prenuptial agreements are much discussed at poolside in adult communities. “They make it safe for his kids to like you,” said Linda Stevens, 70, of Arlington, Va.

The children’s acceptance is key to older romances that flourish, said Steve Shields, the chief executive officer of Meadowlark Hills, a resident-governed adult living center in Manhattan, Kan.

“The need for approval and support from their children is really large,” he said. “No matter how deeply they love in late life, the importance of the love of their kids never diminishes.”

Shields is a big fan of late-life romance. “People 65 or 75 who are dating look younger and act younger,” he said. “There’s as much adolescent energy around them as there is around teens, but there’s lots more life savvy. It’s neat to watch.”

The rules of dating among seniors can be as dumb and cruel as those in junior high school, however. That’s because they’re the same ones that people followed when they first dated. For example:

  * The older they get, the more senior men favor younger women, according to researchers. The new wrinkle is that senior women choose younger men, too, when they can afford them. Going younger has a downside, said Schwartz, the senior relationship expert. “A lot of men and women who’ve done well are afraid they’ll be loved for their money. But then they go out and marry someone 12 years younger and all but assure it.”

  * Good men are hard to find. Unmarried women aged 65 to 74 outnumber men of that age by more than two to one, according to the census. And the disparity grows with age. Pickings can be especially slim in rural communities, said Liz Levaro, a doctoral candidate at Oregon State University in Corvalis who’s writing about new romance among the elderly. Her finding: “If a guy’s got his own teeth and can drive and dance, he’s a hottie.”

  * The dynamics of sex remain fraught. When the AARP asked divorced 60-plus men what they liked best about being single, 22 percent answered more sex. Just 1 percent of divorced women that age agreed. Brooks, the Internet dating expert, said seniors’ personal ads often were deceptive about sex and commitment: “Women lie about wanting casual relationships. Men lie about wanting long-term ones.”

That senior relationships work out as well as they do is a tribute to people who know a lot about loving. Having leisure and a little money helps, said Robinson, Kunec’s partner. So does living without obligations, she said, free to be herself entirely.

To explain the last, she told a story:

Her late husband, whom she described as a good, smart man, was the family’s only wage-earner, though they worked hard together to advance his career.

Although frugal, he loved to travel, she said, and once conceived a trip to Ireland that involved swapping houses with a family there.

She located an interested Irish family and they were set to go until a change in regulations on traveling pets made it impossible for Bridey Anne Murphy, the Robinsons’ Kerry blue terrier, to accompany them.

They couldn’t go without the dog, her husband declared. When his wife said she had her heart set on it, he countered: “But where will you get the money?”

She had some money due from census canvassing, she recalled. She borrowed the rest from the bank and went.

The two months on her own in Ireland were magical, she said, not least because, after a lifetime of being someone’s child or wife or mother, she was free to be herself.

“Now I feel like I’m in Ireland every day,” she said.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.11.09 at 6.07 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 0 Comments

Steve Penner urges guys to get real about age Part 2

More from Steve about men and dating age-appropriately.  See my blog entry for May 29th too.

Dating column readers reiterate: Date your age

By Steve Penner

I figured my last column would generate some interesting feedback.

In that column I advised middle-aged single and divorced men that they would be far more “marketable” to the opposite sex if they were willing to date women close to their own age.

To use a popular analogy (that I hope won’t be misinterpreted by anyone), the whole issue of older men wanting to date much younger women has been the proverbial “elephant in the room” for years. It is an issue that most people are aware of, but few people inside or outside of the media ever want to discuss honestly and frankly.

Here is some of the more interesting feedback that I received.

One local woman wrote “As a 50-year-old woman attempting to date, I truly appreciated your article in the Portsmouth Herald dated 3/13/09. I have noticed that many men my age say they want to date a woman who is closer to my daughter’s age, which I think is just icky. I cannot relate because I have no desire to date an immature, inexperienced young adult; I’m looking for someone who has been tested by life’s experiences and has come to know themselves. Thank you for telling middle age men that they should keep an open mind about age and dating because I know many fabulous women in their 50s who are emotionally stable, financially secure, intellectually stimulating, and looking for a guy their age to date.”

Another woman e-mailed “You did a very nice job with today’s column. I think the best thing about it was the way it reminded men that there are positive aspects to being open to dating women their age (or even older!), such as a larger dating pool, and finding someone with shared interests and life experiences. Thank you! I hope it generates some reflection and perhaps discussions in the coming days, and I suspect women in the Seacoast will copy the column and share it with men they know because there was no negativity or scolding… It was a great perspective on the issue.”

But the most intriguing and totally honest comment came from a man who wrote “I agree with your column completely today. It’s like everything else. There are tradeoffs. If a young woman is willing to settle for a much older man, it’s because she needs to, because she lacks something else that would enable her to snag a younger man. Maybe she is looking for financial security and that’s OK if you can afford her. We men are wired to seek young women of childbearing years who look healthy (symmetric). But do we really want more children when we are old men? I don’t! Once I started to date women my own age, a world of high quality women opened to me. Bright, charming, talented, and, yes, wealthy woman, who can pull their own weight. Now I attend parties with women who talk about their knee replacement surgery but they have so many other virtues that really count.”

Several other brief e-mails arrived from women applauding my thesis, and one man wrote to say “As someone who married an ‘older woman’...; there is a great deal of sense in your advice.”

But the question remains, are men really “wired to seek young women of childbearing years,” or are they merely conditioned by society to lust after younger women?

Obviously the answer is complex, and I would like to add another theory. Basically when it comes to important relationship and dating issues, men tend to mature much later than women. This is especially true among teenagers and young adults in their 20s and even 30s.

Therefore, starting in high school, girls prefer dating slightly older boys and vice versa. Consequently, a pattern is established (and later in life copied and perpetuated) of women wanting to date older men and men wanting to date younger women.

But by the time people reach middle age, most of us have finally achieved what I call “relationship maturity.” What do I mean by that term? Simply that people who have reached that level have finally learned what few young people know.

Simply, that the most important criteria in a relationship is NOT how tall a guy is or how cute a girl is, but rather how well a couple communicates with one another; how well a couple can mutually nurture one another; and how a couple can deal with the inevitable problems and pitfalls that life throws at everyone. These are the factors that are truly important in order to develop a meaningful relationship that one hopes will last for decades.

It is unfortunate that many people arrive at middle age still not having reached “relationship maturity.” It is even more unfortunate that a vast majority of such people happens to be men, which is why so many middle aged men are so gung-ho about wanting to date much younger women.

I further assert most such men are guys who have had limited relationship experience and who, in many ways, are as immature as they were 20 and even 30 years ago.

Show me a 50-year-old man who insists that he only wants to meet women in their 20s or 30s, and I will show you a guy whose chances of EVER developing a fulfilling long-term relationship are about as good as his chances of winning the lottery.

In other words, ladies, don’t even bother buying a ticket to meet him.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 05.31.09 at 4.53 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Over 50? • Dating Tips • Search Smart • 1 Comments

More on love over 60

All of us who find ourselves single and wishing we weren’t need all the help we can get.  Since older folks have been looking and finding love online in greater and greater numbers, we are also seeing more and more good advice.  Here’s some from Abigail Trafford:

How to Find Love Later in Life You’re never too old to fall in love—or fall apart
By Emily Brandon

Falling in love at age 60 is reminiscent of love at sixteen—just as exciting, and just as risky. Washington Post columnist Abigail Trafford quips: “It’s wonderful to realize that you’re never too old to fall in love, but wise to remember that you’re never too old to fall apart in love.” Trafford spent a year at the Stanford Center on Longevity at Stanford University interviewing couples over age 50 about their personal love stories. She published those stories in a book released this month called As Time Goes By: Boomerang Marriages, Serial Spouses, Throwback Couples, and Other Romantic Adventures in an Age of Longevity. U.S. News asked her to share some of her dating adventures. Excerpts:

What’s different about dating in your 50s, compared with your 20s and 30s?

The biggest difference is you have some experience. You already have a love story inside you. You’re a lot freer. You’ve completed your adult tasks, which are to raise a family and establish yourself in the community. In your 20s, 30s, and 40s, you have a really long to-do list. By the time you get into your 60s and 70s, you have a kind of confidence that comes with experience. You are freer to define the kind of life you want to lead. That’s a wonderful bonus for relationships. You put a premium not on scoring with someone, but on connecting with someone and being who you really are. When you’re young, there’s a lot of pressure to find your mate and settle down. Once you’re in your 50s and 60s, you don’t have that pressure. The urgency is to make friends. You’re dating for fun.

How do you balance commitments to a deceased spouse with beginning new relationship?

People who decouple again after having had a relationship before are able to embrace the past relationship and then move on. I think one of the dangers is that second relationships feel that they are in competition with first relationships. The man and the woman need to be very comfortable acknowledging that each person had a past life. The key is to have confidence in who you are in the relationship right now. Remember the past, but also don’t let it weight you down.

How do kids from previous relationships come into play?

You redefine your relationship with your adult children. They are no longer a dependent child, but someone who is also an adult who you can be very close to. They may think it’s cool that Grandma goes out on a date or [that] adult children may be protective. They want to make sure that their mom is not going to get hurt or their dad is not going to be taken for a ride. Adult children are usually happy that their parents, who have become single from a death or a divorce, are going on dates and have someone special in their lives. 

Do baby boomers and seniors frequently look up old flames from high school or college?

This happens quite frequently. Sometimes people wonder what has happened to someone they had cared about so many years ago. Sometimes it is part of a reunion of a college class. Sometimes people look them up with the Internet. You go to your hometown for a funeral and you run into that person’s family. It’s a way that older people like to write their narrative of relations and make a coherent story

What dating mistakes are baby boomers and seniors making?

In the research that I did, finding a partner and being part of a couple is not enough. You really need a network of friends and family to enrich your life. You should have about eight or 10 people in your circle. If you get below three, you may become quite isolated.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 04.11.09 at 6.54 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 0 Comments

STD’s not only in NZ

Dating advice for the over-40s

By Elspeth McLean

“Germs and sperms don’t know how old you are.”

That is one of the blunt statements Dunedin Family Planning educator Sarah Loftus uses to get across the message that women looking for love in their 40s and beyond can fall into the same traps as teenagers, running the risk of sexually transmitted infections and even unwanted pregnancies.

People tended to think that sexual health teaching was only necessary for younger people, but that was not the case.

Family Planning, with Ministry of Health funding, has produced a new booklet called Upd@te Me aimed at heterosexual women aged over 40 who are getting back into dating and relationships.

Its topics include deciding what you want in a relationship, Internet dating, sexual etiquette, emotional baggage, falling in love, safe sex, deciding if a relationship is healthy, and breaking up.

Ms Loftus said it was felt there was a demand for this type of information booklet, which will be available from Family Planning, doctors’ surgeries and sexual health clinics.

One of the concerns was that people in the over-40 age group, who had not had the same safe sex education as younger people, were becoming a “a bit over-represented” in sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates.

Many of the messages were similar to those aimed at teenagers, because often those in the older age group, when they fell in love or developed a crush, behaved just like their teen counterparts.

Dunedin Sexual Health Clinic’s clinical leader Dr Jill McIlraith, agreed.

“Just because you are older doesn’t mean you automatically get wiser.“Teenagers and older women who thought sexually transmitted diseases or unplanned pregnancies would not happen to them often used phrases such as “It won’t happen if I have sex once”, or “He was a nice man”.

People were very selective about how they perceived risk - “I don’t think middle age protects us from that warped perception.”

She saw the book’s production as timely and useful, although some women might not want to think it applied to them.

While the risk of pregnancy decreased from the age of 30, sexually active women should not regard themselves as safe from pregnancy until they had gone at least a year, and some would advise two years, without periods, she said.

Reported cases of chlamydia infections, which can cause infertility, have been increasing dramatically in Dunedin, with the sexual health clinic rates showing an increase of 138% over five years.

Numbers were likely to be much higher because people could be infected without being aware of it.

Syphilis was an STI people had regarded as a thing of the past, but it had also been on the increase in New Zealand in recent years and the average age of those with it was 37.

HIV infection rates had also increased in 40 to 49-year-old heterosexual women.

Dr McIlraith had been an advocate of putting condoms in teenagers’ Christmas stockings, but if Mum or Granny were changing partners perhaps the family could buy them some too.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.05.09 at 6.28 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Dating Tips • Be Safe • 0 Comments

British Boomers are SEXY!

Well, this article below is about the Brits, but it’s also about the Boomer generation, of which I am a part.  I just LOVED the article, particularly the photo.  Do you think the Brits are more liberated sexually?  Can you imagine the “strip poker” type of game described below in a dinner party in the USA?  Tell me, readers, are American Boomers like the English?

Babyboomers still partying on in their sixties
Toasted teacakes and orthopadeic slippers are definitely out for the new generation of silver partygoers

Hundreds of pensioners disrupt traffic in Melbourne’s city centre, removing their clothes
Jonny Beardsall

Forget about careful driving and wide-fitting shoes — life today is miles more stimulating for baby-boomers. They’re healthier and happier and longer-living than any of their predecessors and, having made it into their sixties with their libido more or less intact, have no intention of going slow in the bedroom. Helped by Viagra and a more relaxed, horizontal approach to relationships and marriage, it seems that double chins, love handles and bingo wings are no longer a turn-off. With children having flown the nest and plenty of savings to splash out, 60 is suddenly sexy. Throw in Joan Bakewell’s appointment as “tsar for the elderly”, Helen Mirren in a red-hot bikini and Carmen Dell’Orefice still modelling at a glamorous 77, you can see why Sagazoners — Saga Zone is a sort of Facebook for grown-ups — are chatting so explicitly online. In fact, a recent survey by the website found that two-thirds of men and women aged 60-64 said they were still sexually active, with almost half of those getting between the sheets at least once a week. It also buried a widely touted myth, with three-quarters claiming that sex does not become more boring as you get older.

Pam, 63, is typical: “If I am honest — and I generally am — sex is just as important to me now as it ever was, and, joy of joys, I can’t get pregnant!” Joy agrees: “Even though we all grow older, it shouldn’t bar us from a bit of rumpy-pumpy, should it?” Likewise Willy: “I would rather be on my own than in a sexless marriage — frustration is a terrible thing.”

It is not only sex that the older generation is so wholeheartedly embracing — they’re behaving in every way like born-again teens. Emma Soames, Saga magazine’s editor-at-large, reports that during a Leonard Cohen concert in the Albert Hall earlier this month, “when he sang, ‘If you want a doctor, I’ll examine every inch of you’, there were audible yelps from the crowd. He’s 74”, she says. “The myth that once you hit 60 your life is over is well and truly dead. At this age, there is less pressure and it’s likely that you feel more comfortable about your body.”

A spring chicken at 90, the writer Diana Athill concurs. “To me, 60 seems rather young,” she says with a dry chuckle. “I certainly enjoyed sex in my seventies. Eventually I lost the urge, but I’ve known many others who went on for a lot longer.” Famous for growing old disgracefully, she detailed her colourful adventures in her recent autobiography, Somewhere Towards the End, in which she writes about several affairs with married men, including a ménage à trois. Suburban dinner parties between consenting pensioners are also witnessing an increase in the use of soft W drugs. And that’s not all. A London dentist reports how his wife began to feel distinctly uncomfortable when, after plenty of wine and a few after-dinner joints, an innocent-looking parlour game in the Cotswolds turned into a full-on strip-fest. “The hostess, who was just into her sixties, couldn’t wait to show off her new boob job and had her top off as fast as a bride’s nightie,” says Robert, 57, whose wife, Jane, 52, had feigned illness and gone to bed in a state of shock. “That left me, two other straight couples and two gays. The boys whipped their trousers off straightaway, which was pretty scary stuff. I’m not proud of my body — I don’t even expose that much when I’m holiday — so I stayed up long enough to be polite, then joined Jane in bed while I still had my boxers.”

Among older people, attitudes to misbehaviour are certainly changing. October saw the publication of Groovy Old Men: A Spotter’s Guide, by Nick Baker, 56. “It’s a state of mind,” he says. “They have a huge back catalogue of film, music and style references and like to pick and choose — they love Amy Winehouse and see her as the new Dusty Springfield.” Now these men have “reached their sixties and they don’t give a shit”, says Baker, who counts Bill Nighy, Bryan Ferry and Paul Smith among their number. “Not trying too hard is the crux. If you are, then you’re definitely not a Groovy Old Man.” For Baker, “there is no question that an older generation is in its ascendancy and older men are able to enjoy themselves in the bedroom. Because of Viagra, which looks after the mechanics, it’s now about choice. Age no longer matters”.

It’s not all just good fun, however. Because older couples have no fear of pregnancy and are of the pre-Aids, free-love generation, few give unprotected sex a second thought. Thus the big fly in the ointment is sexually transmitted infections, which have tripled in the over-65s in the past six years. Some find that they have picked up something rather unpleasant in their retirement.

So an increasing number of them can be found hiding behind their newspapers in waiting rooms at STI clinics with the symptoms of chlamydia, syphilis and genital warts. Syphilis has tripled among the over-65s and doubled in the 35-64 age group. Chlamydia has also risen, by 51% in 35- to 64-year-olds and by 37% in over-65s.

Dr Eoghan MacSweeney is medical director at CityDoc, a private healthcare service in London and Birmingham. “I saw someone over 60 this morning whose lack of understanding was frightening,” he says. MacSweeney believes that sex education should not merely be for the young. “Marriage is not the same institution it once was, and older people have become more laissez faire when it comes to relationships. Viagra is partly responsible, but there has been a twist in sexual behaviour.”

Moreover, the resumption of youthful practices does not suit everyone. “Half of \ prescriptions are not repeated,” says Val Sampson, a couples councillor and author of Tantra: The Art of Mind-Blowing Sex. The initial thrill of the pill may be great, but “what it doesn’t do is sort out relationships, and if you’ve not had penetrative sex for a decade, resuming at the drop of a hat can come as a shock. Mutual pleasure is so not about wham, bam, thank you ma’am”.

Which, one might argue, is something they’re old enough to know.

What’s sex really like when you’re older?

Susan*, 61, is in a relationship with a man in his sixties “I was married for a long time, but it wasn’t good sexually. Since it ended 16 years ago, I’ve been making up for lost time. At my age your inhibitions go out the window — it’s great. I’m not worried about what people think any more: I’m my own person. I enjoy sex now and need it more than ever. My boyfriend has to use Viagra — sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I do other things when he’s not around, too: thank God for the Rabbit.”

Agony aunt Irma Kurtz, 73, is single. “With age, sex becomes less pressing — you might say more cuddly. Nature is no longer agitating for reproduction and the competitive thrust among men especially has a — dare I say — softer edge. Better than ever? No. Just the fruit of a different season. Where love remains, the sex remains, too. But out and out cruising for it and obsessing about it is for the young. For the first time, on moving house recently, I bought a single bed. I have always believed it is easier to give up those things we have enjoyed fully, so I do not miss sex. Just as when I gave up smoking long ago, I found the day had more hours in it.”

Irma Kurtz’s new book, About Time: Growing Old Disgracefully (John Murray £16.99), is published on March 5

Tom*, early seventies. Divorced 13 years ago, he has been dating since. “We grew up in a much more repressed age. The sexual revolution passed me by — I was busy trying to get on with my life and make money. Now, I don’t think sex in your seventies is different from sex at any other age. You hear people saying 50 is the new 30. When my grandmother was 60 she was an old lady. Women my age today aren’t old ladies — they can be extremely attractive. Dress and hair colouring have a great deal to do with it.”

Wendy Salisbury, 62, has married and divorced twice, and has been dating since her forties. “A couple of decades ago, if someone was alone at 60, that would be it for them. But now single old people are dating more than their children do. We all still want love, and the love of family and friends is wonderful, but it’s not the same as romantic love. We embrace sex, talk about it, think about it. Everything ages, except feelings. It’s our children who are embarrassed, not us. Internet dating has made it possible to keep dating — I meet men there and in the normal quarters of life, such as estate agents or policemen. Sixty is a new lease of life.”

Wendy Salisbury is the author of The Toyboy Diaries (Old Sreet £7.99)

Nick*, 66, has been dating for the past 30 years after his two marriages broke down. “As you get older you become more confident about yourself and learn to make the most of it. My last long-term relationship was phenomenally active. We had sex every day — it was like being a 25-year-old. The woman I am dating now is five years younger than me, but has a phenomenal figure and we make love every time we stay over together. If I’m with someone I really want, I have no physical problems.”

Michael*, 59, a widower, is about to marry a woman he met on Friends Reunited. “When I was young, sex was a question of quantity rather than quality. After marriage, it became routine, and, with the advent of children, less frequent. The stresses of time, work, money and kids are not conducive to a wonderful love life. Then there was my wife’s long illness and no sex at all for years. After her death, I went onto Friends Reunited Dating. I didn’t expect to find a new partner, but, amazingly, that is what happened. I think about sex more now than at any time since my teens and early twenties.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.06.08 at 9.20 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Dating Tips • Be Safe • 4 Comments

Older folks discovering cyber sex?

I’ve got to admit that this is something I had not thought of yet: The pull of cybersex (excuse the pun) for older folks.  Why not?  Cyber sex has nothing to do with your actual age or how you really look, right?
When it comes to cybersex, oldies beat youngsters

It’s not just the youngsters who are hooked on to the Internet for their daily dose of erotica, as a researcher has found that older adults are
Adults are a step ahead when it comes to cybersex.

Sociologist Sue Malta, at Swinburne University’s Faculty of Life and Social Sciences, claims that her study provides evidence that older adults have a voracious appetite for the Internet and sex. For her study, Malta conducted in-depth interviews with 45 older Australians and five older Americans about their romantic Internet relationships. The participants were aged from 60 to 92 years, and included those involved in online relationships as well as a smaller group that had first met face to face.

The study was aimed at analysing if technology had a role in influencing older people’s relationships developed on the internet, and the longevity of such romances. And the findings of the study completely turn over the commonly held views that older people are asexual and are not technology savvy.

“That old stereotype that you get to a certain age and you don’t want to do it any more is not true,” she said. The findings suggested that online relationships between older people become sexually intimate faster and are of shorter duration.

A large number of older women said that the cyber romances suited their lifestyles because they “never wanted to live with anyone again”.

“The biggest reason they gave was because they had no wish to become someone’s nursemaid and housekeeper. They had already been there, done that,” ABC Online quoted Malta as saying. Most of the Internet romantics believed cyber-flirting was fun, but a precursor to a sexual relationship.

There were a few people who indulged in cybersex, and one older woman said that she would only have cybersex with someone she was not going to meet and all her cybersex encounters were with men much younger. Malta said: “She seemed to treat them like casual sexual encounters.” But instead of having to go out to a club she could experience it all “from the comfort of her own home”.

“Surprisingly the younger group was less sexually overt than the older participants,” she said. Such a phenomenon, according to Malta, is because younger people use internet dating in the pursuit for a possible life partner, and thus are more self-conscious about how they present online.

“The older group are not interested in that and can be more relaxed and go with the flow,” she said. Malta said that her study holds possible implications for social policy. “A lot of the participants had health issues and found sex and intimacy was one of the best things for them and gave them increased vitality. If older people are sexually active and it is good for their health then how do we design nursing homes to cater for that, because if you don’t you are doing them a disservice,” she said.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.15.08 at 6.29 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 3 Comments

JDate Scores Again!

Who says you don’t meet good people online?  You can even see Marilyn Michaels on YouTube doing her impressions.  This lovely love story was featured in the NYTimes “Vows” section—and they met on JDate!

October 26, 2008
Vows
Marilyn Michaels and Steven Portnoff
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

FOR Marilyn Michaels — comedian, impressionist, actress and latter-day vaudevillian — the prospect of marrying again at 65 seemed like the set-up for a Catskills gag about old age.

“God help us!” she exclaimed. “Get me under the huppah in time!”

Ms. Michaels, a Broadway baby whose parents performed on the Yiddish stage and at the Metropolitan Opera, hails from the borscht belt school of rat-a-tat punch lines and dead-on impressions, skills that have brought her acclaim on stage and screen. She radiates more energy than actors half her age.

And yet, in early 2005, the twice divorced Ms. Michaels found herself lonely and tired of “New York hippie-dippy guys,” she said. She opened a profile on JDate, where Steven Portnoff’s black hair and twinkly eyes stopped her cold.

“He called himself a straight arrow — I wanted that,” she said. Imagining herself with this divorced lawyer, she mused, “Just think of all the people you can sue!”

The opening line went to Ms. Michaels, who teased him about his age. “You can’t be 60,” she wrote. “You look like 40. What’s your secret?”

“Pick your parents carefully” was Mr. Portnoff’s retort.

Mr. Portnoff of Freehold, N.J., now 63 and retired, said he was not impressed by celebrity. But he told Ms. Michaels that he was already familiar with her work.

He relayed a memory of his father, whom he lost to Alzheimer’s. “In 1991, I took him to a Broadway show,” he wrote. “After the show, all he would say was, ‘That woman was so funny.’ The show was ‘Catskills on Broadway.’ You were the woman. Thank you for the memory.”

Their first date was in the theater district. It was quickly apparent that Mr. Portnoff, with his Mickey Spillane cadence, could keep pace with the comedian’s one-liners.

In the middle of lunch, she kissed him. “I was very forward,” Ms. Michaels said. “I said, ‘Let me get this out of the way.’ ”

Unfazed, Mr. Portnoff asked: “Can I swallow my scallop first?”

Next came a trip to the Cloisters in northern Manhattan, where Ms. Michaels was horrified to see her suburban suitor surveying the flora for gardening ideas. “How could I survive in the wilds of Freehold?” she recalled thinking. “I’m a Woody Allen New Yorker. I don’t drive. My whole family is driving impaired.”

At first, Ms. Michaels kept him at a distance. She was nervous about leaving the city — and also about losing her heart. “I got married very fast,” she said of her earlier unions. “It’s not difficult to get married. It’s the staying married.” She sighed. “I was afraid.”

For his part, Mr. Portnoff was smitten. “Every date I laughed so hard my ribs hurt,” he said. “Sometimes as we are speaking, she will morph into one of her impressions.”

For months, they dated infrequently. Then Ms. Michaels decided she had had enough. “It was around Valentine’s Day,” Ms. Michaels recalled, her voice cracking. “I said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening, I’m getting in too deep, I’m scared, I’m scared.’ ” She added, “Even though I knew I wanted him, I had to see if it was real.”

A Dear John letter arrived in Mr. Portnoff’s in box. It was a case this lawyer was not willing to lose: “I tried calling her. She didn’t answer the phone. I e-mailed her. She didn’t respond.”

He moved to cross-examination in an e-mail message: “I have all these great qualities and you don’t want to see me anymore? Am I in a Kafka novel?”

It was certainly a trial of a sort. “I wanted to see how I would feel, how I would miss him,” Ms. Michaels said.

It was Mr. Portnoff’s persistence that lured her back. “He kept pursuing,” Ms. Michaels said. “I heard that need in his voice. He was patient. And nothing got in the way of that.”

She said that after two marriages and a life in show business: “It always has been important for me to have a quiet place, a place where I feel secure and confident. And Steve is very much a grounded person. He doesn’t build castles in the air.”

After a wary reunion, “We seemed to come together closer and faster,” Mr. Portnoff said. But they compromised on their living arrangements: New York on weekdays; Freehold on weekends.

They were married by Rabbi Joseph Potasnik on Oct. 5 before a sweeping view of the Hudson in the bride’s Upper West Side apartment. Ms. Michaels, wore a wrap dress and a white flower behind one ear. Her eyes were wet and her voice shook as she and Mr. Portnoff held hands by a piano.

“She is a handful,” said Dr. Judy Kuriansky, the sex therapist and Ms. Michaels’s best friend for decades. “She is high maintenance. She needs a solid guy. I told her, ‘Do not let this guy go, whatever you do.’ ”

A congratulatory phone call came in from the comic Rich Little, with whom Ms. Michaels once traded impressions on television.

Then the bride crooned tunes from “Funny Girl,” a starring role for her in the 1960s.

Few shows go on without a hitch. Ms. Michaels was momentarily in a tizzy when the rabbi did not arrive on time. The bride was not amused: “I wasn’t planning to have to take that much Valium at my own wedding.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.03.08 at 4.14 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • We Love Love Stories • 7 Comments

Love it—Speed dating for the over 50 set

Love it.  The older, the better.  My Mom got married at 81, the groom was 86.

Clinton Township leads the way with speed dating for seniors

BY CHRISTY ARBOSCELLO

Singles searching for love and companionship sit at tables for two decorated with flickering candles and powder-pink tablecloths. They wear nervous smiles and name tags on pressed blouses and blazers. They’re told the rules: When the bell rings, the ladies move to the next man. They have four minutes to chat and, if a connection is made, get the digits or dance to a live band later in another room.

They’re equipped with ice-breaker questions: What do you like to do on a date? What type of food do you enjoy?

Do you have any grandchildren?

This is not the usual speed-dating soirée. These aren’t 20- or 30-somethings looking to start lives together. They’re seniors whose lives have been rich with experience, careers, children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. The approximately 20 people at the Clinton Township Senior Adult Life Center’s third monthly event are as young as 55 and old as 90. Many are widows and widowers. Some are divorced.

“I’m Jane. I’m looking for Tarzan,” Jane Brown of Macomb Township says playfully.

“Oh yeah?” responds Art Bosco of Warren.

“How old are you? Can I ask?” said Brown, who’s wearing glasses and pearl earrings.

79.

She’s 71.

“I’m a widower,” he tells her.

She’s widowed too.

“How did you make it? I’m having a hard time,” he shares.

She says she swims three times a week, stays busy with friends and now she’s looking for someone who can keep up with her on the dance floor.

“To be honest, I think the women are having an easier time. Women are more ...”

“Self-sufficient,” he finishes her sentence.

She tells him of a group for people who have lost spouses that she attends. He’s intrigued.

“We all have to do something like that otherwise, we go nowhere,” Bosco says.

The center’s program coordinator, Donna Tinker, said of senior speed dating, “I was the first in the area to start it,” eyeing a stop-watch before ringing the bell.

She tried convincing her bosses it would be a smash after seeing a video of an event in Florida. It took almost a year for them to agree, and it helps a good cause. The $10 individual fee benefits center activities and projects like a recent expansion.

The new take on dating is following a national trend of older adults increasingly flocking to unconventional outlets, including the Internet, to find love. They’re often ignoring social norms they adhered to the first time around.

They’re also living together more and more. Cohabitation without marriage among older people rose 50% from 2000 to 2006, with 1.8 million elderly individuals living together full time, McClatchy Newspapers reported in July. The report, which comes from census data, also found part-time cohabiters—who travel together, share summer homes and spend weekends together—have kept pace with that trend.

Perhaps taking note of the lifestyle changes, other senior event planners in metro Detroit are interested in mimicking Tinker’s matchmaking.

“I think it’s great. I’d like to try to do it at my center,” said Kathy Jo Voight, special events programmer at the Romeo-Washington-Bruce Senior Activity Center, who checked out the August Clinton Township affair.

Speed dating will kick off for the first time at Troy Community Center at the end of the month.

“They were doing that in Clinton Township and one of the seniors put a suggestion in the suggestion box that we do that here,” said Carla Vaughan, senior program director. “We said, ‘OK, let’s give it a try.’ “

Women registered right away for the Troy program; that’s also been the case in Clinton Township. It takes a little more work for organizers to sign up the men.

Those following Tinker’s lead can note her learning curve during the premiere event in May. The biggest problem: Like a bad date, it seemed to never end.

“Some ditched us,” she said, adding that many men used the old bathroom excuse to duck out after hours of not-so-speedy dating.

But on a recent night, the room was abuzz with serious topics from gay rights to abortion to lighthearted ones like playing cards and karaoke. For some, the bell rings too soon. For others, it seems to take longer.

Frank J., a 60-year-old Shelby Township resident who declined to give his last name, taps his pen repeatedly when talking to Erika Koehler of Clinton Township. She twists the strap of her rhinestone purse.

“Are you going to the dance afterward?” he asks.

“I’m not sure yet,” she says shyly in a thick accent.

Between short, silent pauses, he asks where she’s from.

Germany, she replies.

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough,” she says with a faint smile.

They’re signaled, with everyone else, to move on.

While some guests worried what their children would think of them moving on after losing spouses, Sandra Muklewicz said she’s glad her mom, Jane Brown, is speed dating.

“I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s difficult for people of any age to really find a person to share their common interests and I think it’s even more difficult for seniors,” said Muklewicz, 47, of Chesterfield Township, whose father died 20 years ago.

She felt comforted that the speed dating took place in a senior center as opposed to a dimly lit restaurant or bar.

“It seemed like a safe environment,” she said.

Clinton Township resident Janet Sieber said she leapt into the speed dating pool to reel in a man who likes festivals and other events.

“I’ve been dating couch potatoes,” she said.

Sieber may not have found Mr. Right right away, but she was happy to be there, she said.

“Absolutely, I’ve been meeting nice people.”

Scanning the crowd, Tinker was also delighted.

“I’m seeing smiles on everyone’s face, so I’m pleased.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.21.08 at 3.43 pm
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 3 Comments