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The single senior seniors are doing what comes naturally. Or at least what comes more naturally these days than it used to: They are looking for love, and they are doing it online.
As seniors live longer they find ‘love expectancy’ also grows
By Frank Greve | McClatchy Newspapers
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.
I like this article that just came out in the Boston Globe. It features just the folks I write for and coach, those singles over 35 or 40 who want to find the love of their lives. Too bad the author didn’t find me, because as you all know, I found my love on Match.com, am a Romance Coach, and am from Maine—so is Stacey Chase! Oh well, maybe next time. But anyway, back to the article. I LOVED how the author treated the gay male couple exactly as she would have a heterosexual couple, right down to the question of getting married. I do think that the women’s expectations of the guys at the dating event were too high. Go easy, ladies. Thye may not see you as that much of a catch, either.
Older, Wiser, and Available The middle-aged dating scene, filled with singles weighing one another’s emotional baggage, isn’t for the weak of heart.
By Stacey Chase
July 27, 2008
IT’S A MONDAY NIGHT AND Gretchen Grufman, a home remodeler with freckles and strawberry-blond hair, has just met eight men in a series of six-minute “predates” - the romantic round robin better known as speed dating - at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, sports bar. There was the soft-spoken, baldheaded Briton; the goateed general contractor who loves ballroom dancing; the 48-year-old grandfather of seven in a suit; and the Harley-riding IT manager who divorced a second time three months ago. * Single since 1992, Grufman is herself twice divorced with two grown sons. “I’ve been engaged a few times, but I haven’t worked up the courage to get married again,” says the 55-year-old who recently moved to Amesbury from Wells, Maine. Still, middle-aged dating is not for the faint of heart. Baby boomers like her, born between 1946 and 1964, are more likely than previous generations were to find themselves - graying and with badly bruised egos - on the youth-obsessed dating scene. The high incidence of divorce, declining marriage rates, and longer life spans have contributed to the single-boomer phenomenon. An AARP analysis of 2007 US Census Bureau data found that of the 76.7 million baby boomers, 18.5 percent were divorced or separated, 10.6 percent had never married, and 2.8 percent were widowed, making nearly a third of the generation (24.5 million) single.
“Fifty, 60 years ago, dating among this age group would be unheard of,” says 46-year-old Mary Elizabeth Hughes, a demographer at Johns Hopkins University and coauthor of a 2004 study The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers. “Most people would already be married, and if they weren’t married they probably weren’t dating.”
For those looking for love with like-minded and like-aged people today, it’s a brave new world often complicated by love-gone-wrong histories with ex-spouses or lovers, and by children and grandchildren, dependent elderly parents, careers, health problems, and emotional baggage that won’t fit into the overhead compartment. Framingham State College sociology professor Virginia Rutter says all that can be good: “The baggage is actually part of what makes the person you’re with a human being, and you have this opportunity to connect with them in the middle of the plot of their story.”
Many older daters, like those at the speed-dating event sponsored by Cupid.com/PreDating, are embracing Cupid and other online dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.com. Though helped along by modern technology, much of the conversation Monday night was painfully predictable: weather and work. One man mentioned the diarrhea outbreak at his mother’s assisted-living facility. Another told Grufman afterward that he’d frequented a strip club in her old town.
Sally LaRochelle, a 49-year-old two-time divorcee and administrative assistant in Dover, New Hampshire, sporting ultra short white hair and dark-rimmed glasses, was turned off by the potential suitors. “On a scale of one to 10 . . . they’re probably like twos,” she says. “They seemed a little desperate, and some of them just seemed to be too old.”
The newly re-divorced IT manager, Charlie Petrikas, 56, from South Berwick, Maine, confesses: “I still think I do need to heal a bit, but I don’t want to sit around.”
Susan Fox owns Personals Work in the South End, a matchmaking service that provides its largely female boomer clientele with tools such as ghostwriting personal ads and flirting and style tips for finding a mate. Says Fox: “I’ve even told women who’ve come in that they need to color their hair.” She helps singles to first figure out who they are and what they’re seeking - physical characteristics, occupation, religion, interests, smoking habits - and then create a list of “non-negotiables” for Mr. or Ms. Right, often disregarding a client’s “wish list.” (One client rattled off 142 deal breakers and, needless to say, was not a success story.)
Her advice? Forget love at first sight. Take a second look - and a third, and a fourth.
“We’re not all pulled together with the same level of hormonal urgency that we were when we were 27 or 33,” says the 50-something Fox. “People really need to be able to say, `OK. I like this person well enough to see him or her again and see if something develops here.’”
Bostonian Beverly Summer is a slender brunette in her mid-40s, never married, childless, Ivy League-educated, and runs her own financial-services company. “If I were a guy,” she quips, “I would be the most eligible bachelor in Boston.”
Having tried everything from charity events to pub crawls, Summer turned to Personals Work two years ago in her hard-charging hunt for a husband. Since then, she has viewed dozens of profiles and dated two men from Match.com, going out for several months with each of them, but she still hasn’t met The One. “There’s no science to it,” she says. “It’s a just a matter of time, kissing frogs.”
THEY SPARKED THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION, but for many boomers - those in the first wave are turning 62, while late boomers are hitting 44 this year - reentering the dating game, sometimes after decades, or continuing to search despite long odds, is both unnerving and liberating in ways that hooking up in their younger days was not. “The romance of your 20s - whether you actually decide to have children or not - is the script about how, especially in the heterosexual ideal, we get together, and we make a family, and we have our little dream world,” says the 44-year-old Rutter, who became a widow at age 35. “That is no longer on the table when you’re in your 40s, 50s, and 60s.”
By shedding stereotypical gender roles, Rutter says, midlifers have a lot more freedom to be themselves, and romance becomes less of a fantasy than a practicality that involves negotiating complexities such as child-custody arrangements, retirement planning, and medical directives. “That isn’t less romantic,” she says, “but the romance is different.”
Michael Walsh, a 50-year-old landscape designer in Braintree, and his partner, David Richman, 52, of Aventura, Florida, had a whirlwind courtship after viewing each other’s profiles on Match.com on October 2, 2006. That Monday night, they exchanged e-mails. Tuesday morning, they talked by phone. On Friday, Walsh was picking up Richman, a commercial property manager, at Logan Airport. By Sunday, they were in love.
The blissful pair, who currently maintain separate homes in their respective states (and another in Seattle), are together roughly 70 percent of the time. They have yet to decide whether they’ll marry, or to work out the logistics - primarily their careers and assets - in order to live in the same city. “My home is where David is,” Walsh says, “and his home is where I am.”
“It’s such a relief [not to be looking anymore] because that was my life - I was always looking for a partner,” continues Walsh, who eats only organic food and advertised himself on Match as Upbeat Buddhist Jock Seeks Attachment. “Other people stop looking; they give up.”
Boomers still on a quest for a mature, meaningful relationship say they have learned from their mistakes and heartaches and - though the peer dating pool is significantly smaller - seem to even cherish the peculiar bittersweetness of middle-aged love: that the biological urge to reproduce is typically over, that expectations of love are more realistic, that women tend to have a greater level of equality, that partners understand neither person will be molded to fit the other’s desires.
“With the mush comes the gloom,” Richman says. “I want to be able to be naked in front of somebody . . . and be completely comfortable. And naked in even more than the physical sense, emotionally be naked.”
Annie McCormick, a 51-year-old graphic artist in Burlington, Vermont, has had her heart repeatedly ripped out in a series of long-term, monogamous relationships since her 1984 divorce. “I tend to choose men who have addiction problems,” she says. “One cheated. One was violent. One was an alcoholic who drank. And, then, the last one was a pothead.”
McCormick blames herself, not the men. “I’m not honest from the start, as far as: `This is me. These are my needs,’ “ she says, “I’m a people pleaser.” Five years ago, after she and her last, live-in boyfriend split, McCormick says she “kind of went into hiding” but is timorously ready to seek love again. “I do get lonely lately, a little bit.”
Boomers, who took the first birth-control pills and campaigned for women’s rights, are leading active sex lives, surveys show, but those out of practice and on the prowl can be as nervous as fumbling teenagers when it comes to physical intimacy. “Generally, for people who are widowed or gone through a really painful divorce, there’s a fear,” says Fox, the matchmaker and a trained psychologist. Others are free-lovebirds who want “to get back out there and have sex to kind of get them in the swing of things again.”
“I’ve worked with women clients who regularly have sex on the first date!” she adds. “And older boomers!”
In 2004, a sexuality study by AARP revealed that slightly more than a third of the midlife and older respondents - and half of those with regular sexual partners - reported having sexual intercourse once a week or more. In addition, 53 percent said they engage in sexual touching or caressing, while 69 percent reported they kiss or hug their partner on a regular basis.
Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University and author of The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy, predicts boomers will continue to transform American society even as they age. “Boomers are going to also reinvent the idea of what it means to be elderly,” says the 52-year-old former political speechwriter. “They’re going to look at being elderly as being vital, as vigorous, as still irreverent. Boomers are going to grow old but stay young.”
They may, or may not, decide one is the loneliest number. Cathy Chamberlain, a 59-year-old human resources manager in South Burlington, Vermont, has had boyfriends but never gotten married or had children and says she’s committed to her singlehood. “The loss I feel is more the sense of family,” she says. “I have it with a variety of girlfriends - you create your own family - and I just don’t know what that’s going to look like 10, 15 years from now.”
Meanwhile, Grufman, the speed dater from Amesbury, continues her pursuit of a mate. On her Cupid.com score card, she selected the option “Let’s Talk!” over “No Thanks” for five of the eight men she’d recently met; three men indicated they would like to hear from her again. (She believes some of them didn’t pick her because they thought she was an actress or model hired as a ringer.)
“My uncles, and my dad, and my grandfathers all treated their wives like they were on pedestals,” Grufman says. “I don’t really expect to be on a pedestal, but I sure expect to be treated pretty good.”
Looking wistful in a dark corner of the bar, she adds: “I’m not an unhappy person, but I definitely don’t want to grow old alone.”
This article below is a bit misnamed, because it’s about singles who have never been married before meeting up and marrying when they are over 45, not about singles over 45 finding love. We know that the over-45’s have been finding love, but it is interesting to see that older never-marrieds are saying the vows. I have viewed never marrieds over 45 or 50 with some suspicion, particularly if the proposed partner has been coupled or married before. Long time singles have not had the chance to learn what is only possible to learn when you are grappling with a real partner in real time and space. I suppose if neither partner has been married or attached before, then they are on fairly similar footing (little relationship experience). The positives are that career concerns, money, and the question of children are pretty much decided by then. What do you think?
More singles finding love after age 45
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 percent.
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 percent of women and 0.6 percent 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 percent 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 percent 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 percent of new members 45 and older and who have never been married; these now make up almost 14 percent 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, were married earlier this month. 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 Web sites 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.
Guys, women of all ages find it creepy when you state that you are looking for a female partner 10 or more years younger than you are. It’s not uncommon to see profiles where men are looking for a woman half their age or less. While women who are age mates of the guys in question find the desires for young and nubile flesh offensive, so do the young women in question. The most common explanation is that the guys have money to offer in exchange for youth and beauty: that in itself is creepy. Not a far step from what made Eliot Spitzer lose his job.
Fellas, get real: Take a look at your license and figure out how old you are, and then go out and take a good look at women in the range of 5 years on either side of your own age. That is your target market, women most likely to appreciate you, along with your wrinkles and gray hair. They’ll also understand why you don’t want to go to night clubs, have to take Viagra, and don’t want to support them while they finish their education.
Read below an excerpt from a piece by Moniqa Paullet, a young 20-something, about approaches from older men:
Age is more than just a number in relationships
By: Moniqa Paullet
Everyone has heard the adage “Age is just a number.” Young women use it to prove they aren’t immature idiots and older men to show they are not creepy or lecherous. There is some truth to it in that every individual is at a different place in life and cannot necessarily be lumped into the stereotypes of a particular age group. I’ve met some more mature people my age once or twice.
But on the same note, every individual is different and should be judged individually without the bias the lines on a face may instill.
Does that mean I’m so open-minded as to be flattered by middle-aged men checking out my online profiles on networking sites? No.
Simply put, a 21-year-old woman is definitely in a different place in her life than an older person and is going to need different things from a relationship than he needs or is looking for.
I plan to graduate in May and go on to graduate school, better myself through education and hopefully learn more about myself and what I want in life along the way. Though smart and often mistaken for someone in her mid to late-20s because of my demeanor, I am not looking for a mature, committed relationship because I do not even know what I really want from a relationship yet. I do know I don’t want to help someone have a good time and feel young again.
I’m sorry to judge like that. And I’m also sorry if you are different and you are on a much younger emotional level than your years belie because I’m pretty sure I don’t want to help you grow up either.
Some will forever argue age is nothing more than a number, but it’s still a pretty good indicator of where a person is or ought to be in his or her life and needs in the dating world.
I try to be open-minded, but I still think people ought to at least act their age.
If you are over 40 and don’t think that that online dating “works,” take a look at the piece below, the “Vows" section of the Sunday New York Times, March 23. Diane Cole and Philip Barnett found each other on JDate in 2002. Now 55 and 61 respectively, they had each been married and widowed. If you can still access the Times article, take a look at the little video that accompanies the write-up. It’s sweet, but you’ll get to see that these are two ordinary people with an extraordinary story.
You’ll also get a perspective on the experience of a 50ish widower on a dating site: These guys are pretty popular. Just like pretty women under 35, single men, particularly those who are widowed or divorced, are desirable commodities. Older men who have been married tend to like being so, and will go about getting themselves married again in pretty short order. As Philip says in the video, there are many more widows than widowers, so even though ideally, men and women should have some time between a divorce or death and a remarriage, these folks are good risks, since they are experienced at being coupled and want to do it again.
Vows
Diane Cole and Philip Barnett
By SANDEE BRAWARSKY
WHEN an armed band of American Muslim militants invaded several buildings in Washington on March 9, 1977, Diane Cole, then 24, became one of more than 100 hostages. The gunmen threatened to decapitate captives before she and the others were released 39 hours later.
As Ms. Cole sat in fear, pondering her fate, Philip Barnett was in Spring Valley, N.Y., and unable to sleep; his wife’s uncle was also one of the hostages. He recently recalled how he had wondered about the others being held, and how he had prayed for all of them. Dr. Barnett, now 61, would eventually come to know Ms. Cole, 55, but only after they both found themselves widowed and alone after long marriages.
Even before those frightening hours in Washington, Ms. Cole, who became an author and a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report, had been tempered by heartbreak. Her first husband, Peter Baida, nearly died of cancer while they were dating as students at Harvard. As Mr. Baida fought for his life, her mother died of cancer. From that crucible came her 1992 memoir, “After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges.”
That book ended on a note of optimism. Yet for a living memoirist, there are always new chapters. When Mr. Baida died in 1999, he left her with a 10-year-old son, Edward, and a message: grief should not trump joy.
“All the things she has endured could have crushed someone with less fortitude and spirit,” her cousin Judy Rousuck said. It was two years before she was ready to “move away from the cold terrain of grief,” Ms. Cole said. “I wanted warming up. I wanted romance.”
She turned to the Web, but men she encountered were filled with bitterness about past relationships. “I needed someone who spoke in tones less bitter and more sweet,” she said.
When she saw Dr. Barnett’s online profile in April 2002, she sent him an e-mail message. In his response, he offered understanding, noting that his own son and daughter were grown when his wife, Sarah, died, whereas Ms. Cole was left to fend for a young child. He also explained he was busily fielding e-mail from other women. “I never had such attention,” he wrote. “I married the only girl I ever dated, and the only one who really spoke to me.”
Nevertheless, they began an e-mail exchange that uncovered that both had longstanding interests in baseball, classical music and Jewish philosophy. But when she offered her phone number, he replied, “I feel more comfortable writing rather than speaking.”
In that same exchange he again mentioned the long list of women, but then dangled encouragement. “Few of these women are as interesting as you are,” he wrote.
In May they agreed to meet for dinner on the Upper East Side. For her, it was “comfort at first sight,” she said. Before parting she gave him a copy of her memoir, which Dr. Barnett, a professor and science reference librarian at City College in Manhattan, stayed up into that night reading.
They started seeing each other regularly, sometimes with Edward. Ms. Cole was touched by Dr. Barnett’s “sweetness, honesty, modesty and sense of humor, not to mention his intellectual curiosity,” she recalled. Comfort and healing grew to love, leading the three of them to take trips to Iceland and Norway.
“Diane has a big heart; we’re so compatible,” Dr. Barnett said. “She teaches me Shakespeare. I teach her science. I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, and I am.”
Last summer they decided to marry. Explaining the timing, Ms. Cole said: “As a mother, my priority was to see my son settled into college life. And then we decided it was time for us to move into the next phase of our lives, too.”
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld led the couple’s ceremony at Bayard’s in Manhattan’s financial district, a party space in a 19th-century mansion that is filled with nautical accents. Ms. Cole, in an off-white cream satin Escada gown with gold sequin straps, stood with Dr. Barnett under the wedding canopy, bringing together past and present for their future.
The parents of her late husband sat up front as Ms. Cole, who wears their son’s wedding band on her right hand, held out a forefinger, on which Dr. Barnett placed the band once worn by her late mother. (The Baidas refer to Dr. Barnett as “their new son-in-law.”) The bride then gave Dr. Barnett a wedding band, one from his first marriage.
“Although many people already thought of us as an old married couple, we wanted to affirm in public our love for each other and this unexpected happiness in our lives,” the bride said before the March 9 ceremony, which happened to fall 31 years after the siege in Washington. “Now I can reframe the anniversary from one of terror to one of joy.”
More and more 50’s and older are turning to the Internet when it comes to looking for love. See the article below about PerfectMatch. Mark Brooks of OnlinePersonalsWatch Match, eHarmony and Lavalife have also experienced double digit growth in the 50+ segment. I have underlined parts of the article that I think are most interesting.
Dating Site Seeks Same Audience as Grandparents.com
By Brian Steinberg
Published: February 08, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com)—Think about online dating, and what likely comes to mind are 20-somethings trolling web pages in the hopes of finding a love connection. But increasingly, those trollers are more like 50-somethings, single baby boomers looking for dates.
That’s why during Valentine’s Day week, online-dating service Perfectmatch.com will be woven into “Another Chance for Romance,” a dating show aimed at boomers on Retirement Living TV, a niche channel that appears on DirecTV and Comcast. Perfectmatch CEO Duane Dahl said the site has seen a 60% spike in the 50-plus audience from 2005 to 2006, and estimated growth of 140% in the 50-plus audience for 2006 to 2007.
That doesn’t surprise John Erickson, Retirement Living’s founder, who believes older consumers are more dynamic than marketers care to admit. “If you approach these people with ‘Murder, She Wrote’ reruns and ‘Matlock’ or ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and think that’s going to satisfy them for the next 25 years, you’re missing the biggest opportunity in the market,” he said.
Importance of individualization
Consumers over 50 do represent a big opportunity, but more often than not, advertisers treat them all exactly the same. Studies have found that marketers over-generalize, misrepresent and sometimes ignore the generation, lumping them together and, in the process, alienating them. “The longer that marketers keep treating [boomers] as a huge mass as opposed to individuals, the longer it’s going to take them to enter the market,” said Jody Quinn, exec VP-general manager of the Boomer Insights Generation Group at Edelman, which did the latest study.
Market-research firm Yankelovich has identified at least six different flavors of boomer, ranging from “due diligents,” who think ahead and plan for the worst, to “re-activists,” who want to support social causes and do all they can to fix them before age makes it difficult. There are other challenges to navigate as well: A “mature” consumer in his or her 70s should not be approached in the same way as a recent retiree. “There are some really big differences,” said Gerald Carrafiello, president of Carrafiello Diehl & Associates, an Irvington, N.Y., agency that has studied marketing to older consumers.
Going at older consumers by mining a particular niche interest seems to be a way for some emerging media to lure advertisers. Mr. Erickson, a retirement-community magnate, launched Retirement Living TV in September of 2006. Filled with programs such as “The Prudent Advisor” and “Healthline,” the network has attracted the likes of Pfizer and Prudential, who seek consumers 55 years or older that are active in retirement. The channel can appeal to a broader audience, said Gig Barton, VP-advertising sales and sponsorships, but the focus is concentrated on people looking forward to retirement or those who have recently retired and are looking to stay active.
Savvy grandparents
Grandparents.com, a website aimed at baby boomers with grandchildren, has attracted ads from Johnson & Johnson and Hasbro, said Jerry Shereshewsky, CEO, Grandparents.com. The toymaker is not your typical elder marketer, but is based on the principle that grandparents tend to buy lots of toys for the kids. The site has about 35,000 registered users and about 150,000 unique visitors per month, he said.
AARP also targets different segments of its membership with its eponymous magazine. In 2001, the group decided to publish two different magazines, “My Generation” and “MM: Modern Maturity” aimed at the 55 age group and the other for 56-65 and 66 plus, said Hugh Delehanty, editor in chief of AARP Publications. Two years later, the group found that more readers were familiar with the organization’s name, AARP, and the magazines was rechristened just that, though different versions are published for different age segments—50-59, 60-69, and 70 plus—with about 25% of each version’s content varied according to target.
In years past, older consumers were looked upon as doddering, addled or even useless. Clearly, that view is changing, as seen in recent Ameriprise commercials that feature actor Dennis Hopper casting aside the traditional idea of retirement. But not all retirees or elders are the same, and marketers will have to focus as closely on them in the near future as they do on their younger counterparts. “Young marketers perceive someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 57; the 50-plus consumer perceives someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 75. So the people doing the marketing don’t truly understand the demographic they’re targeting,” said Jennifer Kaltia, a marketing consultant who has studied older consumers.
This article is an eye-opener for the men out there. When we think of risk on the Internet, we tend to think of women, but according to this piece, men are more likely to be targeted than women, and if you are over 55, you are six times more likely to be approached by scammers than young folks. Of course, older folks would likely be perceived as having more money, and also, they may be more naive about computers and the Net than those who have grown up with them. I’ve noticed that men are far less concerned about safety than women and often give out their identity and phone numbers in the first email. Men, guys get scammed too. You need to be as careful as women have been taught to be.
Web dating scams target older men
Candace Grigsby
Older men most at risk of web dating attacks Men over the age of 55 are the group most vulnerable to money-based scams when internet dating, according to a survey by GetSafeOnline.org.
The internet advice website claims that 25 per cent of men aged 55 and over have been targeted by cyber-criminals, compared to 12 per cent of women. Both groups are six times more likely to be targeted by scammers than 25-34 year olds.
The survey says that, in total, almost a fifth of internet daters have been approached for money while online. Internet fraudsters repeatedly mention their financial difficulties, exploiting the sympathy of online daters in an attempt to extract money.
Victims open themselves up to attacks by revealing personal information when using dating sites, including details about their job and where they live. Sixty-two per cent of people use their real name in their dating profiles, further increasing the risk of identity fraud.
GetSafeOnline.org has teamed up with relationship expert Tracey Cox to raise awareness of staying safe when dating online.
“When you’re looking at a computer screen, it’s much easier to feel relaxed about the person you’re exchanging messages with, which can be a positive way of getting to know someone before you have the pressure of a ‘real’ date. But, just as in the real world, there are people on these sites who you’re better off avoiding,” says Cox.
“Remembering this, along with the advice we are giving to online daters, can help make sure your online dating experience is a positive one,” she added.
Tips on staying safe when dating online
• Choose a well-run, reputable online dating service which will provide some additional safety. For example, look for a site that will protect your anonymity until you choose to reveal personal information
• Online dating is about having fun, but do be careful about how you portray yourself in your profile. For example, using sexual connotations in your online name or email address might get you noticed, but it also signals that you may be less cautious than other members and might attract the wrong people
• Don’t post personal information. Wait until you feel comfortable with an individual before telling them things like your phone number or place of work or address.
• Never give out your bank account details or any other financial information
• Don’t let anyone pressure you into giving away more information than you want to
• Beware of solicitation – watch out for anyone offering financial advice or asking for charitable contributions
• Even if you’re arranging to meet someone, do not give out any unnecessary personal details such as your home address
• If you feel unsure or threatened by someone’s behaviour, stop contact with them immediately
This is an absolutely WONDERFUL story about and online hookup that worked, despite all indications to the contrary. Note that this was the author’s first date, it got off to an abysmal start, yet somehow, it worked. It’s a good testimony for hanging in beyond first impressions.
My cyber valentine Click this link to see a picture of Ann Schmidt-Fogarty and her now-husband
The computer and chemistry created an online love match
By Ann Schmidt-Fogarty/Reporter Correspondent
It was my first date in 10 years and he was 30 minutes late. “Not good,” I muttered to myself as I tried to look dignified, worldly and at home in the middle of a bustling Indian restaurant while feeling as conspicuous as a neon sign screaming, “Blind date reject!”
Sympathetic glances from my waiter told me he saw all the bright, flashing lights.
While waiting, I cursed myself for going on an Internet date with a man I had never seen. He e-mailed me and said he was 67. He added that he was intrigued that I was 17 years younger. And my tardy date didn’t give me a clue as to what he looked like, describing himself as “average.’
However, I also noted that he had lived and worked all over the world, and that intrigued me. His James Bond-like voice over the phone piqued my interest as well.
But, of course, now reality was setting in and every older, pot-bellied and badly balding man who bumbled into the restaurant increased my intense regret.
What was I doing? Didn’t I have a happy life without a man? What if the guy walks with a shuffle, taped-together glasses and needs a bib during dinner? Don’t serial killers disguise themselves as “average”?
Five more minutes and I’m outta here.
I had flashbacks to exactly why I decided to try this kind of dating in the first place. I was a busy public relations executive in Sacramento who never had time to do much more than TV and take-out after work. And I was reasonably happy with that. But, during a weekend stay with my younger sister, I heard a bit of hard truth. She had strong, uncharitable words about my lifestyle.
“You’re getting weird,” she told me gravely.
“I think you need to make your personal life ‘bigger.’ So I want you to do me a favor,” she continued. “Try to go out on a few dates and have a little fun. And, if you try the Internet thing, I will too.”
Seeing it more as a sisterly project than a real effort to find companionship, I got online and gave it a whirl.
According to the most recent online dating statistics, consumers have spent well over $300 million annually on paid personals and Internet dating sites. And countless commercials by services such as eHarmony and Match.com make it more and more socially acceptable to give it a try.
And I fit the Internet profile. Older Americans are among the fastest-growing segment of the online dating scene. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, millions from 50- to 65-plus are seeking permanent valentines through personals sites.
A long questionnaire asked me everything from my feelings about the outdoors (I like cities) to the level of my devotion to housekeeping (or my lack thereof). Food, attitudes about gender and even thoughts about world events were part of the survey, as well as attitudes about money, the arts and my temperament. About 45 minutes after I completed the survey, the information was tabulated and the “matches” popped up. Thus, I became a potential Internet dater.
And my “match” finally arrived after being caught in traffic. He didn’t look a thing like an older James Bond. Not at first, anyway.
In walked an advertisement for ironing boards and crafty barbers. Wrinkled, tussled and, yet, charmingly apologetic, Wilson Fogarty sat across from me, cocked his head, smiled, took my hands in his and uttered words that I repeat back to him to this day.
“You bite your nails,” he said dreamily. Looking at his over-laundered red polo shirt and unfashionable ice blue shorts, I answered, cleverly, “So?”
The date went downhill from there. Ordering every Indian delicacy known to man, Wilson happily tucked into a meal fit for three kings and all their concubines. With the table groaning from the weight of the food, and his habit of eating “Indian-style” (with his hands), I tried to ignore the incredulous glances from our neighbors and I silently practiced my early excuses to leave the restaurant: a sick bird, a phony bleeding ulcer or maybe a suicidal neighbor who needed checking on.
I am not really able to tell you precisely what transpired in the weeks, months and years following that date. I can only say it didn’t have much to do with computers and statistics. Or maybe it did. People often comment about our chemistry, and who am I to say that we don’t have the 29 points of compatibility that our online service advertises?
It’s that intangible thing that most of us want - a certain alchemy that, if we’re lucky, we get to experience once or twice in our lifetimes.
We proposed to each other and got married in 2006 at Fairfield City Hall. He catered our reception. Curiously, no Indian food was involved.
And, as corny as it sounds, in certain lighting, I’ve been noticing that Wilson bears a remarkable resemblance to James Bond.
• Ann Schmidt-Fogarty is a public relations consultant in Vacaville. Ann’s sister, Mary, also found love on the Internet at almost exactly the same time.
If you are a bald but hairy guy with a few years under your belt, it may pay for you to head to Britain if you are looking for a lady. According to the survey done by Parship (a British online dating site), British women in general and older British women in particular find balding men with body hair (even on their backs) sexy. Though the London women seem to prefer guys who defuzz. Yankee ladies, what’s your opinion?
Hairy Hunks Find More Favour with British Women
Older women lead the way in preferring men with body hair
Press Dispensary - February 12, 2008 - UK women are leading the trend in Europe for the return of the real man, according to a new survey by online matchmaking firm PARSHIP (http://parship.co.uk). In comparison to women in other European countries, British women are more intensely attracted to a man with body hair and as she gets older her desire for a hairy hunk increases.
One in three (34%) British women say they’d go for a man in the classic virile mould of Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan or Tom Jones, outnumbering the one in four women who’d prefer the smoother option offered by current heartthrobs like Daniel Craig, Johnny Wilkinson and Colin Farrell – a look that has been described as ‘waxed within an inch of their life’. This is in stark contrast to women in other countries of Western Europe, where 31% prefer hairless heroes and just 22% opt for hirsute. David Hasselhoff might be a star in Germany, but a mere 11% of the country’s women would like the thought of smearing sun cream on his hairy chest.
For British women over 30, a hairy man is the acme of masculinity and a smooth body just won’t do. As women get older their desire for body hair in the opposite sex increases. Six in ten (62%) of women over 45 say they find a man with body hair very attractive, compared to just 24% of women under 25. It also happens that a hairy man’s appeal increases the further north you go in the UK – maybe it’s something to do with insulation from cold winds.
Of the 6,500 women polled by PARSHIP, it also found that a lack of hair on a man’s head was not an obstacle to UK women. Just 11% said they wouldn’t date a follicly challenged man, compared to 17% of French and 16% of Italian women.
Dr Victoria Lukats, psychiatrist and dating expert for PARSHIP.co.uk, comments: “The interesting finding from this survey was that women in the UK, compared to other countries in Europe, are more embracing of men with either body hair (including hair on the back) and of male-pattern baldness. It’s also notable that women are more accepting of male body hair as they yet older – this is just as well since it’s well known that testosterone (in combination with genetic factors) leads to both male-pattern baldness and increasing body hair with increasing age. It looks like follicly-challenged men don’t have to be self-concious after all – the vast majority of women simply don’t see it as an issue.”
The hairy hotspots – where females prefer hairy hunks are as follows:
Scotland – 47%
North – 38%
South – 35%
London – 25%
Midlands and Wales – 33%
The bald spots - women who wouldn’t date a bald man are:
South – 2%
Scotland – 4%
Midlands and Wales – 12%
North – 15%
London – 27%
A couple of months ago, Drew and I started to get the New York Times delivered to our doorstep on Sunday morning, not an easy feat in Tallahassee in a brand new neighborhood that even Mapquest has trouble finding. It felt like such a luxury—not only our paltry Tallahassee Democrat for slow Sunday mornings, but also the New York Times, and we didn’t even have to go to Starbucks to get it. I make a perfectly acceptable skinny latte right in my own kitchen.
I particularly enjoy the NYT Magazine, and that’s what I started with this morning, leafing through it, though not reading (except for The Ethicist, who sometimes I agree with and sometimes I don’t). I’d go back to read later...but, the last page “Lives” got me: How could it not? The title was “Cybercourting.” That’s my bidness, as they say in the South. Here is Laurie Kasparian’s description of her online dating experience and the payoff for hanging in there:
Cybercourting
NYT 2/10.2008
By LAURIE KASPARIAN
“O.K.,” I told my best friend, “there’s this guy online I think I have to go out with.” It wasn’t said with the enthusiasm of one who finds love at first sight over the Internet. It was with a sigh, more than a modicum of dread and the appropriate amount of resignation that I admitted this to her, my happily married friend who found it all too easy to urge me to “get out there” and date.
I was 55, 15 years divorced, and this Internet campaign took all the pluck I could possibly muster. But all the other avenues had dried up — blind dates, volunteer groups, classes, professional contacts (bars were never an option). The site I used would send me matches, and all I had to do was read about them and “start communication” or “close” them out. Mostly I closed — square-dancers, Fess Parker fans, TV-fishing-show hosts and fathers of three preteens. But once in a great while someone came along who had no zapworthy traits.
I was a year into the search when this particular guy came along: Steve. It wasn’t that he sounded like the love of my life; it was that I could find no valid reason to reject him. My friend kept me very honest about this. She was in favor of kissing every single frog, and I dutifully ran my matches past her for a second screening. Steve, she enthusiastically agreed, had potential, and I knew what I had to do — “start communication.”
Our initial online interchanges went well. Steve asked what I thought the three most important qualities of a lasting marriage were, and I waxed eloquent on two of them, then gave up trying to impress him and just blurted out the third, “a killer sex life.” He told me his sons were both voted “best hair” in high school. “I am so proud,” he quipped. “They have worked so hard.” Questions and answers flew across the ether. But our schedules prevented us from meeting, so instead we moved up to the phone. Nightly calls lengthened to three hours and more as we hungered for and found common experiences and intimacy and trust. This was heady. But we still hadn’t met. We had the online photos, and we quizzed each other on our looks, but I wasn’t sure I would be attracted to him in person.
On the day we finally had our first date, I was having a major case of the vapors. My anxiety would settle for a moment, and then the thought of our meeting would set it off again. He seemed just as nervous. We each had mentioned that we had sensitive stomachs, so when he said, “You know we won’t go out to eat,” it didn’t sound as if he was cheap or weird.
Our rendezvous was at a bookstore in Newport Beach. I was to find my favorite book, and he was to find me. Was this cheesy or romantic? More troublesome was what book to pick. I did not want to be pretentious, superficial or predictable. I finally went with my true choice, “The Sound and the Fury.” I love its tale of the disintegration of a family in the South, and I especially love one line in the appendix, in which Faulkner gives all manner of family history. When it comes to the black family servants, he merely says of them all, “They endured.” It always touched me.
I nervously stood, book in hand, awaiting Steve’s arrival. I finally sat down in the aisle, leaned against the books, read lazily. I would see his sneakers approaching first, I thought. Finally they did. I looked up, saw what I felt was an old friend, jumped up and gave him a little hug. “Are you nervous?” he asked. “Not anymore,” I replied. “Me, either,” he said. “Let’s see what you picked.” I showed him the book. He took it in his hand. “Good choice,” he said. “Isn’t this the book that ends with something like ‘they endured’?”
We took the ferry across Newport Harbor, walked along the strand, talking and stealing glances. He didn’t look much like the picture. He was clearly older, decidedly heavier. Different glasses. We finally did decide to eat, and shared pictures of our kids as we did. It was clear he loved his children heart and soul. I liked that. Still, he seemed rather shy and stiff. Our phone calls had become very intimate, yet he steered clear of any intimacy now. I could tell he liked me, even though he did not smile much. I felt uncertain.
On the way back across the ferry, we were silent for the first time that night. He hadn’t touched me at all. Sitting side by side, I impulsively leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, and stayed there. It was comfortable, and I felt him relax. “How many people do you have to call tonight to tell about our date?” he casually asked. I counted up in my head: “Nine.” “Great,” he said, “the Supreme Court.” As we parted, he turned to me and said, “Thanks for the lean.” I smiled and realized bargains are made in an instant. For my part, I could see I had to start rearranging the old furniture in my head to make room for this strangely familiar stranger. Three years later, we endure.
Laurie Kasparian is a high-school English teacher in Irvine, Calif.
If you wonder what folks over 50 do for fun, here’s a great article about a new study published recently by the “New England Journal of Medicine.” Looks like those folks (and I’m in that age group) are having sex.
Best, Kathryn
Survey: Seniors Have Sex Into 70s, 80s
August 22, 2007 - 11:06pm
BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE
AP Medical Writer
(AP) - An unprecedented study of sex and seniors finds that many older people are surprisingly frisky _ willing to do, and talk about, intimate acts that would make their grandchildren blush. That may be too much information for some folks, but it comes from the most comprehensive sex survey ever done among 57- to 85-year-olds in the United States.
Sex and interest in it do fall off when people are in their 70s, but more than a quarter of those up to age 85 reported having sex in the previous year. And the drop-off has a lot to do with health or lack of a partner, especially for women, the survey found.
The federally funded study, done by respected scientists and published in Thursday’s e, overturns some stereotypical notions that physical pleasure is just a young person’s game.
“Most people assume that people stop doing it after some vague age,” said sex researcher Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago.
However, more than half of those aged 57 to 75 said they gave or received oral sex, as did about a third of 75- to 85-year-olds.
“Bravo that the New England Journal of Medicine is publishing something like that. It’s about time,” said Ruth Westheimer, better known as sexpert Dr. Ruth, who has long counseled seniors on sex.
The survey involved two-hour face-to-face interviews with 3,005 men and women around the country. Researchers also took blood, saliva and other samples that will tell about hormone levels, sex-related infections and other health issues in future reports. They even tested how well seniors could see, taste, hear and smell _ things that affect being able to have and enjoy sex.
Some results:
_Sex with a partner in the previous year was reported by 73 percent of people ages 57 to 64; 53 percent of those ages 64 to 75, and 26 percent of people 75 to 85. Of those who were active, most said they did it two to three times a month or more.
_Women at all ages were less likely to be sexually active than men. But they also lacked partners; far more were widowed.
_People whose health was excellent or very good were nearly twice as likely to be sexually active as those in poor or fair health.
_Half of people having sex reported at least one related problem. Most common in men was erection trouble (37 percent); in women, low desire (43 percent), vaginal dryness (39 percent) and inability to have an orgasm (34 percent).
_One out of seven men used Viagra or other substances to improve sex.
_Only 22 percent of women and 38 percent of men had discussed sex with a doctor since age 50.
The survey had a remarkable 75 percent response rate. Only 2 percent to 7 percent did not answer questions about sexual activities or problems, although a higher percentage declined to reveal how often they masturbate.
Why do this research? Sex is an important indicator of health, said Georgeanne Patmios of the National Institute on Aging, the study’s main funder.
Sexual problems can be a warning sign of diabetes, infections, cancer or other health woes. Untreated sex issues can lead to depression and social withdrawal, and people may even stop taking needed medications because of sexual side effects, the researchers wrote.
Some of them did a landmark study of sexual habits in younger people a decade ago, but little is known about X-rated behaviors beyond Generation X.
“This subject has been taboo for so long that many older people haven’t even talked to their spouses about their sexual problems, let alone a physician,” said the lead author, Dr. Stacy Tesser Lindau, a University of Chicago gynecologist.
Many doctors are embarrassed to bring it up, and some may not know how to treat sexual dysfunction, said Dr. Alison Moore, a geriatrics specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the study.
“Even among geriatricians, there can be an age bias that this is not as big a deal as some of the other things they come into us for,” like heart problems or dementia, Moore said. “It gets lost in the shuffle.”
The National Opinion Research Center, a university-affiliated private research firm, did the surveys in people’s homes. Laumann, its chairman, has received research support from Pfizer Inc., the maker of Viagra.
Hundreds of questions were asked face to face; others, like the number of lifetime sex partners and frequency of masturbation, were asked in a questionnaire, and 84 percent of those were completed.
Most participants were married. But by the time they were 75 to 85, only 37 percent of women had spouses compared to 71 percent of men. Roughly 10 percent of those in the survey were black and more than 6 percent were Hispanic.
The proportion of each gender reporting giving and receiving oral sex “matched up perfectly,” Lindau said. “This gives us pretty good reassurance that men and women are telling the same story.”
Older people were generally sexually conservative. A small minority had more than one partner, and very few said they paid for sex.
Researchers also used state-of-the-art technology and products donated by several companies to test people’s senses. Taste strips were used to see if people could distinguish between various tastes (sour, salty). Special devices were used to test the ability to smell certain scents, including a suspected pheromone _ a smell thought to evoke sexual responses.
Scents and tastes “get under the skin to influence biology,” and scientists wanted to know whether these senses diminish as people age, Lindau explained.
Niels Teunis, an anthropologist and researcher at the Institute of Sexuality, Social Inequality, and Health at San Francisco State University, said the survey bolsters the “use it or lose it” factor seen in previous studies.
“If you are doing it, you keep doing it. If you slack off in marriage like when you’re in your 40s, it’s hard to pick it up when you are older,” he said.
Jack Menager, 83, and his wife, Elizabeth, 84, agree. The suburban Los Angeles couple say they have had a good sex life for nearly 60 years.
“It gives a person relief on any burdens or problems. It makes us forget everything _ escape,” he said, admitting that as physical endurance wanes “you have to work at it harder.”
The couple takes twice daily walks, drinks wine in moderation and talks a lot, said his wife.
“I think it’s important,” she said of sex. “It just makes you feel close.”
More men than women felt that way. Only 13 percent of men but 35 percent of women said sex was “not at all important.”
Menopause has a big effect on women, and the drop-off of estrogen makes many of them less interested in sex, Dr. John Bancroft of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University wrote in an accompanying editorial.
But menopause also means women no longer have to worry about getting pregnant, and many have more time and feel freer after children are gone, notes Westheimer, the sex adviser.
At age 79, she said, “I don’t ever answer personal questions” about sex. But she added, “I certainly have a zest for life.”
I first heard of Pepper Schwartz years and years ago (well, it was published in 1985) when I read her book with Philip Blumstein “American Couples.” It was a heavy tome filled with eye-popping charts and graphs of their work with couples, gay and straight. I loved it and it heavily influenced my thinking about couples and how they relate.
Schwartz writes prolifically (just go to Amazon and type in her name), but she is most relevant to my work with helping singles find love in her incarnation as the expert behind the matching system at PerfectMatch.com. She just came out with a new book Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years which sounds right up my alley, right? I thought so too, and ordered and read it.
Eeeesh. I wish I could say I liked it, but I didn’t. Sprinkled in amongst her own pretty exhibitionistic stories about having lots of great sex with lots of great guys in lots of great places was some sound advice about online dating, but nothing extraordinary, frankly. That advice is just about all contained in the article below that appeared in the Seattle Times where she lives. I’ll underline it in the article so that you can see what I really did like about what she wrote. But frankly, you can skip the book, unless you want to torture yourself by reading some over-the-top sex pieces that strain credulity, or if they are true, are out of reach of 99.99% of women over 60. I found it pretty embarrassing, actually. I’d prefer the more academic Pepper Schwartz.
Relationship expert finds herself dating again
By Pepper Schwartz
Special to The Seattle Times
Pepper Schwartz
Schwartz is a sociology professor at the University of Washington and author of 15 books, including her latest, “Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years” (Collins, 2007; $24.95), a personal account of re-entering the dating world after divorce. Schwartz, a Ph.D., is also the relationship expert for Perfectmatch.com, where she co-developed the Duet personality profile matching system.
There is nothing quite as disconcerting as having to follow your own advice. After 30 years of answering people’s questions about their emotional, sexual and romantic lives, I found myself in the somewhat ironic situation of having to pose, and answer, some of these same questions for myself.
At first, like most people who have just gotten a divorce, I wanted to stay home, do some soul searching, figure out what went wrong and what part I had in it.
But soon there is that familiar itch: the desire for intimacy, connection, sex and, in my case, adventure. Love would be nice, too, but honestly, when you have just disconnected from a 23-year marriage, sex and companionship seem a lot less complicated than love and commitment do, and therefore a lot more imaginable.
As a relationship expert, finding that connection should have been a piece of cake, right?
Wrong. As every doctor knows, it’s different when you’re the patient. I had many of the qualms of re-entry that everyone does. So I had to embark on a fix-up campaign to get myself date-ready — and think about what I actually wanted and who I was looking for.
One thing I knew: I was starting over again at 55.
I started out by creating a new philosophy about sex and love. I decided that the only way I would figure out who and what I wanted was by meeting a wide range of men — cowboys, poets, fishermen, chefs, CEOs, or whoever else crossed my path. The “how” of it was pretty easy — I knew the online dating scene as the relationship expert for Perfectmatch.com — now I just had to go explore dating online myself.
That the dating expert would be looking for a date was a little embarrassing, so I didn’t put my picture on the site. Instead, I looked at men’s profiles, and if they were intriguing, I’d invite them to look at a description of me. If they liked that, I promised to send a picture.
Thus started a chain of “coffee dates” that online daters know only too well. These short encounters exist for a reason; a quick in, then out if the guy’s not OK. I learned this the hard way when a guy who said he had always admired me wanted to take me out to a really nice dinner. I relented when he suggested Canlis, one of my favorite places in Seattle.
Once we got there, however, I might as well have gone alone. He talked so fast and so much that all I could do was sit there and time him, thinking maybe I was witnessing some kind of world’s record for self-absorption. At 45 minutes, he looked up, a little dazed with his own chatter and said, “Am I talking too much?” I said, “Yes, actually you are.”
He looked abashed and then, I kid you not, talked on for another 20 minutes. I had time to listen, chew my food very carefully, and learn not to allow more than a half-hour for a first meeting.
There were other colorful characters, some so unusual that I learned to think of dating as anthropological fieldwork. I decided each person would have something to teach me, no matter how dreadful a match we might be for each other.
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My favorite oddity was a man who was handsome, smart, nice and accomplished. He seemed like a perfectly fine bet for a relationship. There was only one problem: he could not pass a beast without making that animal’s noises. We decided to go hiking in the Methow Valley and stay over at Sun Mountain Lodge. But the ride there killed the possibility of anything more physical than climbing up a few hills. If we saw a horse, he neighed, a dog, he produced a bark, a cat — well, you know. I was afraid to order a steak.
Of course not all of these dates produced a humorous or strange story. Some produced all kinds of satisfaction: intellectual, emotional and sexual.
Dating, though difficult and disappointing when love didn’t last, was clearly possible and often fabulous, no matter that my 20s and 30s were distant memories. I have come to believe that love is possible at any age, that romance and passion are no less intense at middle or old age than they were when we were barely out of our teens, and that all of this can be ours if we put ourselves out there, learn how to handle loss or rejection, and have the resilience to pick ourselves up and start the process all over again.
This is the very cycle that many women and men just can’t bear to face, but I have to say, the happy moments justify having to deal with the sad ones. Love is life-giving, passion helps sustain our youthfulness, and relationships help us to grow and develop heart and character. All of that is just too good to miss.
I met the man I am dating now online. Honestly I don’t remember why I picked him out except that he was attractive, wrote well and sounded like a sincere, bright, athletic, nice person. I contacted him and said I was interested. He replied that he thought he knew who I was, and he was a little put off about meeting another ambitious, busy, Type-A woman. He had gone that route before and wasn’t sure it was a good fit.
I wrote him back that yes, he had guessed who I was and what I was like. But I thought we should meet anyway. I mentioned the scene in “Notting Hill” where Julia Roberts has to convince Hugh Grant that her world isn’t all she is. She says something like, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy… .”
He replied, “OK, you got me with that one.” We met for coffee. He was even more handsome in person than in his picture, and a genuinely nice and witty man. This was last autumn, and we have been dating ever since.
The Internet is your friend
The Internet is one of the most efficient and safe ways to find romance. I still hear women and men voicing fears of who’s on there, but believe me, it’s a godsend to older people who aren’t meeting loads of eligible partners.
You get a lot more information about someone you’ve met in cyberspace than you do in other kinds of one-time contact. There are bad dates everywhere, but the Internet has no more than other parts of the dating world do — and probably less.
Writing a profile
Put out your best stuff. Don’t lie, but you can omit your flaws. Everyone has them and they don’t need to be in your first sentence. Leave out anything but a brief mention of children — you are looking for a partner, not a father or mother. If they are partner material, then you can see if they will fit into your family or vice versa.
Use a good picture, but make sure it’s yours and wasn’t taken for your high school graduation. Avoid anyone who has a blurry picture, sunglasses or won’t show you a picture on request.
Talking on the phone
Don’t wait too long before making this relationship aural. If you like each other online, then relatively quickly transfer it to the phone. (Use a non-traceable number just in case you do meet Mr./Ms. Wrong and don’t want them to know your phone number.)
If you let the e-mail relationship go on too long, you may be caught in a fantasy perception of this person that gets you way too attached before you have a better sense of who she or he really is. Hearing their voice and talking is the first test of finding out who they really are.
Meeting someone
Likewise, once you’ve talked, arrange to meet fairly soon. I’ve known people who were just about saying “I love you” because of the intimacy and beauty of what they wrote to each other — until they met in person and one of them realized there was no chemistry.
Use the half-hour meeting rule (you can always extend it). If it’s really a great match, there will be a second date.
Remember to listen and ask questions — both of you are being interviewed — each of you should know more about the other than when you started. Do not complain even if your day was a horror and your kids robbed a bank.
Don’t dump on your ex even though you are sorely tempted. Everyone will always be thinking, “… and what would he/she be saying about me?” Try to see if there is any reason you two should know each other that is not readily apparent — i.e., explore hobbies, values, lifestyle, talents, passions.
Don’t give up
I don’t care if the first 15 dates are duds. There is someone out there for you.
If you are over 50 and wondering about Match.com or eHarmony, here are reviews of both sites, aimed at older singles…
Online Dating Site Review: Match.com
From Sharon OBrien,
Your Guide to Senior Living.
With more than 15 million members, Match.com is one of the largest general interest dating sites on the Internet and one of the most successful at bringing people together. The staff at Match.com calculates that every year more than 200,000 people find the person they were seeking by using Match.com. And Match.com reports that people 50 and older represent its fastest growing user segment. For the whole review, click here.
Online Dating Site Review: eHarmony
From Sharon OBrien,
Your Guide to Senior Living.
Marriage is the goal at eHarmony
eHarmony claims to take the guesswork out of matchmaking by using a scientific approach to help people find not only good matches and potential mates, but soul mates—and it seems to be working. To read the complete review, click here.
From a press release about LavaLifePrime—LavaLife’s new (and free for awhile) site for singles over 45:
A few interesting statistics on single Boomers:
* 30% of Boomers are single
* 70% of Boomers are internet savvy*
* 70% of single Boomers are dating regularly*
* Of those, 45% of men and 48% of women have sexual intercourse more than once per week*
* Only 14% of Boomer women and 22% of Boomer men are looking to get married or live with someone.* (For the younger groups these numbers are a significantly higher, ie. ages 30-39, 60%.) FULL ARTICLE @ PR LEAP
* AARP Study - American Association of Retired People
That’s SOME set of stats! If you are a single “Boomer,” get out there and have some fun!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Did you know that older singles are the biggest growth group for dating sites? Lavalife (primarily a Canadian dating site) is moving to target those over 50 with lavalifeprime.com, and billing the site as a “social networking” site as well as dating.
Canada’s largest online dating service aims to pitch shared interests at a growing market, writes Kristin Goff.
Kristin Goff, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Lavalife Corp., which offers an online dating service for single men and women, for gays and those seeking “intimate” relationships, may soon help older singles find a friend who shares an interest in flower arranging.
Canada’s largest online dating service is testing a new site, lavalifeprime.com as a place for people over age 45 to pair up for dates or friendship.
“It’s meant more for social networking (than dating), so if you want to meet someone in the same city who shares your interest in flower arranging or whatever, you can,” said Lally Rementilla, vice-president of planning, after speaking in Kanata yesterday. “They may not necessarily be of the opposite gender. They may just be someone you can do things together with.”
The website, now in the testing phase, will officially launch on May 23, according to information posted on the site.
Ms. Rementilla cited lavalifeprime.com as an example of how demographics and technology together are driving changes in web-based businesses. As technology advances, there’s been an increase among older Canadians in using the Internet and that means a growing market to reach.
It is one of many trends successful web entrepreneurs need to keep in tune with because the industry needs to constantly evolve to succeed, said Ms. Rementilla.
She spoke at an entrepreneurship symposium sponsored by the Women in Technology division of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, presenting a tongue-in-cheek comparison of how skills in dating carry over into skills as an entrepreneur.
Both, for example, must have passion, a compelling “elevator pitch” or short descriptive story to tell, be good listeners and keep up to date with what is going on around them, she said.
Lavalife, based in Toronto has around 1.2 million active users and roots which date back 20 years when it began as a telephone dating service in 1987, she said.
Since then, the company has added its web service, where customers post online ads, and added a mobile phone service to its original voice business.
In the future, the company will capitalize on its expertise in those three communication channels, perhaps by increasing the ways in which customers can access its various services, Ms. Rementilla said in a brief interview.
It also has an online lifestyle magazine, aimed at hip, urban singles, she said in a luncheon speech that was part of a day long forum on women entrepreneurs sponsored by Women in Technology.
The Women in Technology division of CATA has chapters in Ottawa and Toronto and has grown to more than 150 members in its first two years. It intends to open chapters in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal this year, according to Joanne Stanley, one of the founders.
My good friend Ben who happens to be over 50 himself, though happily married, sent me the following article from Match.com’s “Happen” magazine. It’s good news for guys, and Ben too. And take a look at another of my blog postings that talks about older—or at least baslder balding—guys and how attractive they are.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Baby Boomer Love:
What’s Sexy About Men Over 50
By Chelsea Kaplan
Courtesy of Match.com’s
Happen magazine
Just like a fine wine, men can possess an even greater appeal as they age, say many women. What is so scintillating about a man who is over 50? Consider the opinions of these women who’d take a 50something guy (or older) over a 20something any day.
Baby Boomer Love
Weather man
‘’I love a guy whose age has given him that rugged and weathered look, like he’s been around the block a few times. Give me a sexy Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford over Brad Pitt any day! Those laugh and squint lines give a man’s face character. To me, there’s nothing sexier.’’
-- Diana, 49, Coral Springs, FL
An executive decision
‘’I am always tremendously attracted to guys who have achieved a certain degree of professional success—you know, ones who are at or near the tops of the ladders at their places of work. In general, these guys are almost always in their 50s or 60s, because it’s in your younger years that you have to pay the dues to get to that place. There’s just something sexy about seeing a man so powerful and so in control of large-scale decision-making; it always turns me on!’’
-- Penny, 44, Charlotte, NC
A class distinction
‘’In my experience, I find that older men almost always exhibit good date behavior; they just have so |
