Dating in your Seventies

Life is difficult enough for the average person, but throw in being widowed at the age of 69 and turning 70 without your spouse at your side, these are heartbreaking complications that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. However, I was thrown into that conundrum, along with some serious financial losses that resulted from my husband’s illness. I was lonely and miserable and feeling rather “poor”.

After about a year of being on my own, I took the advice of some friends and decided to try “online dating”. I am a child of the 1960’s. This was a very new concept to me. However, I am an analytical person. I approached this the way I approach buying a car or a television. I gathered as much information as I could about the miscellaneous dating sites. I learned which ones were for “hook-ups”…. just to be honest, I had to look up what hook-ups were. I wasn’t looking for that. There were some dating sites that were geared toward ‘mature singles’ and I researched the pros and cons of those. Then, I made, what I thought was an informed decision to sign-up for “Ourtime.com”. Thus, my great new adventure began. I had to answer a lot of questions about myself, my personal preferences, my activities and interests and what type of relationship I was seeking. I answered as best as I could based on how I was feeling at the time.  Then, I had to find a recent picture of me that was suitable for my profile picture. I was reminded that profiles with a photograph got many times more “hits” than those without one. The only one I could find was a recent vacation photo of my son and me. It never occurred to me to “crop” him out of the picture, so I posted it as it was. I looked tan, relaxed and happy.

A short time after I posted the picture, I began getting some interest. I chatted online with a few men. Proximity was important to me, so I had posted that they needed to be within 25 miles of me. That was ignored many times by gentlemen who replied, I wondered if they were illiterate or oblivious. In any event, I met and chatted with one man who lived very near, the next town, in fact. We agreed to meet for coffee and although he was good looking, there was not a spark. We did meet to walk in a local park several times and our dogs got to meet…they didn’t seem interested in each other, either.

A few months later, I began an online chat with a man who had also been widowed after a very long marriage. His wife had also been ill and he also had grown children and some grandkids. He was very interesting to talk to and we moved from the “Ourtime” website to telephone after a few weeks of texting. I looked forward to hearing from him and we continued both online and “on the phone” and he soon suggested that we “meet for an adult beverage or coffee”.  There were some scheduling complications and it took almost an additional week before we could arrange a date and place.  The night before our planned meeting, I almost “chickened out” when he offered to pick me up, because I was unfamiliar with the location he had suggested. It was outright panic that set in. I thought: “what are you doing? This man could be a predator and you are agreeing to meet him someplace where you don’t know anyone who could help you.”

I got over it and told him that I had a very reliable GPS and would find the location. I had arranged it so that I had a predetermined amount of time before I had to pick someone up, it could have been between an hour and two hours, which may have become a problem if things didn’t go well. As it worked out, he was as personable face to face as he was over the phone. The time flew by and before I realized it, two and a half hours had passed. There was definite chemistry between us and when we had to part, he asked for a kiss and I gave him one.

I won’t say that the relationship was perfect, but we had a lot of good times together and were compatible when we were together. After eleven months, he told me that he couldn’t be in the kind of relationship that I wanted. That was that. I won’t say that I took it well. I was sort of in shock. It is now two months after the fact and I am in counseling to help me deal with the situation and to get some help in understanding what cues I missed. The fact of the matter is, I knew all along that things were not even close to the way I wanted them to be. The progression of the relationship was uneven. It ran hot and cold. While he did most of the pursuing, it was in fits and starts. If I am to be honest, I wanted it to work, more than I believed it was working. That doesn’t lessen the pain that I am suffering. I did care deeply about him and my son’s “helpful” comment about if I want another old man, there are plenty of them out there…did ring true. So now, the question is, do I really want another old man. Let’s face it, what am I going to find at this age? I am an old woman, although my thinking is young and so much of what I do is youngish, I guess I could look again, but to what end? Is it about the journey or the destination? I need to decide and being so changeable, whatever I decide, I may soon change my mind and pick the opposite. I am living my life backwards…I need to do the “fun” dating in my 70’s that I never did in my teens. I had only long term, serious boyfriends and I married at 19. Can I do that? I don’t know…stay tuned and we’ll see.