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On a cocktail napkin, she wrote “a real kiss.” He wrote “sex and clarity.”
Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a biological anthropologist and senior research fellow at The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, had been meeting up with a man in New York every couple of months for about a year. They went on dates to the opera and out to eat at restaurants, but they typically ended their evenings with nothing more than a hug goodbye. One night over drinks at dinner, she suggested they secretly write down what they would like if they won a game of pool against the other.
After a victorious match, Fisher’s date showed her his napkin and elaborated that he wanted to be friends with benefits—following a divorce, he wasn’t ready for a relationship. “That’s fine,” Fisher said. However, “I study love…One thing I can tell you is once you start to have sex with somebody, it can trigger the brain circuitry for romantic love. Are you willing to take that chance?” she asked.
“He said yes. And one thing led to another,” says Fisher, 78. The pair married two years ago.
If you think making bets over a game of pool and proposing a friends-with-benefits situation sound like experiences saved for twenty-somethings, then you’re missing out on the very hot, complicated, playful dating lives of those over 50. People are living well into their 70s on average, and many are starting over after divorce or the loss of a spouse in midlife and later. In fact, 28% of people ages 50 to 64 are single, and that number goes up to 36% for those above the age of 65.
Depictions of dating during this stage of life are just starting to trickle into the mainstream: Take the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That or ABC’s new reality dating show The Golden Bachelor, for instance. Whether you’re watching it on TV, hearing about it from family and friends, or going through it yourself, it’s clear that people over 50 are dealing with many of the same pitfalls and triumphs as their younger counterparts. While the dating pool may be a different depth and shape than what some swam in decades ago, the water’s still fine if you’re willing to jump in.
Fisher not only found love in her 70s but is an expert on the subject. An identical twin, Fisher grew interested in the concept of nature versus nurture early on. And in grad school, the realization that all behavior is learned led to her research on the biological origins of reproductive behaviors and how these are patterned in the brain. She studies love from both a physiological and cultural perspective, writing books on the evolution and future of love. Today, she also analyzes dating habits as the chief science advisor to the dating site Match.com.
According to Fisher, there are three distinct brain systems for mating and reproduction: sex drive, romantic love, and feelings of deep attachment. While sex drive can diminish to a degree with age, Fisher says, romantic love and feelings of deep attachment don’t. She has the life experience and the brain scans to prove it.
Fisher and a team of researchers put people who were in their fifties and sixties into a brain scanner using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), she explains, citing a study she published in 2011. “When they’re madly in love with somebody, [their brain scans] show exactly the same pathways for romantic love as people in their early twenties who’ve just fallen in love. So, it’s a basic brain system that can be activated at any age.”
Ask anyone over the age of 50, and they’ll likely tell you they don’t need a brain scan to confirm they’re capable of and interested in romantic relationships. We recently spoke with many people ages 56 to nearly 80 about their love lives. Some, like Fisher, have found meaningful partnerships to enjoy later in life, while others are navigating new territory dating after divorce alongside their grown children. Most people desire love and companionship, but how and where to find it are the questions on many single people’s minds. Unfortunately, those answers aren’t readily available via brain scan just yet, but dating app data, sociologists, therapists, and matchmakers may hold a few clues.
More and more young people are finding their partners on dating apps, but those over 50 are giving digital dating a try, too. Today, one in five partnered adults (those who are married, living with a partner, or in a committed relationship) under 30 and about 24% of partnered lesbian, gay, or bisexual adults met their current significant other on a dating site or app, according to Pew Research Center. Only about 4% of partnered adults 65 and older have had the same success through digital dating. Of course, Match.com, largely considered the first dating site, didn’t exist prior to 1995, and many popular dating apps, like Tinder and Hinge, didn’t launch until the 2010s. So, take that figure with a grain of salt.
“The world has changed a lot; I have to adapt,” says Barbara*, 56, who met her soon-to-be ex-husband (they’ve been separated for eight years, but the divorce process is still ongoing) through mutual friends while she was still in high school. Remarriage isn’t on her mind right now. She’s interested in monogamous relationships rather than one-night stands. However, she finds many men her age, specifically those she meets on dating apps, aren’t looking for the same thing. “Some people get to this age, and they think ‘I’m going to just have a total party with this dating thing, and I’m going to get whatever I want,’” Barbara says.
She has also run into people who practice ethical non-monogamy (and disclose this type of information on their dating app profiles) since becoming single again, which she’s not used to encountering. “When I was younger we didn’t talk in those terms,” Barbara says, noting that while she understands ENM and polyamorous relationships are more widely accepted today when disclosed upfront, they’re not for her. “So, it’s finding another person at this point of life who has that same value system [as me],” she says.
Lisa Sutherland, 59, has also been disappointed by the dating apps and sites she has tried. “I found a lot of people just wanted to text,” she says, noting that using dating apps took up a lot of her time. “There’s nothing like eye to eye,” she continues. But Sutherland, who lives in Palm Springs and dates women, has found it challenging to meet someone in person. “We had the pandemic; I was taking care of my mom,” she explains.
Sutherland turned to a matchmaker for help. Through a friend, she learned about Tammy Shaklee, who specializes in setting up gay and lesbian couples.
She’s not the only one: Matchmaking is projected to be a billion dollar industry in 2023, with services costing anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.
Shaklee finds a “vast majority” of the people who seek her team’s services in midlife and later do so because they feel frustrated with dating apps. “I hear all the horror stories…They’ve all tried it, almost everyone. And they come to me with a frustrated, discouraged, [in-]disbelief attitude about how their experience was.”
Shaklee, who met her husband through a matchmaker, introduces her clients to compatible partners with the goal of helping them find “a long-term, committed, and sustainable relationship,” she says. The matchmaker also advises her clients to remain open to meeting someone on their own. “Stay off your device, keep your eyes open, go to a new dry cleaners, go to a new coffee shop, get out of your same old routine, and be looking around,” she tells them. “I'm doing my part to find your introductions. But you need to be doing your part.”
Paula Pardell, the CEO of Bloom Matchmaking, who typically works with heterosexual middle-aged people, says, “A lot of people come to me because they just don’t know how to navigate the dating world right now.” They ask “what are the new rules and what do I do?”
Pardell helps her clients regain confidence and even put their best foot forward on dating apps. She coaches them through how to write eye-catching bios, choose appropriate photos, and stay safe. Thinking about safety—not disclosing too much personal information before meeting and picking a public space for a first date, for instance—is important. About half of online daters ages 50 and older say they encountered someone they thought was trying to scam them while using a dating website or app.
“I try to warn people about texting too much before you’re in a relationship because you can’t get a good picture of who someone truly is through text,” Pardell adds. “You can’t hear the inflection in their voice. There are misunderstandings.”
“The problem [with dating apps] is that they’re too new, and because they’re so new, people don’t know how to handle them,” says Fisher. While she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the apps, she blames people’s apparent collective dissatisfaction with them on the paradox of choice or cognitive overload. “The brain is not built to binge.” With this in mind, she suggests limiting the number of people you’re interacting with on dating apps and getting to know a few people or just one match better at a time.
Additionally, Fisher points out that people are essentially hardwired against giving someone new a chance. “There’s a huge brain region in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, a brain region linked with what is called negativity bias,” she explains. “We remember the negative.” It’s a result of evolution that once helped keep people alive and now can manifest in being overly picky when scrolling through pictures and prompts on dating apps. The antidote? “Think of reasons to say yes instead of no,” Fisher advises.
Meaningful dating, whether online or IRL, often comes down to being in “receptive mode,” explains Marissa Nelson, L.M.F.T., a certified sex therapist and sex educator who’s currently the relationship and intimacy expert at BLK, a dating app for Black singles. “You have to be in a place to be able to invite love into your life,” she says, noting that cognitive dissonance—that difference between what you want and what your subconscious beliefs may keep you from going after—can get in the way. “[The] subconscious mind drives 95% of our decisions. And so, if I have a belief that finding love is going to be hard, I don’t want to get hurt again, there is nobody out there for me, then we might be putting ourselves in situations where that can be the reality.”
Curiosity is also key, adds Laurie Sloane, L.C.S.W., a psychotherapist with experience helping women navigate midlife and beyond. “To be open, you have to be curious about who is the person you’re looking at on an online app, who is the person sitting across from you on that first coffee or drink or evening dinner?” she says. “That curiosity can take you very far.”
Ilene Frischer, 71, never turned to the Internet for a date after her longtime husband passed away nine years ago. “But I dated a fair amount,” she shares. Formerly a diabetes educator and registered dietitian, she was often set up by her patients.
Still, there’s no escaping the perils of modern dating. “A friend introduced me to somebody who I really liked a lot, and he ended up ghosting me, which was pretty horrifying,” she recalls. (Note: He called back two years later to apologize. “He had stuff going on, blah, blah, blah.”)
Despite the challenges, “you have to put yourself out there,” says Frischer, who notes she was once advised to never decline an invitation. She also visited someone “who is a little bit psychic” and practiced manifestation in her recent search for love. “I wrote a vow…and every morning I lit a candle and [read] the vow out loud, and two months later I started dating Mark, the man I’m with,” she says. “I checked off everything I was looking for in a partner.”
Mark was a friend of a friend who she’d seen at many special occasions—bar mitzvahs, weddings, holidays—over the years while they were married to other people. But when they both found themselves widowed, they connected in a new way.
“It didn’t come immediately,” she explains, noting that she was guarded in the beginning, partly because he was seeing other people. “I wasn’t allowing myself to go there. I was taking it very slow. And then it just took off,” she says. “It was magical, and it was really…,” she pauses. “There’s a lot of chemistry there.”
Today, Frischer and Mark are in a committed relationship, though she has no desire to get married again. They split their time between Chicago and New York, which has expanded both of their social circles. “It’s wonderful,” she says, adding that it wouldn’t be possible if they weren’t both retired.
It’s no secret that being in a relationship comes with its share of perks, but having a partner offers benefits that go beyond simple pleasures. “If you’re in a good relationship and you’re older and you’re having sex regularly and you’re going off and doing things together and you’re hugging and kissing and you’re playing games together, it’s going to rejuvenate a whole host of areas in the brain for longer life,” says Fisher.
Specifically, when partners play together, it increases brain growth in four areas: the amygdala (associated with emotional processing), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (associated with planning and decision making), the endorphins (associated with pain reduction), and the cerebellum (associated with attention and immune function), she explains.
“Certain kinds of social relationships seem to improve health,” adds Linda Waite, Ph.D., George Herbert Mead distinguished service professor of sociology and senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. Namely, relationships may help stave off loneliness, an emotion that can be stressful, in turn, negatively impacting cardiovascular and cognitive health, Waite explains. Being single can also leave a person socially isolated with fewer resources to take care of themself as they age.
“Over the long run, that has an effect,” Waite says. “There’s a huge body of research that shows that [not having a consistent partner is] bad for people’s health,” she continues, adding that this is especially true for men.
While the proof is in the research, most single people don’t need data to confirm there are benefits to meaningful relationships at every stage of life. The question is often how to make that connection with someone new, especially when it seems like the dating pool is shrinking as you age.
If you’re a straight woman over 50 who feels like there are far more single women than men your age, you’re not imagining things. In 2015, 81% of men between the ages of 50 and 95 were married or partnered while 65% of women in the same age group were, according to Waite’s research, which includes people who identify as LGBT+ (though the majority of participants identify as heterosexual). “And the men are more likely to repartner if they lose a partner than women are at older ages,” she adds.
There are a few factors that explain why this is. It mainly comes down to life expectancy and dating trends, Waite says. Men tend to date and marry women who are younger than them. In addition to this initial age gap, women statistically outlive men by a few years. “So, the men are looking to date in a group that’s big,” she says, “and the women are looking to date in a group that’s small.”
But older women hoping to meet single men their age can find them. Men who are single later in life are typically more interested in forming a new partnership, whereas many women “would be just fine with being single,” according to Waite. This may be a result of traditional gender roles among this cohort, Waite suggests.
“One of the things women do in traditional marriages is they maintain social connections with the family, with the friends. And so when men lose a woman, they lose that,” she explains. “Men are more socially adrift when they become single.” Women on the other hand? “Their social worlds tend to be richer: lots of friends, lots of activities.”
Even with a full social life, older women still stand to benefit from having a romantic partner later in life. Due to those same traditional gender roles, straight women may struggle with finances after a divorce or the passing of a spouse, Waite notes. And, of course, there are benefits to being sexually active, no matter your sexual orientation.
“Sex, any stimulation of the genitals, drives up the dopamine system, gives you optimism, focus, energy,” says Fisher. It’s also beneficial to the immune system and promotes sleep, she continues, noting that orgasms and kissing trigger oxytocin, a hormone associated with feelings of attachment and calm that reduces cortisol, a hormone associated with stress.
This kind of boost is possible for people of all ages, especially with aids like erectile dysfunction medication, lubricants, and even hormone replacement therapy. Though, there’s no getting around the fact that having sex with a new partner in your 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond may be initially intimidating for some.
“You have to come to know your body at this time when it’s not cooperating in the way it had for all the years prior to midlife,” says Sloane. “Your menstruation cycles start to get wacky. You might be having hot flashes—all these kinds of unwanted things that happen to your body that you don’t have control over, and they come up around dating and having sex,” she continues.
But if you can get over these hurdles, you could be in for a whole new experience. “Physically, it was very validating,” says Barbara of a recent two-year relationship she had with a man she met through a close friend.
“The horrifying thing was taking your clothes off in front of a strange man after 36 years of marriage and cesarean scars,” admits Frischer. “What I realized was [men are] just as insecure about their bodies as we are about ours. And it turned out to be such a non-issue,” she says. “He thinks I’m gorgeous, and that’s all that matters.”
Physical appearances and abilities may change over the years, but so do other things that can lead to a rewarding dating life. Shaklee has noticed a real air of empowerment among her clients who are in their 50s and older. “They’ve designed a great life for themselves, and now they’re ready to have that right compatible partner share it with them,” she says.
“When we’re all in our twenties, our guts start to tell us things and we don’t listen,” says Pardell. “But as we get older, I think that we do realize that [intuition is] there for a reason.”
Confidence also tends to come with age, Sloan points out. “They know themselves more, they’ve lived more life, they’ve had more experiences with relationships.”
“We’ve all been through stuff at this point, and there’s less BS with the right person, with a good person,” says Barbara. “There’s a higher chance, if you can find the right person, to really have a transformative, stable, respectful understanding of each other.”
People often have renewed goals when it comes to dating and relationships later in life, too. Rather than seeking someone to start a family with, older folks tend to be interested in companionship and a situation that fits into their current routine. “Older people have done their reproducing, they’re settled in their community, and they’re just not going to make a compromise at all,” says Fischer.
“I do want a relationship, but I’d rather be alone than be with somebody just to be with somebody,” Sutherland says.
Along with finding the right person, people in midlife and later are also finding the right situation for themselves at this stage in life. “There are many different kinds of ways of thinking about what is a relationship,” says Sloan. More couples are choosing not to live together. Some are polyamorous. Others aren’t interested in marriage, she adds. “There are definitely many more options today than ever before.”
For those who are single and open to meeting someone new, frustrations, miscommunications, and embarrassments happen at every age. But so can unexpected connections and positive experiences. Maybe that’s the beauty of dating. Whether you’re 25 or 75, you could be waiting for a text back or having the best first kiss of your life.
“I don’t deny my good fortune,” says Frischer. “It’s lucky, lucky, but if you don’t put yourself out there, nobody’s going to come knocking at your door.”
“I try to tell myself to just stay open and positive,” says Sutherland, who makes an effort to do things she enjoys, like pickleball. “That’s always good because you attract somebody that may have similar interests,” she adds. “You never know.”
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