I know the man for me exists, and I won’t stop looking until I find him.
I’ve been single for ten years, since my partner passed away. I started dating again in my early seventies, and in the past year alone, I’ve been on ten dates. At first, I thought I missed sex or companionship, but it’s more than that. I want someone to share romantic sunsets and picnics with again. I want to die in love, remembering how that felt, because that’s when I felt most alive.
In my experience, few men on dating sites are looking for a 78-year-old woman. I left Match.com a few months ago because I look much younger than my age, and a few men accused me of using a fake photo or being AI-generated. Some younger men in their fifties showed interest, but I’m not interested in them. It’s important to me to date someone in his seventies or late sixties, who’s at the same stage of life, so we can live out our last years wildly in love.
I’m now trying a different approach by going to in-person dating events and dinner dances. The problem is, I don’t have a big family or grandchildren—just one daughter—and most men I meet in their seventies do, and they often want a woman with a similar background.
One man I thought was a perfect match told me after three dates that he’d prefer a woman with grandchildren, someone more homely and less glamorous than me. I wear makeup and dress stylishly in bright colors like white, turquoise, red, and pink because I’ve realized I love to be admired. I know it might sound shallow, but it’s not about vanity. It’s about recognizing these are my final years and wanting to live authentically every day.
I’d like to meet a cheeky chap with twinkling eyes, a sexy mouth, and an open mind—a teddy boy with attitude who probably smoked cannabis in the 1970s and was really into music. I love that whole hippy-with-a-ponytail vibe.
But there are very few attractive men in their seventies, and many older men seem to have become less interesting with age—they’re often not very engaging to talk to. I have a very full life with lots of hobbies, including swing dancing. But I want passion and romance. If I were offered a million pounds or the promise of falling in love, I’d choose love.
It’s a very barren landscape for me. A lot of men my age aren’t great at keeping themselves fit and healthy. I don’t know what happens—they seem fine in their forties and fifties, but then they hit their sixties and you think, what on earth?
When I do come across an attractive man my age, I often find they’re looking for a much younger woman. I see myself as a young sixty, so I could probably date someone younger, but I’m not interested in being fetishized by a much younger man. I’m too mature for that energy.
People keep saying, “Oh, you’re a very vibrant woman, you should go online and meet someone.” I tried that briefly and discovered that many men in their sixties used old Polaroids of themselves from the 1970s as their profile pictures.
When they contacted me, I constantly got the feeling they were keeping their options open. They didn’t take the time to read my profile and didn’t seem to want a meaningful conversation. It felt dodgy. I’m old-fashioned. I’d like to date someone I can laugh with, walk along the canal with, and have coffee with. But these men seemed to be fishing for sex.
I also felt that some men online saw me as a bit of a curiosity because I’m Afro-Caribbean. In the past, I occasionally tried dat…Dating websites for Black people can be a refuge. Not all white men understand the challenges and nuances of living as a Black person. You don’t always feel like sitting down and having to explain your experiences with structural racism, its covert impacts, and microaggressions every night. It’s exhausting.
In my experience, many men on Black dating sites just tell you how beautiful you are, without any real conversational depth. My response is usually, “Oh, get lost. This isn’t serious.”
I stopped online dating after a guy I was chatting with became abusive. He said something weird, and I replied, “That’s not very nice.” The next thing I knew, he was hurling expletives at me. It was quite unnerving.
In person, men often seem reluctant to even approach me. At a party recently, a man looked at me all night but waited until I was getting into a taxi to ask for my number. He hadn’t said a word to me all evening, so I said no.
I’ll be sad if my love life completely dies in my 60s. It’s already been several years since I’ve even had a hug. But unless someone of quality comes along, I’m not going to compromise. I won’t be with someone just so I can say, “I’ve got a man,” or because I feel lonely or isolated sometimes. I’m getting on with my life, realizing my ambitions and spending time with friends. Recently, I’ve written a play and joined a choir. I still want to rollerskate, learn tap dancing, and become huge in my acting career. So if this is the rest of my life, I’m at peace with that.
Bonnie March, an 84-year-old pensioner from Palm Springs, Florida, shared her story. She got married in her 20s and had two children. Twenty years later, she entered her first romantic relationship with another woman, which lasted eight years. Then she was single for about 30 years. Being alone didn’t bother her until COVID hit when she was 79. In lockdown, she began to feel super lonely.
So she joined Match.com and went on about 20 dates. She felt at sea, constantly asking herself, “What the heck is going on here?” The women she matched with—all aged 75 to 85—seemed very old in their attitudes. Their lives had been narrowed by their own choices, and they often found excuses to stay home and stream Netflix. Many treated their pets like children, with some refusing to do things because they had to go home and feed their animals. One woman had a parrot she wanted Bonnie to hold, but Bonnie refused. Another had given up traveling because she vomited once on a trip. The worst date was with a woman who repeated herself endlessly about how connected and important she was in her early life—and she was super cheap, too. On another date, Bonnie met a woman for lunch who, when she smiled, revealed she didn’t have any teeth.
Bonnie decided to join the Conscious Girlfriend Academy, a queer and lesbian relationship coaching website. There are different levels of being “out,” and she had not come out in her local community. Her coach helped her find the courage to be herself and to tell anyone who had a problem with her, “I don’t need you in my life.”
That freed something inside her. She realized she had missed out on some of the experiences other lesbians have in their youth. When one of the women she dated told her she didn’t act her age and suggested she lower her age range to 65–75, Bonnie took her advice. The very first woman she met was Cheryl, who was 68.
They met for lunch initially, and there was a lot of laughter and…A few weeks later, we went to a blues festival together and stayed up until one or two in the morning just talking. We shared our life stories and realized we had a lot in common. She is a world traveler and an energetic, sports-oriented person, just like I am. We just clicked.
I knew within a couple of months that I wanted to marry Bonnie. It was so exciting. It felt like the first time I fell in love—all the same butterflies, the same feeling of not being able to concentrate. We couldn’t stand to be apart. Unlike Bonnie, I came out when I was 19. I had a 25-year marriage with an older woman, who died in 2017.
I spent months dating women before I met Bonnie. Coincidentally, the craziest date was with a woman who talked constantly about her parrot. Sex didn’t seem to be high on the list for the women I met, and sex was important to me. Many had come out later in life and were mothers. I had never been with a woman who had kids, and that was a challenge.
One woman told me she couldn’t wait to have grandchildren and was planning to install a pool in her house for them. I was taken aback. I wanted to meet someone who was relatively free and looking for an adventure. One of my key tests was: can we vacation together? Because I love to travel.
It wasn’t my first choice to get together with an older woman like Bonnie after losing my previous partner. But at the same time, it didn’t scare me to think Bonnie might die first. I knew I had been through such a loss already and that I could get through it again.
An advantage of dating when you’re retired is you can take lots of vacations. Bonnie hadn’t traveled much until she met me, but there are now so many beautiful places all over the world that we have been to and shared together, and still more we are planning to visit. Sexually, our desire for each other aligned as well.
About a year after we met, we went to Paris because Bonnie told me she had always wanted to go there and walk around in a red beret, carrying a baguette, with her lover on her arm. When we got to the top of the Eiffel Tower, I proposed.
We had a full wedding with 100 guests—we both dressed in white and walked down the aisle to Elvis Presley singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Many of our guests had tears in their eyes. Lots of our friends had lived through the years when gay marriage wasn’t legal. When we walked into the reception room after the ceremony, everyone stood up and applauded for five minutes. We felt this overwhelming amount of support, and when Bonnie cried, I cried, too. They were tears of joy.
I’ve dated 40 or 50 men over the past 30 years—so many, I’ve lost count. I do online dating, and I’m what people now call bisexual. What’s important to me is to meet someone who is bright, has a sense of humor, and loves to travel. It doesn’t bother me what sex that person is. What matters is that we have fun together.
Dating has gotten harder as I’ve gotten older. When I was young, it was easy to meet people. I got married—and divorced—in my 20s. I went on to have two other serious relationships, including one that lasted 25 years, and started dating again in my 60s.
I don’t like being in my apartment at night, alone. So I’ll find an interesting person online and invite them out for a coffee—and nine out of 10 times, I’ll never hear from them again. I think these people don’t want to meet anybody. They just like surfing around on the internet. They get a kick out of it.
The few people I did meet were nebbishes—that’s Yiddish for a timid, unassertive person. I prefer younger men; older ones are more likely to hog the conversation.In Yiddish, they’re called losers and jerks. Some were around my age, others younger—a few even in their late twenties or thirties. We’d meet at a bar, have a good time, and then I’d never hear from them again.
A lot of women my age say they’ve stopped having sex, even with their husbands. I guess I’m different. I prefer younger men because I’ve found that the older men get, the more they tend to dominate the conversation. Men over 65 especially—they just talk about themselves. It doesn’t even occur to them that they haven’t asked you a single question, and that’s when my attention drifts. With women, there’s more give and take.
Recently on Bumble, I matched with a man who said he was 87. When we met for a burger, he confessed he was actually 92. He went on about being rich and famous, then insisted he wasn’t like other older guys. “I don’t just hold it for two minutes,” he said. “I can hold it for two hours because I have balloons.” I realized he was talking about inflating his penis. He mentioned his last girlfriend loved it—until she passed away. I couldn’t wait to leave.
Another man kept making plans with me, only to cancel saying he was busy. This went on for three months before he ghosted me completely.
I sometimes talk about my dating life during my comedy sets, and afterward, younger guys will approach me wanting to go out. But they’re usually just after a quick hookup, not a real connection. I learned that a few years ago when I slept with a man in his forties, thinking it might lead somewhere. It didn’t—it was just casual.
Like I said, many women my age have given up on sex. But for me, it’s still part of life, even though it’s been a while. I’m open to it, but not with just anyone. I’d like at least some kind of relationship first.
I don’t have children, and most of my family is gone. I travel often, hoping I might meet someone in Paris, London, or even on a plane. I’m not looking to get married or fall in love—just to find a companion who enjoys my company and wants to have fun. It’s a lonely world, but you have to keep hoping.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions About Dating Later in Life for Older Women
Beginner Definition Questions
1 What does dating later in life typically mean
It generally refers to people often over 50 or 60 who are entering the dating scene again after divorce widowhood or a long period of being single
2 Why is this topic getting more attention now
People are living longer healthier lives and are more likely to seek companionship and romance in their later years Online dating has also made it more accessible
3 Is it common for younger men to seek out older women
Yes its a noticeable trend Some younger men are attracted to the confidence stability and life experience that many older women possess
Benefits Motivations
4 What are the biggest benefits of dating when youre older
Many women report greater selfconfidence clearer expectations less pressure about marriage or children and a focus on genuine companionship and fun
5 Why would a woman in her 70s or 80s want to date
For companionship intellectual connection romance physical intimacy and simply to share lifes adventuresthe same reasons as at any age
6 Do older women date for marriage or something more casual
It varies widely Some seek serious committed partnerships while others prefer casual dating or companionship without the traditional trappings of marriage
Common Challenges Problems
7 What are the biggest challenges older women face in dating
Navigating online dating platforms dealing with ageist stereotypes managing family dynamics and encountering men with significant health issues
8 Whats with the fudged age example
Some people especially on dating apps lie about their age to appear in more search results or to match with a different age group which can lead to awkwardness and distrust
9 How do you deal with men who only want a casual fling
Many older women are upfront about their intentions They either politely decline if they want more or mutually enjoy the arrangement if theyre also seeking something casual
10 Isnt the dating pool very small for older women
It can feel that way but its also more focused The goal shifts from finding
