The Daily - The Sunday Read: ‘Online Dating After 50 Can Be Miserable. But It’s Also Liberating.’

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

When Maggie Jones’s marriage collapsed after 23 years, she was devastated and overwhelmed. She was in her 50s, with two jobs, two teenage daughters and one dog. She didn’t consider dating. She had no time, no emotional energy. But then a year passed. One daughter was off at college, the other increasingly independent. After several more months went by, she started to feel a sliver of curiosity about what kind of men were out there and how it would feel to date again. The last time she dated was 25 years ago, and even then, she fell into relationships mostly with guys from high school, college, parties, work. Now every man she knew was either married, too young, too old or otherwise not a good fit.That meant online dating — the default mode not just for the young but also for people Ms. Jones’s age. Her only exposure had been watching her oldest daughter, home from college one summer, as she sat on her bed rapidly swiping through guy after guy — spending no more than a second or two on each.Ms. Jones tells her story of online dating in later adulthood, and what she learned.

Hi, I'm Maggie Jones. I'm a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. I've written about the sex lives of many demographics, from teenagers to people in their 80s. A few years ago, I wrote this big article about sex and aging, and that in part led me to report the story you're going to hear today, this week's Sunday Read. It's about the pleasures, frustrations, and freedoms of dating online when you're over 50 and single, a demographic that I myself am part of.

I wanted to tackle the ageist assumptions I've heard from several people in their teens, 20s, and 30s. These narratives that as we get older, we don't go about dating the same way younger people do. Or that if you're single past 50, you're letting go of sex or falling in love again. Or that older single women are desperate to remarry. None of that is true. are desperate to remarry. None of that is true. I knew this because I'd already been talking to a lot of friends and the men who I was dating about their experiences. And I'd been on the apps myself, swiping past blurry, outdated selfies, photos of men holding fish that feel like they're on every fifth person's profile, and cliches that, as a writer,

get so tedious to read. But as I did more formal research, I found out there were a bunch of interesting studies out there about dating after 50 and about sexuality and aging. I poured over these studies, talked to probably three dozen people all across the country, and of course, mined my own experiences for this article. What I learned is that there are lots of people over 50, women especially, some separated, some divorced, some widowed, who are using apps to explore their sexuality and dating far more than they ever did in their 20s. They're enjoying more expansive sex lives. They're not settling. Most of the people I interviewed talked frankly about how they know themselves

and what they're looking for better than they did in their youth. There's a certain freedom in that as we age, we don't have to think as much about who's going to be a good parent or who's financially comfortable. We don't have to race as much about who's going to be a good parent or who's financially comfortable. We don't have to race against a biological clock to have children. There's a greater directness about sex and more honesty in letting go when someone isn't the right fit. And as one source told me, at this age, if somebody doesn't ask you out on a fourth date, at this age. If somebody doesn't ask you out on a fourth date, well, you've survived far worse than that. So here's my article, read by Gabra Zachman. Our audio producer is Adrienne Hurst.

The music you'll hear was written and performed by Aaron Esposito. When my marriage collapsed after 23 years, I was devastated and overwhelmed. I was in my 50s, with two jobs, two teenage daughters, one dog. I didn't consider dating. I had no time, no emotional energy. But then a year passed. One daughter was off at college, the other increasingly independent. After several more months went by, I started to feel a sliver of curiosity about what kind of men were out there and how it would feel to date again.

The last time I dated was 25 years ago, and even then I fell into relationships mostly with guys from high school, college, parties, work. Now every man I knew was either married, too young, too old, or otherwise not a good fit. That meant online dating, the default mode not just for the young, but also for people my age. My only exposure had been watching my oldest daughter, home from college one summer, as she sat on her bed rapidly swiping through guy after guy, spending no more than a second or two on each. Wait, I kept saying, slow down. How do you know? What's wrong with him? Or him? Soon enough, I signed on to Match, and then the dating apps Bumble and Hinge.

And over the past 18 months, I've felt waves of excitement, hope, frustration, boredom, discouragement. I've gone on great and not-so-great dates, had relationships and ended them, paused and restarted apps over and over again. Online dating is a mixed bag for most people, queer, hetero, non-binary. Plenty of them do find love, including on their very first match.

But many of us have to swim through a dispiriting sea of hundreds of people, most of whom we are unlikely to ever want to date. That includes profiles that are fake, created by scammers to try to lure private information from users. And while most profiles are real, sometimes their photos are not so much. More than one person told me that photos can be so outdated or filtered that they barely recognize their date when they met.

And the writing is often littered with cliches. Looking for a partner in crime. I will make you laugh. I live life to the fullest. Then there's the irritating experience of seeing the people you already declined pop up again and again and again. As tough as the process can be, older women have it worse than most. They report more negative online dating experiences compared

with men of all ages and younger women, according to a Pew Center for Research study. That may in part be because of their dearth of choices. The pool of men narrows with time. Men's life expectancy is seven years shorter than women's. Then there's the reality that men tend to date younger women, a desire that online dating makes vividly quantifiable. In a 2018 study, researchers analyzed anonymized message exchanges between more than 186,000 straight men and women from a public and large online dating platform. Researchers didn't name which one. Women get the most attention from men, measured by the number of first messages a person receives, when they are 18. Yes, 18, when they have barely crossed into adulthood, if you consider 18 an adult. It's also the first year they are legally allowed to even be on most dating sites. It's

downhill from there. The study, by Elizabeth Brook, a sociology professor, and Mark Newman, a physics professor, both at the University of Michigan, didn't even include people older than 65. Men's desirability, in contrast, peaks more than three decades later, at around age 50, when women have become increasingly invisible. And although women prefer men with advanced degrees, men desire women who don't go beyond college. But as I learned over the last several months talking to more than three dozen people about online dating among older Americans like me, that's only part of the story. Researchers, along with people I interviewed who have been on the apps, suggested something more complex and nuanced about dating in the older years,

by which I mean there may be reason for optimism. One Wednesday afternoon over Zoom from her living room in Manhattan, the anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Anatomy of Love, A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray, told me she is hopeful about online dating as you age. Despite the stereotypes, older women are not desperate. Fisher, who studies romantic relationships and dating, is a senior research fellow at the Kinsey Institute and chief scientific advisor to Match. For the past 13 years, along with the Kinsey Institute's executive director, Justin Garcia, she has collaborated with Match to create

and analyze annual, nationally representative surveys of roughly 5,000 single people about their romantic lives. When it comes to sexual attraction, Fisher, who is 78, says, the older you get, the pickier you get. In one Match survey, people over 60 were more likely than younger people to insist on initial sexual chemistry for a long-term relationship, perhaps in part, Fisher says, because when you don't have to choose a partner who will be a good parent or help provide a secure home, you can focus on different desires. There's also less pressure to marry the second time around. Only 15% of previously married women

say they want to do it again, according to a Pew study. The other 85% either didn't want to or weren't sure. That's half the portion of men who want to remarry. Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford University whose research areas include mating and dating and the Internet's effect on society, says the discrepancy is partly because, as numerous studies confirm, women tend to be less satisfied in heterosexual marriage. Some women, as he put it, are just tired of the ups and downs of relationships and have promised themselves they won't do it again. Men, by contrast, have narrower social circles and emotional friendships than women do. Without a partner, they can feel more adrift

and remarry quickly. One man I talked to who asked me to identify him by his middle initial, H, is in his late 50s and divorced and has seen this among men his age. Men are not confident in their ability to be alone. Emotionally, keeping a social calendar, getting meals on the table, a lot of them need to be taken care of. That need can be on blatant display in dating apps. It's what Jenny Young, a professor of English and women and gender studies at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, calls the are-you-my-mother problem. In a Facebook post, she used the example of a man answering the online dating prompt, we'll get along if, by writing, you feed me, and are more mature than I, lol. Young, who wrote her dissertation in Applied Rhetoric, teaches a class for undergraduates

called The Rhetoric of Dating and Intimacy. She argues that older women are more selective about dating. Our hormones are shifting, we have zero tolerance, especially those of us who have been on our own and don't feel we need a man to provide for us. Still, Young, who is 53 and divorced herself, wants to improve the dating experience for women and non-binary people by helping them learn how to interpret dating language. It's one way older women can catch up to Gen Z women,

who are better versed in online rhetoric, Young says. how to interpret dating language. It's one way older women can catch up to Gen Z women, who are better versed in online rhetoric, Young says. Older women were already partnered when online dating began and missed the dating app revolution. Young and I bonded, as I did with other women, over our shared exasperation with so many men's profiles, filled with selfies at the gym in which they were holding dumbbells and flexing, or in bathroom mirrors, sometimes with urinals behind them. One woman told me about a bathroom pic with a bra dangling from the shower rod. And the fish. So many men holding fish. Either because fishing is a favorite hobby, or a display of masculinity, or both. Who knows? On Instagram, Young recently posted two common rhetorical approaches, disciplinary directive, be feminine, no baggage, and I dare you, message me if you

think you can handle it. I say no 99% of the time. She cited an example in which a man combined the two by saying, understand this is a dating site you joined to meet someone, not to text to death, lol. If you want to meet me, act like it. I'll know you are serious when I get your number. For Young, trying to figure out how to date better and more efficiently started one night three years ago, when she was feeling pitiful about her own experiences online, rife with misogyny and cliched nonsense. She did a Google search for, how do you find a needle in a haystack? The answer, burn the haystack to the ground. Only the metal needle will remain. She decided to try it as a dating method. Instead of widening her filters and her tastes, which some dating advisors suggest,

she became choosier about men and their styles of communication. She responded only if they sent her a clear, personalized message. And if she wasn't interested in a man, she didn't just swipe left or X out his profile. She blocked or removed him, which isn't the same as reporting someone for inappropriate behavior. The goal was to prevent further messages and reduce the odds those men would reappear in her feed and waste more of her time. She also revised her profile to repel some men, while, she hoped, drawing those who were better matches. To that end, she wrote a top 10 list of her dating rules, which included no hookups and no messages of, hey, you up?

Or, what's up? And no 55-year-old man who says he wants kids someday. She also posted what she likes to do. Bike, hike, write humor. Emphasizing that while it's common to say a version of I'm funny in profiles, she has actually published satire. She ended with, I can't be attracted to anyone who doesn't know their homonyms. I'm sorry. She conceded the last line might sound elitist, but it was accurate. In the next five days, while fewer men liked her, the ones who did

suited her more, including a man named Scott, who commented, Hey, sorry, couldn't resist. This is hands down the best profile I've ever read, which, if we're being honest, probably isn't saying much considering the majority of the profiles out there, but it's definitely something. Scott soon became her partner for more than two years. Young credited her method for her successful match, and last year she started a Facebook group called the Burned Haystack Dating Method, which now has about 50,000 followers. She also has an Instagram account where she dispenses advice. As she wrote in one article about the strategy, dating is a numbers game, but the typical goal to be widely appealing and meet as many men as possible is wasting women's time and leaving us

frustrated and demoralized. At first, she mostly drew followers in their 40s, 50s, and older, but increasingly younger women have joined. She advises women to be businesslike in their approach. Check apps no more than twice a day. Make sure your language is specific. No, I love to laugh. Who doesn't love to laugh? If you want to get married again, she says, don't be afraid to say so. And no need to play the cool girl who pretends she likes whatever men like, has no demands, never gets angry, and is up for sex in whatever way a guy wants it. People in older age tend to be generally freer of expectations in dating and relationships. The assumption that you will merge households declines. If parents or your community pushed

you to marry a certain type of person in your 20s because of religion, socioeconomic status, profession, race, sexuality, gender, that pressure may have dissipated or vanished. Indeed, several women, hetero and queer, told me that while they want love and long-term relationships, they can't imagine returning to commingling finances or giving up their space, their condo, apartment, or house, after years of living on their own.

Some are purposefully going slower in love now. I don't need to be attached at the hip anymore, says Louisa Kastner, a lesbian divorced woman, referring to the enmeshment she felt in her previous relationships. Years ago, Helen Fisher briefly dated a man who was smart and interesting and lived across the country from her. Was I going to move from New York City away from my friends, she says. It wasn't worth it to me.

She did eventually marry the writer John Tierney three years ago. He is seven years younger than she is. They are in what is known as a living apart together relationship. She is in the same Manhattan apartment she has lived in for 28 years. He is in the Bronx. They talk every day and see each other most evenings. Other nights, she is typically out with her female friends, whom she has known far longer than her husband. And at the end of those evenings, she climbs into her own bed.

And at the end of those evenings, she climbs into her own bed. When I first started dating online, it felt as if a fire hydrant had opened, men appearing across my feed from different geographic areas, of different ages, races, professions. Since then, I have gone on dates and been in relationships with men who are smart, kind, funny, and irreverent, and who have lived in Maine, Boston, New York City, Ohio, which means I never would have met them without the apps. Dating beyond where I live is also possible because I occasionally go on the road for work, no longer have small children, and can afford some travel.

H also started dating near and far after his divorce. He was 51, around the peak of men's online dating popularity. His feed filled with women. Some were highly educated and others less so. Some were his age and plenty two decades younger. They were nurses, teachers, librarians, women with jobs in marketing and PR, none of whom he ever would have met through friends or work. jobs in marketing and PR, none of whom he ever would have met through friends or work. H was enamored with the seemingly endless possibilities. During his most intense dating weekends, he would have a couple of brunches, afternoon walks, drinks at 5 p.m. with one woman and drinks with another at 8. He paid for it all, unless he knew there would be no second date and

the woman offered to split the bill. Some weeks, he had 15 dates. I was saying yes, yes, yes, he told me. After a month, he was overwhelmed, disillusioned, filled with too much coffee, alcohol, and scrambled eggs, and too many conversations in which he felt no connection. He paused all his apps and regrouped. Attraction mattered, sure, but he wanted women who were educated, successful, and enthusiastic, and also women who were mothers, so they could share parenting experiences, and lived reasonably close by. And although he started off dating women who were more than 10 years younger, in a couple of cases more than 15, too often he had little in common with them and struggled to have substantive conversations. So he narrowed his age window, eight years younger and three years older. Now, at 57,

with his own kids in college, he is clear he wants a partner with whom he can share the same life stage, interests, and living styles. Toward the end of my reporting, he restarted a relationship and moved in with a woman he met years ago through online dating, two states away from him. Love doesn't always stick to our dating rules. H and many people I interviewed said that this time around, they were looking for different qualities in a partner. Some told me they want a person who is more positive and less anxious. Others long for a partner who is less of a workaholic or who cares more about their work. Or after being married to someone with a very different temperament, they want a person more like them. After years in

therapy, they want a partner more emotionally intelligent and sensitive. Or they have chosen a less materialistic life after decades with someone who relished big houses filled with possessions. When Francine Rousseau, who has been widowed twice and is now in her late 70s, began online dating, she met her second husband that way and her current partner of eight years. She initially wanted men who had the same level of education and were as financially comfortable as she was.

Over time, she realized she would miss out on men who were devoted to artistic careers or who had low-paying but meaningful jobs. Who cares if he can't afford the same restaurants you like, says Rousseau, who is the author of Love After 50, How to Find It, Enjoy It, and Keep It. People say I don't want to settle, she told me, but if you have someone who adores you and wants to hear about your day but doesn't have a fancy degree or a lot of money, I don't consider that settling. She also argues that older people are better at dealing with dating rejection.

There's disappointment, but if someone doesn't want a fourth date with you, you've survived far worse than that. A week, a month from now, it won't matter. In her book, she quotes a therapist who talks about catch-and-release relationships. We get more skilled at sorting the good fit from the bad fit, and we let people go faster. John, who is 65 and lives in western Massachusetts, did a lot of catching and releasing in his late 50s because he didn't get to do it when he was younger. By his early 20s, he was living with the woman he eventually married. In his first months of dating, he met women who lived nearby, where he grew up. But he quickly realized he didn't want the familiar.

He knew where they shopped, the books they were reading, where they went to school. In comparison, dating women in more far-flung areas, with backgrounds very different from his, was totally exotic. As a successful painter, he had a flexible schedule, and he had enough money to plan weekend-long trips to Boston and New York City to meet women, setting up multiple dates over a couple of days, something he couldn't afford to do in his 20s. His method flew in the face of lots of dating advice. He chose women based on photos and paid less attention to what they wrote. The profile was just a way to sit across from someone and have a conversation, says John, who approached the entire endeavor with curiosity. For me, it was,

can I learn something here? Is there something new for me when he was 61 he sublet an apartment in new york city for a couple of months to make and see art to date to be near his adult children just before he arrived he matched with a woman named elizabeth who was 57 unlike john elizabeth had a dating system like several women and men I talked to, she listed her age as several years younger than she was to widen the dating pool. And she wasn't interested in anyone beyond Manhattan and Brooklyn. When she matched with someone, she messaged only a few times on the site before suggesting a phone call. She passed on men who hadn't been married or in long-term relationships. The guys in their late 50s with serial girlfriends their

whole lives? I mean, come on, no. Some didn't make it past the phone call. I'm sorry, she would say. I don't think we're a match. At which point, one man started cursing at her and called her a bitch. Of the roughly two dozen men she did date over two years, most were lawyers or business professionals. But then John liked her on an app. She was attracted to him and impressed by his educational background. They talked on the phone and made plans for a drink with, as Elizabeth told him, the possibility of dinner. They had dinner. She liked how funny and positive he was. He was taken with her. She was beautiful, successful, he was. He was taken with her. She was beautiful, successful, strong-willed. We would have never crossed paths, Elizabeth says. No one would have set us up. The lifelong New Yorker, who didn't

want to get involved with men much beyond her borough, ended up moving to Massachusetts during the pandemic, just months after their first date. They married in September 2021, at an inn not far from where they now live. For the last several months, I've gotten together with a group of friends, women mostly in their 50s and separated or divorced, dating for the first time in decades. When we aren't talking about work, divorce, and kids, some in the group pass around their phones with profiles of men they're dating or might be interested in. In one case, two people matched with the same guy. We discuss the vicissitudes of dating and relationships, local and long distance, and what and who we want. Always, in some way, the conversation comes around to sex. Some describe their sex experiences after

marriage as the most expansive of their lives. After one woman divorced, she set her online age parameters for men down to their 20s and 30s with the intention of having flings. She made sure they lived in a different neighborhood so she could separate her hookups from the rest of her life. She is now in a relationship with a man about her age. Another woman, who has spent several months dating widely, was trying a non-monogamous relationship for the first time and toying with bisexuality and three ways. She wasn't clear where she would land,

but she was open to possibilities. Men, too, told me sex and dating post-50 have been an evolving experience. In his 20s, any sex was good sex, H says. But now he aspires to what the sex advice columnist and podcaster Dan Savage calls GGG, or good, giving, and game. As Savage puts it, good in bed, giving of pleasure, and game for anything, within reason. It can be a tricky concept to convey on dating apps, though not on the app

Field, where talk about sex is expected and GGG is among the desires people can choose. If you are a guy who puts GGG on your profile, women may think you are a creep, H told me. Instead, he waits to talk about sex in person, often broadly broaching the subject during the first date if it's going well. I want to convey that I'm looking for someone who is sensual and cares about sex and that I'm the same way. Other people told me they talk more openly about sex because bodies change. Men have increased erectile dysfunction. Women often need more lubrication or sex toys and sometimes experience pain with intercourse. I didn't know myself, says a woman named Teresa, referring to her 20s and 30s, and I definitely didn't know my body in the same way.

Teresa, who is in her early 50s and lives on the West Coast, never masturbated until late in her marriage. I got my first dildo at 40 and discovered multiple orgasms. Where has this been all my life? Everyone, she says, does that exchange in dating where they talk about their marriage. I always say I've been divorced on paper five years, but longer emotionally and physically. Within a couple of dates, Teresa, who a friend refers to as an online dating queen because she has gone on more than 100 first dates in five years, tells men about her experience with masturbation and orgasms. It's part of my story, she says. She also talks about what she learned from a therapist who counseled her and her ex-husband that sex is more than penetration. I want to

be having intimacy in my 80s, she says. It's also about cuddling naked, skin-to-skin contact. What she is looking for isn't novelty, but the harder stuff. As she puts it, being open and vulnerable. In one match survey, single people over 60 reported having more frequent orgasms than younger single people, and they are the least likely age group to fake orgasms. They also tend to be communicative. 57% said they feel comfortable asking their partner for exactly what they want in sex. That ease and honesty may be related to the fact that people grow more confident and happy in their 60s, according to multiple studies. Which is not to say everyone wants the same kind of sex, or any sex at all. I want tenderness, Deborah, who is in her 60s, told me.

I don't care how intense sex is. I'm looking for a good person. Sophia Chang, who is 58, the author of the memoir The Baddest Bitch in the Room, and the founder of a professional mentorship program for women of color in New York, definitely wants the intensity. But I get very little play compared to my friends who are a decade younger than me, she says of online dating. She assumes if a man from a dating app is texting her, he is doing the same with at least five other women. Plenty have asked her for nude selfies. And she suspects that people who claim to be ethically non-monogamous

are often just cheating on their partners. I don't do messy, she says. When her relationship with the father of her children ended, she was 43 and felt done with sex. But in her 50s, after a relationship with a man who encouraged her to be more sexually open, Chang felt increasingly libidinous. She also became an empty nester, giving her freedom, including with her sexuality. Younger men tell me that what they like about older women is they know their bodies and ask for what they want. tell me that what they like about older women is they know their bodies and ask for what they want. Last year, she joined two dating apps where, when she matches with a man, she moves quickly from texts to phone calls or FaceTime. When we last talked, she told me that week she had gone from matching with a man on an app to texting to FaceTime to meeting outdoors and then having

sex in the space of 12 hours. On the phone, she is frank. Can you tell me what you like and what you don't like, and I'll do the same? Then she details some of her desires and sexual kinks and her boundaries, including no unprotected sex. Sometimes after connecting, men ask to come over immediately to have sex. Excuse me, Chang told me, she says. I have a safety accountability practice.

I tell them I need to send their photo, full name, and phone number to a friend. That is where some men push back hard. Until she finds the right matches, she continues to unabashedly audition men who connect with her on dating apps. At her age, she, like many women I spoke to, has a better sense of who she is and what she desires and sees no point in hiding it. If I bat my eyes, I could get further. But for what? There's no sense in wasting time when life is growing too short.