Getting to a certain age and thinking about dating can be a pretty daunting experience. There’s so much information out there about dating, and online dating may have seemed a ‘dark horse’ way to find love in the past but now it’s probably the most sought-after way to meet others. But is online dating for older people as accessible and accepted as it is for those in their 20’s and 30’s? I still think there is a bit of work to do!
Dating for Older People – We all have doubts!
I have personal experience of knowing what it’s like for an older person to go online dating. Well, I say personal, but I’m actually talking about my mother-in-law! She dated online for a while and after a number of dates, she has now fallen in love with a very charming gentleman who my husband and I are growing quite close to.
That’s not to say that my mother-in-law didn’t have the initial doubts and difficulties that anyone going online dating for the first time might have. Age often brings with it life experience, true, and it’s easy to think that life experience means that an older person might feel less insecurity about meeting up with new people. But it isn’t always that simple.
My mother-in-law tells me how she worried that her past romantic life may have been an obstacle. She didn’t really want to have to talk about her marriage, for example, when she had just started to get to know someone she liked, but in a sense not talking about what had brought her to this point in her life was a sort of elephant in the room. I really sympathised with her. We all have our past experiences of love but we don’t want someone we have just, or only recently met, to think that we come with too much baggage.
Focusing on the positive
I remember telling my mother-in-law that in my opinion, the key may be to talk about her past relationship. But in a way that showed that she wasn’t shying away from past negative experiences but that they were just part of life, and that she was hopeful about the present and the future. In the end, that’s why we look to meet others, isn’t it?
Whether it be to find love or to just enjoy experiences without wanting something more serious, like No Strings Dating, we all want to enjoy life and live it to the fullest! Like my mother-in-law says, it’s really about being, and sticking, to who you are!
What do you think of online dating for older people?
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