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Back in the dating game

by Wendy Kay | 26 Mar 2013

Stan Fields spent a week hanging out by his garage casually practising his golf shots while waiting for his neighbour Cherry Alty to pass by.

Finally, she appeared. But when Stan at 85 asked 74-year-old Cherry out to dinner, her answer took him by surprise.

“She told me she had to check her diary!’’

Two years later, a quick check of both their diaries reveals a full social schedule of activities they now enjoy together.

“We play golf twice a week and, although I go to Probus dinners with him now, he’s yet to try my Pilates class,” Cherry says. While the couple met under conventional circumstances at their Sydney retirement village, more and more retirees are turning to the internet or dating agencies.

Go online

Easier said than done, of course.

Pursuing other interests and developing a mixed social network was difficult for time-poor nurse Rosie Debello, 62, who met her 75-year-old husband, Adolfo, online.

“Adolfo lived in Sydney and I lived in Tasmania, and we met on the dating site eHarmony,’’ Rosie says. “After chatting online for a couple of months Adolfo came down to see me and the second time he visited he asked me to marry him. I packed up, moved to Sydney and married him.”

Rosie was coerced into going online by an enthusiastic friend and Adolfo was her second date after a disastrous outing with ‘a real creep’. “Unless you have other interests, you don’t meet anybody and I wasn’t meeting anyone at work,’’ she says.

“I didn’t really expect anything to happen, but Adolfo and I have been married 16 months now and we’re very happy.”

With Relationships Australia predicting that more people over 65 will soon be living on their own than ever before, loneliness will be a huge issue in the 21st century.

“More people are divorced and more are remaining single,” Lyn said. “They turn to their careers, rather than relationships, to provide company and routine. However, once they retire and the job is gone, they feel a little lost.”

Meeting the family

Introducing a new partner to the family doesn’t get any easier with age, in fact, older children can sometimes prove more difficult than your parents ever were.

Lyn Fletcher from Relationships Australia said the best scenario for a newly single parent is to have adult children with a mature attitude who are more concerned about their parent’s happiness than feeling displaced or threatened.

“Hopefully, as they get older they don’t rely on the family’s stability as much because they’re creating their own stability,” she says. “However, introducing a new partner too quickly can put you on the back foot. You might be ready for a new relationship, but are your children?”

The key indicator of whether your children will accept someone new at your side is to quite simply determine how they see you: as a single person or still the spouse of their other parent.

“It usually takes years to move through the phase of an absent partner,” Lyn says. “Your children have to see you as a single person and not part of a couple before they can adjust to someone else.”

“Don’t bring a new partner to social events such as birthdays, Christmas or weddings during the first year,” Lyn recommends. “Instead, introduce them during stages, the first in casual conversation. It may be talking about how much you enjoyed a movie and then mentioning casually who you saw it with. Start with the low-level stuff and normalise the relationship as part of your life.“

Lyn said the best way to get around grandchildren was for the new partner to make them feel special and important.

“Young children generally are very egocentric. The more it can be about them the better.”

Back on the horse

Online dating may not be for everyone.

It took two years for Chris Emery to venture seriously into dating again after his divorce in 2005. The collapse of his 29-year marriage had left the 60-year-old retiree nervous and wary and although he’d dabbled with online dating he found it ‘’very hit and miss’’.

“You either don’t get enough of a profile, or the profile is exaggerated. I soon realised it wasn’t the answer for me, although I made a couple of good friends.”

Chris joined Seniors Contacts, a dating agency, in 2008, impressed by the agency’s effort to match like-minded people.

“Your prospective dates are vetted to meet your requirements,” he says. You’re not going to end up having coffee with someone half your age and with whom you have nothing in common. I want someone who falls within my age group and with whom I can hold a conversation.”

Chris developed two relationships through Seniors Contacts, both lasting about a year. Undaunted by the fact neither relationship became permanent; he’s back on the books to try again.

“What am I looking for? I know I don’t want to be married again,” he says. “I would like a friendship, a companionship bordering on a relationship, a good best friend I guess.’’

Living apart

A trend for people who want to maintain their independence while having a partner is living apart together – to make the same commitment as a couple sharing a bedroom, but maintain independence by living in their own homes.

Although Stan and Cherry were just 80m from each other, living apart was never an option. “I love her too much to live apart,” Stan says. “And her strong Christian faith meant we had to marry to live together.”

Cherry is adamant there is no need for people to spend their later years alone. “You don’t need to be lonely if you don’t want to be,” she says. “I want to give people hope that love can happen again at any age.”