Boomers and Beyond: Time’s not up in the dating game

Hasn’t anybody written a “Senior Dating for Dummies” book yet?

I wish someone had – it may offer this writer some simple and fresh insights on the fertile subject of senior dating. I was looking for something that would turn on that light bulb in my head.

A little inspiration was all I needed – and I certainly got it. I rambled over to the bookmobile parked in our lot and asked the attending librarian if she had a book on senior dating.

Incredibly, she looked at me and asked, “Would that be fiction or nonfiction?”

I was almost paralyzed with glee, being struck immediately by the unwitting truth of her question.

When I picked myself up off the floor, still broken up by the librarian’s gem of humor, I noticed a horrified look on her face, as if she had just committed a terrible faux pas. I reassured her by saying, “That’s a $64,000 question if there ever was one.”

“Thank you,” I continued. “That’s all the research I need for this article.”

Well, how about it – is senior dating fiction or nonfiction?

It all depends on whom you ask. Senior citizens fully engaged in the dating scene would scoff at such a comment. But to those waiting in vain for the phone to ring or to those who may be happier just staying home alone, the idea of senior dating is definitely a fantasy.

To senior citizens hankering to find someone with whom they can just “hang out,” senior dating is not a fantasy; it is a quest – and sometimes, their main goal in life. Getting there is all the fun, as I dimly remember; the search is interesting, albeit hazardous, and it involves a lot of frog-kissing along the way.

The Dating Scene for single baby boomers and senior citizens is a subject that could fill an entire book, as it’s a thoroughly complex phenomenon.

Are we looking for love, or comfort, or someone to support us, or someone to take care of us, someone to squire us around town or on trips? Do we want someone to help with the housework, yard work or finances? Or are we feeling wild, just wanting a fling?

Is the whole world single? Darn near, it seems, and America’s marketers have not been asleep at the switch. No sirree, Bob! This huge number of single people has triggered the emergence of an enormous marketing opportunity, making way for a lucrative industry catering to the special needs and indulgences of singles. (Read that: Get in on the profit.)

The heavy-hitters in the dating industry are the online dating-mating sites. (Sure beats Parents Without Partners, the first official venue for singles back in the 1950s.)

Singles-matching sites are fun; you and your computer mouse can have a great time – anonymously. Surprisingly, we all know someone who scored big-time, like marriage, through the Internet.

Of course, there’s always the tired old bar scene. It’s not an easy scene, but sometimes it actually works.

Sometimes senior dating can be like a head-on collision between eager singles, rushing into the dating arena dragging all their baggage. Dating is the same at any age, complete with scoundrels, bores, flakes, wolves in sheep’s clothing, hustlers, gold-diggers, man traps, womanizers, clinging vines, etc., etc. Men are still tigers; women, still kittens, women’s lib notwithstanding.

When mature folks date, they inevitably bring all their “stuff,” or baggage – i.e., emotional scars of shattered marriages and painful memories.

One’s financial and legal status also can be baggage. If we decide to remarry, all those laws governing pensions, Social Security income, our income tax bracket, inheritance income and so forth likely will affect our status adversely. Sorting this out could present a complicated morass of legal and financial issues of monumental proportions. Not all love affairs could survive it.

How about singles clubs? They’re very respectable but time-consuming. Singles groups tend to attract the same people week after week, and cliques form; newcomers can feel left out.

If you go, you must attend faithfully and always talk to the newcomers. Here’s the part where you’ll have to kiss all those frogs – but frogs need kindness, too. One day when you open your eyes after a kiss, lo! – it’s not a frog after all. It’s your Prince Charming.

Senior dating – it can wreak havoc with the complacent existence we thought we enjoyed before we went so old-age-crazy, but it’s great for our health, self-confidence and longevity. It’s nice to realize we can still cut the mustard.

You can go on dates or just dream about it. It’s really up to you.

So, my answer to the librarian’s question, “Senior dating? Would that be fiction or nonfiction?” is: It’s both.