A Wrinkle In Dating

By Liz Langley, AlterNet. Posted March 4, 2006.

I have a date in two hours. I'm pretty sure it will be good wine, good food … goodnight. That's how dates are, I guess. I've only been going on them since I turned 40.

Before that, if I became magnetized to some man -- usually someone I knew fairly well through work, school or my circle of friends -- nothing as formal as a "date" was usually necessary. Drinks, sure, but after the crazy, urgent, marathon sex that eventually followed, dinner sometimes felt like an awkward out-of-body experience, like being formally introduced to someone who had saved you from drowning. Some of those guys I stayed with for years. "Dating" is a reedy thing by comparison.

I thought about how much my dating habits had changed when reading Newsweek's "Sex and the Single Baby Boomer". "According to the Census Bureau," Barbara Kantrowitz writes, "28.6 percent of adults age 45 to 59 were unattached in 2003, compared with only 18.8 percent in 1980," and "in a recent AARP survey, up to 70 percent of single boomers said they dated regularly."

There are 77 million-plus boomers out there. And a lot of them are wookin pa nub.

At 41, it's debatable whether I'm a boomer, but I'm no kid -- and the way I shop for company has changed as much as the way I shop for clothes. When you're young, you grab what's cute. When you're older, you sourly note the "Dry Clean Only" tag. I still want cute, but now I think about what it's going to cost me. And I hesitate.

This being the case, in the wealth of information in the Newsweek package, one comment stood out to me. When Diane Barna, 51, talked about the wonderful new partner she met through a friend, she had this to say about the cliched three-date rule: "At our age," said Barna, "if sex presents itself, if you're comfortable with your partner, why wait for three dates? Just go for it."

Of course she's right, but it sounds like she found that just-right guy. If only I could meet someone who I want to get my mouth around more than the spring rolls at Thai House. It happens, but either I'm romanticizing the past or those opportunities don't seem as prevalent now; for some of us, neither is that urgency.

"When I was in my 20s and early 30s, pre-AIDS, I wanted to (and did) fuck anything that moved," my friend Barry says, noting that in the gay community "it's not so much approaching sex and dating differently because of age, but because of AIDS."

When that became an issue, he says, "Suddenly I found myself dating like a regular person, very gradually leading up to sex, and after gently broaching the subject of HIV-status, and even then playing it very safe -- which may be why I'm alive and healthy today, though probably just as horny." If an AIDS vaccine were invented tomorrow, though, he wouldn't go back to his youthful generosity, but would stick with the intimacy of getting to know a partner.

Meeting people you care to know that well seems a little tougher now, which is why I tried the web. Newsweek's Vanessa Juarez says in "findlovehere.com", Online Dating: www.findlovehere.com -- Boomers At 60 -- MSNBC.com "according to JupiterResearch, 15 percent of internet users between the ages of 45 and 54 browsed dating sites last year -- almost as much as the average online user."

"Online dating has made me much more aware of what I want," says my friend Hilary, 41, who tried it for the same reason I did -- the drought of organically occurring men. "When you meet someone through your friends, you can't be specific. Online you can put in 'This is what I want,'" indicating your preference in everything from politics to pets. "Guys will ignore it," she says, "but at least you can put it out there."

All this strategy is something my friend Elias, a 60-something Greek, doesn't understand. Romance happens for him, he says, exactly as it did in his teens: "Incidence, coincidence or accident. Things happen or they don't. Is there any other way?" He does, however, see a difference in older women. "Many females of the upper ages are looking for a boy-toy, as though we older guys can only function with Viagra."

Point taken. But in defense of the boy-toy thing, though I haven't gotten to play Mrs. Robinson, it's lovely to finally have the confidence to feel like I could. Finally, at 41, 25-year-olds don't seem nearly as intimidating as they did when I was 25 because I look better than ever (maybe the key to coming to terms with aging is never having thought you looked that great in the first place). Ironically, now that I have that confidence in myself, I don't have it in anyone else: It's nature's stupid way of keeping balance.

One thing I look forward to in elder dating is forgetfulness. You could think you're having an affair with a stranger just by forgetting to wear your glasses. I almost forgot the main reason dating used to be easier: In my youth, I drank enough to fill the Amazon basin. Soon I'll forget why that's a bad idea, and maybe then dating will get easier again.

Liz Langley is a freelance writer in Orlando, Fla.

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