Dating has always been somewhat hard to do. It can be hard to meet a person you’re interested in, hard to forge a connection once you’ve found them, and even harder to maintain a relationship. People tend to think that dating in your 50s means that everything only gets harder. More people are married and unavailable, so the dating pool seems ever shrinking. But if we’re being honest, there’s never been a better time to be dating in your 50s than right now. It’s even better now than it was in your 20s. If you think that sounds crazy, just hear us out:
- You have more options than ever. The dating pool isn’t as small as you might think. When we were in our 20s, our options were actually more limited. If we didn’t meet someone at work, church, or at a local spot (like a grocery store or bar), then we’d have to hope our friends had someone to set us up with. Things are different now. One look at any dating site will show you how many people are still available, so your only complaint might just be how hard it is to choose between them! And there’s no need to keep an eye out for a potential partner while grocery shopping or exercising at the gym anymore. If you have access to the internet, you can look for love everywhere, without ever having to leave your house. *Note: you should probably still leave your house… but isn’t it nice to not have to?
- You know who exactly who you are. One thing that’s undeniably wonderful about dating in your 50s, and being this age in general, is that we have enough life experience to know exactly who we are. We’re not trying to figure things out anymore, like we were in our 20s. We’re not trying so hard to be who we think we should be. We know what types of things we like to do and the types of people we like to do them with. There’s no need to waste time pretending otherwise. You can make clear who you are on your online dating profile, so if there’s something about you a person might not like (how could they not? you’re wonderful.), they know right away. You don’t have to waste time on a coffee date for them to find out. Speaking of which…
- You know exactly what you want in a significant other. The same way we know who we are, we know what we want from a relationship. And, more importantly, we know what we don’t want. It’s easier than ever now to find exactly the right person. Dating in your 50s with the help of online dating sites and apps means that we can set filters for what we’re looking for, and learn more about a person before going on a date with them. More importantly, we can change our settings to filter out the people we know we won’t want. At a glance, we can get a sense of whether or not they’d be compatible with us. No more awkward or bad matches dating — isn’t that so much better?
