The Dating Lives of Octogenarians

I recently found myself engaging in conversation with a ferociously confident woman in her early eighties. Sharing tales of current love affairs, I was being pulled into the salacious and scandalous dating lives of the elderly- a world which I had never entered before. As we discussed the stigmas, misconceptions and expectations that prevent older women from seeking romance, I found myself entranced by the honesty of the woman in front of me. ‘People don’t think you should be sleeping around in your eighties’ is just one of the many bold statements revealed in our conversation. It was soothing to meet someone so confident within her sexuality at an age that demands the opposite. As the age clock ticks on for women, the expectation of female sexual liberation decreases. It is still only acceptable now for younger groups of women to talk freely about their sex lives, with a surge of pro-sex movements ushered in by feminism across the years. Speaking to this indiviudal, I got the impression that sexism still persisted for women even as they got older, and if they were having a sexually liberated time, society sure didn’t want to hear about.

We are often fed with ‘I found love again at 88’ stories, contributing to the narrative of love being a rarity when single in old age. Of course, these stories are equally heartwarming and consolatory in value, yet this also makes it seem even more bizarre when hearing about the infatuation within older women when seeking the physical touch or attraction of a new partner. Originally, this lady hadn’t planned on finding a partner again after the death of her husband, yet the ‘touch’ of a recently single friend had left her besotted- kickstarting a love affair she had never expected after her husband’s death. When asked whether she had ever planned on using dating apps, I was met with a barrage of refusal. It seemed dating apps were murky territory. After doing some research, I discovered there is a selection of ‘senior’ dating apps out there that cater to the ‘older ages’, yet only seem to target those in their late fifties and early sixties. One that caught my eye was suitably called ‘Silver Singles’, a self-proclaimed dating site for ‘older adults’ that saves you from doing the grafting and selects the matches for you, sending three to seven a day. Spurned by a personality test that the platform gets users to take when creating an account, it offers a premium subscription at £20 a month for 12 months that gives the added benefit of unlimited access to other users’ profiles.

Silver Singles has an overall rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars on Consumer Affairs, with some citing that the site kept on suggesting individuals hundreds of miles away. When reading reviews, one user under the pseudonym of ‘coolarrowify’ had simply put ‘STAY AWAY FROM THIS SCAMMER WEBSITE’, whilst another had put ‘definitely not worth the money’. I lost even more hope in the site’s promise to serve the dating needs of the elderly on the discovery that many in their late twenties had slipped through the net and were inexplicably using the platform. It seemed that ‘Silver Singles’ was being used as a marketing hook to distinguish itself from the millions of niche and target-reaching dating platforms we are inundated with today.

A common theme started to emerge from my research into ‘senior’ dating apps. Many of those using these apps spoke of a fire of romance igniting within them which they thought had long gone way after old age. Some went even further to talk about feelings they never even had with their previous partner who was now either dead or divorced long ago. This proved to me that no matter how old you are, feelings of desire never fully dissipate. Couples are told to prepare for old age, as magazines and newspapers pen articles like ‘how i brought the love back into my relationship at 60’, and ‘We have been married for sixty years but stopped sleeping togther at 40’. A whole generation of individuals are being written off as loveless and desireless because performances of romance perhaps are a bit more effort when your body isn’t the same as it was in your twenties, yet it is still present, and my exchange with this woman showed to me that individuals in their eighties were very much falling in love, very much engaging in casual affiars, and very much having a damn good time whilst doing so.

When delving into the challenges of finding love at this stage of life, my friend said that it ‘all started when pursuing social connection after the death of her husband’. , Finding herself ‘the odd one out’ when searching for love again, her single acquaintances shied away from looking for the excitement of a partner and had ‘accepted their fate’ as single for the rest of their lives. When asking why this fate was tied to older woman she bluntly looked me in the eyes and said ‘expectations of course, darling! People don’t want to hear what we have to say about casual relationships as we get older. They push elderly nappes and zimmer frames onto us, and that's it for us. We are written off by society for being completely unsexy, and expected to retire all things love and relationships too. It’s like you’ve had your whole life to love and be loved, why would you continue to push for this at an age where everything is going a bit down hill physically?’. A ‘successfull’ relationship today is one that spans fifty years, and is defined by unconditional love, and we fantasise about our partners perceiving us in the same way they did sixty years ago when they first met us. The ‘great’ love affairs are never the ones my friend is currently experiencing, exciting and emotionally charged after mourning the loss of a previous lasting love.

A driving force behind infidelity is the thrill many cite when engaging in the act. Doing something that completely goes against what you should be doing provides a short rush of excitement that ends up being detrimental emotionally for all parties involved in the long run, but the short exchange buzz of frivolousness is enough for people to carry on doing it. This same rush of excitement of doing something you are not expected to be doing seems to also be the driving force behind finding love and reigniting with sex again in your eighties, except, this is an act that is only ‘frivolous ‘ due to the constraints put on by society, and not another relationship. I was spellbound by the passion and excitement this woman exhibited towards relationships, revealing to me that ‘one touch is all she needs’ from the current man in her life, and despite feeling illegal to be hearing about and slightly off-bounds, I put aside my ageism which I found was rooted in the expectation that sex was a prude topic to be talking about with someone so much older.

I recently came across a quote from a seventy-year-old woman who had recently broken up with her partner of six years whom she met on a dating website. She was left with a longing and desire for more. This partner had made her feel sexy in a way she never knew she could in her seventies, an era of your life where sexiness gets dictated by the constraints of what is expected and what isn’t. A line that struck me the most from this essay was: I no longer need to prove myself lovable// I am and I know it. This was refreshing. Despite all the ageist values that run the world- this woman was still not going to be defeated, using her past relationship history as confirmation that she would feel sexy and confident again. For me, there is an element of bravery that is required to date at this age and is also shown by these women. You are telling the world that your sell-by-date has not come when everything around you is telling you the opposite. Love and relationships are not off the table when you turn eighty, like my 80 year old friend told me, sometimes, the best love affairs are only beginning.