Ageless Love: Seniors and Dating

The topic of romance and the elderly is sensitive. It’s fraught with clichés, taboos and misconceptions and often elicits an immature snicker or two. It’s something that, frankly, makes people uncomfortable. Traditionally, an elderly person with a love life is not discussed, let alone researched. In Betty Friedan’s acclaimed book, The Fountain of Age, she notes, “There is, in fact, very little data on the sexual interests and experiences of older people.”

People want to believe that older people are asexual beings whose emotional life is solely oriented towards grandchildren, Parcheesi and quilting. But love and romance are not the exclusive domain of younger people. Seniors desire—even need—romantic, intimate relationships, just as younger people do. And business has already taken note: Catering to the demand of a U.S. boomer population numbering over 80 million, the marketplace is now saturated by 50+ dating sites like Ourtime and Senior Match, and endless ads for Viagra and Cialis. Seniors with love lives are also now more common in the media too, such as in Betty White’s innuendo laden TV show, Off Their Rockers. As the “free-love generation” grows old, trend analysts expect to see a further increase in personal services and products that were once the domain of the youth market tailored to the senior citizen set.

Barriers to Senior Dating

While seniors desire romance and love, they face obstacles beyond the social norms and taboos. Demographic, psychological, and biological factors can all make it challenging for seniors to form romantic relationships:

• Women live 8 years longer than men. This means that there are many lonely widowed women whose prospects of finding another partner are slim. For example, at assisted living communities there is an average of seven women for each man.
• The older men who are eligible often seek younger wives. It is common for older men to start a new family rather than pairing up with someone their own age.
• Older women often come to see themselves as unattractive because of society’s worship of youth and the concept that only a young woman is beautiful.
• Older men often develop a sense of inferiority because they are less virile compared to their younger selves.

Seniors Reclaiming Intimacy

In her groundbreaking book, Friedman explains that many of the difficulties older people face when approaching love are based on expectations that love and intimacy ought to be the same as it was during youth or middle-age. Instead, she explains, older people must find and define new and authentic modes of intimacy and sexuality that are not based on conceptions that apply only to younger adults:

“Woman or man, we begin to know, before it’s too late, that we can choose to tear down the walls that we have built up against intimacy, choose to take the risks of it, choose to create the experiences, reunions, that will keep it alive, over the distances of time and space. But space itself, and time too, must be created anew; we have to use it differently, move maybe to a different space, for the bonds of intimacy to continue to grow and nourish us in age.

Senior living communities are one place where senior dating has blossomed. Many “touch starved” women and men who had resigned themselves to isolation have been able to rebuild intimacy with a new companion, in a new place, and in new ways.

Safety First

For those seniors who have developed or maintained an active love life despite socials barriers and stigmas, we would be remiss not to mention an ever present danger: sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), which are on the rise among older people. Recent data suggests that many elders could benefit from sitting in on a few sex-ed classes, which are ubiquitous in American high schools but nonexistent at senior centers. Stats from the Centers for Disease Control show there has been a 45 percent increase in reported STDs in Americans over the age of 40 in the United States from 2000 to 2008. Many STDs go untreated in the senior population because they’re hard to detect and unexpected. STDs can compound chronic age-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

The Family’s Perspective

An elderly parent with an active love life can raise concerns and test the patience of grown children. We might fear that Dad’s new girlfriend is a gold-digger, or wonder about the strange man who has paired up with a mother who has dementia. When our parent’s competence has been compromised because of Alzheimer’s or dementia, these concerns are legitimate and it may be appropriate to intervene. But otherwise, older people deserve just as much autonomy in their lives as any other adults – the opportunity to live, love, and learn.

The topic of seniors, love and romance is ripe for further exploration. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg in these reflections. Watch out for future articles about seniors and love, and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts below. We would love to hear your stories and comments.

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