Dating for the over 40s

Dating in your 40s isn’t the same as dating in your teens or 20s. In some ways it’s a lot easier (who’d want to be a teenager again, going through all that hassle with boys? Aieeeee) and in some ways it’s more difficult. I’m not exactly an expert on dating in my 40s (or in any other decade, to be honest) but here’s a few thoughts on mature dating:

It’s more difficult to meet someone on a general day-to-day basis

As a teenage girl, boys were everywhere. Teenage girls do not have trouble attracting boys, as we might as well be made of magnet and boys of iron filings. Boys and girls meet just walking down the street to the shop, let alone in pubs and clubs and parks and wherever else us young people hung out. When you get older, we slowly fade into invisibility and, if we want to meet someone single and mature, we might need the help of dating sites, such as the imaginatively named Single and Mature.

It can take a while to weed out the weirdos on a dating site

Although I’m not on any dating sites at the mo, when I am, I’m fussy about who I chat to on them. I discount all those who are:

• bald
• fat
• beardy
• holding fish
• type in txt spk; or
• say nothing but, ‘hi how ru’ (spelled correctly or otherwise) as their opener.

This list is not exhaustive but you get the picture. Although I may be shallow and discriminatory, at least I don’t end up with the cheating, lying creeps my friend Seraphina (not her real name but it’s such as nice name I might suggest she changes her real name to it) ends up with. She’s been on dozens of dates over the last few years and 99% of the men have treated her badly and this is probably down to her not being as fussy as I am. She definitely won’t be discounting any fat bald men soon though because she loves fat bald men and I don’t think she’d care about txt spk either. As for beards, she met someone with a beard recently and, although he shaved the beard off at her request, he dumped her after a few dates, so maybe I’m right to swerve the beardy ones.

Good things about dating when you’re older

It’s not all bad though. If you meet someone when you’re older, you’ve probably both got your own places so, if you stay together, this can be lucrative as one of you can rent your house out and move into the other, or you can sell both your houses and buy one big posh one. However, I would advise not selling both houses to buy one big posh one as, if you split up, you’ve then got all the hassle of selling the big posh house and splitting the money and having to buy a smaller house again. If you’ve both got your own houses and you split up, whoever owns the house you’re living in can stay there, while the other goes back to live in their own house (or sells it for a tidy sum and buys one mortgage-free at the seaside instead and banks the rest of the money. Ahem).

Despite my cynicism, dating in my 40s is a lot easier than dating in my 20s. I’m more comfortable with myself and I don’t have the same insecurities and to be honest, I’m perfectly happy sitting at home watching the telly with my cat.