Following on from the advice I gave on BBC Somerset this morning, I thought I’d summarize my thoughts on dating for the over 50’s –
Finding your self back on the market so to speak after a divorce or bereavement after a long marriage is daunting and to put it bluntly, bloody scary!
Many people in this position have only had the one sexual partner or a very few. The dating rules have changed. No longer do people go to dances and the ladies sit around the side and wait to be chosen by the men, before marrying them. Things were easy, especially for women, back in the day.
Nowadays women are more assertive, some like to pay their own way, they choose to be with guys because they want to, not because they ‘need one’ for financial reasons, leaving guys in their 50’s + unsure of their role. It’s advisable to take time to get to know someone and suss out their values and core beliefs over time, it will help you decide if they are a suitable partner to date. You just need to make sure you don’t fall into the ‘Friend Trap’.
So how does one go about finding a suitor when you’re over 50?
Before you embark on a new relationship the first thing is to make sure you are emotionally stable, happy and comfortable with yourself and ready to date. If not then there’s self-development work that needs to be done first. It’s no good thinking you ought to date when you’ve just split up from a partner who cheated on you. You are going to lack trust and resent members of the opposite sex, hopefully only temporarily. For your own well being it’s best to only seek a sexual relationship when you are ready to 100% trust again, otherwise you will potentially attract other cheaters through the vibes you unconciously give out.
Not knowing the new rules of dating can mean that your confidence is low, and this is something to work on. As I’ve suggested in other posts as a starting point the best way is to focus on building new friendships and relationships that aren’t sexual.
So here are some tips for meeting people with a view to potential dates:
1) It’s important that you don’t sit in and wallow in self-pity. Be seen out and about, and make sure you find out about local events and attend those of interest.
2) Instead of walking around with your head down, actually stand tall, look at people, smile and be friendly. Be aware of what’s going on around you, and always try to start conversations wherever you can, because you never know who’s looking at you.
3) Take pride in your appearance. People will notice and it will make you feel good about yourself too.
4) If you’re retired or semi-retired look to join a group or sport. Some suggestions are; book clubs, golf, dancing, games (chess), fitness and painting. Here you will meet like-minded people. NB: Salsa dancing is notorious for never having enough guys for the ladies, so it’s a great place to go to meet lots of women and dance with them.
5) Learn something new. Self-development will boost your confidence. You can’t change other people but you can change yourself, and in changing yourself you change what happens around you, your opportunities and how people perceive you. E.g: NLP http://www.nlpacademy.co.uk/ NLP is paramount to increasing your social skills, buliding confidence and strong connections (rapport) with other people.
6) Go back to college and look at part time courses e.g. art, photography, a new language.
7) Maybe get a part time job where you interact with people to increase your social circle.
8) Look up old school friends via the internet. There may be some that are in a similar situation to you.
9) Frequent your local bar/café and familiarize yourself with the staff there, become a regular and see if you start to spot any other regular people there to start a conversation with. It’s a good confidence boost when someone recognizes us and starts conversing with us. It’s inevitable that for most people when you keep seeing someone that you don’t know (especially in the same place), you eventually acknowledge them.
There are also dating websites that are more geared to mature people because they offer in depth matches based on personality tests – core values, beliefs, religion etc…
http://www.maturedatinguk.com/
http://www.matchaffinity.com/
Flirting is something I will cover on a later post, but this post might be of interest to revisit for when you meet new people – Building rapport using mirroring and matching NLP techniques
Being a qualified NLP and Hypnosis practitioner I can work with you to solve all of these issues above and much more.