Over 60 Dating: The First Time in Years the Diary Is Yours

Ask anyone who has recently stopped working what caught them out most, and it is almost never the money. It is the silence. Forty years of a day with a shape to it, of people you saw whether you fancied it or not, and then a Tuesday morning with absolutely nothing in it.

That is the honest starting point for a great many people who come to over 60 dating in the UK. Not desperate, not lonely exactly, just suddenly aware that the social life they had was almost entirely built by their job, and the job has gone.

Work Was Doing More Than You Realised

Most people's friendships in middle age are structural. The colleagues, the ones from the school gates twenty years ago, the couple you saw because your partners worked together. Very little of it was deliberate.

Retirement removes the scaffolding all at once, and what is left is usually smaller than expected. This catches out confident, sociable people constantly, and it is worth knowing it is normal rather than a sign of anything.

The good news is that the same thing that emptied the diary also gives you what you need to fill it. You now have the one commodity you never had while working, which is unhurried time, and it turns out to be exactly what building a new social life requires.

What Your Sixties Actually Look Like Now

The picture in most people's heads is about twenty-five years out of date. A great many people in their sixties are still working part-time, still travelling properly, still learning things. State pension age has crept up and plenty of people are nowhere near stopping.

So this is not the beginning of the end of anything. It is a fifteen or twenty year stretch with the mortgage gone, the children grown, and more control over your own week than you have had since your twenties. It is a rather good time to meet somebody, and the people you will meet know it.

The Timing Problem Nobody Mentions

Here is a small practical thing that matters more than it sounds. If you are newly retired and the person you like is not, your weeks look completely different. You have Wednesday afternoons; they have Saturday. That is entirely workable, but it is worth establishing early rather than being quietly baffled by why they never suggest a weekday.

The same applies to caring responsibilities, which peak in this decade. Plenty of people in their sixties are looking after a parent in their nineties or doing two days of childcare a week. None of that is a barrier. It just needs saying, so that plans get made around reality.

Making the First Move Easier

The first message is the bit people stall on for weeks. It is much simpler than it feels: read what somebody has written and ask them about the most interesting thing in it. That is the whole technique, and it puts you ahead of most of the inbox immediately.

Then keep the first meeting small. A coffee in the afternoon, an hour, somewhere you already know. Afternoon suits this decade far better than evenings do, it costs nothing much, and either of you can leave without it being an event.

When You Fancy a Look

Nobody is timing you. Have a browse for nothing, read a few profiles, and see whether anyone makes you curious. If your fifties are closer to where you are, dating over 50 fits better, while senior dating speaks to those a little further on and mature dating covers the whole span.

The diary is finally yours. Join free and put something good in it.