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/Buxterbulletin.com/ -- You're over 40, single and about to dip into the dating pool. Now what?
"Women are pushovers for flowers — send them flowers," says Bob Buechler, at 66 a bachelor who's been active on the singles scene for 20 years. "Let's face it; if you're going to hang with women, you've got to take them out. It's going to cost you money."
Scholars are studying the issue. One research paper, Dating in Later Life, explored the courtship experiences of women older than 60. It was written by Kandi L. Walker, an associate professor of communications at the University of Louisville, Fran C. Dickson of the University of Denver and Patrick Hughes of Texas Tech University. Fifteen Louisville, Ky., area women ages 60-75 were interviewed for the study, which appeared in an edition of Western Journal of Communications, a quarterly magazine that publishes scholarly research on behavior and communications.
The interviews were confidential, but three main themes emerged: The need for companionship, the need for independence, and gender conflict with dating partners.
Joan Hardin, a 60-ish widow who has been single more than 30 years has a different take on the dating scene. The last man Hardin dated, for about five years, she met at a class reunion. Now, she says, she's thinking about going online, where many older singles are seeking others. About one-fifth of visitors to the online dating site Yahoo Personals, for example, are older than 50.
For the past three months, Bob Parish has been meeting women as a member of Match.com.
"It's been cool, and not so cool," says Parish, 53, an active-duty U.S. Navy commander and divorced father who has been single 20 years.
"I've already met, here recently, a wonderful lady, a very striking individual, and we're trying to see if that works out. But there are some not-so-nice people who fraudulently post other people's pictures on their profile, and when you meet them, they're 80 to 90 pounds heavier."
It's a jungle out there, and the single life isn't reserved for the young. More than 40 million Americans older than 40 are single — divorced, widowed or never married. Not that all of them are seeking mates, but many are.
Sparks do fly as chemistry develops and individuals fall in love and make lifelong commitments. For example, Denise Puthuff, 47, and John Timmons, 50, were both clients of a hairdresser who set them up on a blind date.
"We got married last Valentine's Day and have lived happily together ever since," Puthuff says.
"I'd never been on a blind date. I didn't think this woman I was going to lunch with would be the one. I had given up on ever being married," Timmons says. "I'm amazed at how easy it's all been. I'm incredibly lucky."
For singles of both sexes, the dating game is more complex once you mature. Potential matches tend to have a past — children, former spouses, maybe old flames that haven't quite died out. The need for understanding and compromise may be greater.
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