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How amusing that the acronym for “middle-aged dating” is MAD.
The mere idea of searching for true love at the half-century mark seemed off-kilter to Susan Miller at best, if not downright insane.
But the Northwest resident’s youngest child was moving on with her teenage life, filling her weekends with friends and romance, and after 15 years as a happily single mom, Miller felt up for a bit of madness. So she logged on to Match.com.
“It would have been one of those Fridays or Saturdays when my daughter was out,” she said. “I would have been sitting alone, probably looking at one of the dogs and thinking, ‘Hmm…’”
Three years later, Miller is the co-author of “M.A.D.: Your Guide to Middle-Aged Dating,” available at www.middleageddating.com. And just to show that the gods must be crazy, the other author is her romantic partner of three years — her true love, Christopher Pinhey.
The MAD book praises online dating as a way of tapping into a dwindling pool of potential romantic partners (“Not only are some taken, some are dead,” Miller said) and details the steps for those whose dating know-how comes from the 1970s and 1980s.
The book also promises that mid-life dating has the potential to be the best kind.
“When I was young, there was definitely more pressure to find someone,” Miller said. “I needed to connect with someone and start a family. At this point, I have already built my life. I have two great kids, and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. I can totally be myself.”
The book began as a joke. Well, first it began as a love story, and then came the joke.
Miller thought anyone older than 18 who believed in love was a “delusional idiot,” but she also felt the absence of romance in her otherwise full life.
She decided to test her hypothesis about idiots. She would meet 100 people from classified ads, and if none stirred her feelings, she would lay her discontent to rest. But after the third unproductive date, Miller cut that project short.
“I realized I hated dating,” she said.
But the prospect of a future alone with dogs drew her to Match.com, which she had seen advertised on televison. She gave it a try, and her fifth effort to meet someone led to coffee at Starbucks with Pinhey, a charming clinical psychologist who had joined Match.com at the urging of a friend.
“I sat and talked to that man for two hours, which is unheard of for me,” she said. “We were in sync. And it has continued for three years.”
The pair has formed a thoroughly modern relationship. He lives in the Foothills; she lives in Marana. And it works.
A year after they met, over a few laughs about bad dating experiences, Pinhey joked that they should write a book. He even had a good acronym for the title: MAD. Before long, he also had an outline.
Miller figured she could write the book that went with his outline. She’d already written a romance novel, and she wrote a column for the Tucson Shopper. She wrote down her thoughts about topics, such as “the meet” and “when the meet goes bad,” and then she showed Pinhey her work.
His conclusion? Her book was not the one he’d outlined.
“It was sort of like, ‘Wait a minute. That was your view of what was going on. That wasn’t how it was,’” Pinhey said.
The book soon took on the “he said, she said” format, with both writers separately addressing the questions raised in each chapter. To help both men and women, it needed two perspectives.
“Big news alert: There are differences between the sexes,” Miller said.
For example, Pinhey reminded men to look beyond the profile photo. One time, he’d caught sight of an attractive woman and fired off an e-mail message. To his delight, she responded. He hadn’t actually read her profile, though, and when he did, he discovered she had a 2-year-old child. He’d already raised two families and wasn’t looking to start a third.
“I had to e-mail my apology with my tail behind my legs,” he said. “I had to say, ‘I guess I can read, I just didn’t.’”
Despite the fact that men don’t always read profiles right away, Miller and Pinhey agreed that online dating beats the old bar scene that offered no input deeper than appearance.
“It’s so straightforward,” Miller said. “You talk about what’s important to you, and you put your deal breakers out there. I think it’s a great way to find significant people for your life.”
By
Christopher Pinhey
Susan Miller
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