Advice on Internet dating at 62

November 10, 2005 9:35 AM

On-line/Internet dating Filter - I'm 62, I've tried a few Internet dating sites in the last 2years, met a few interesting guys, mostly several hours away, and took a break. Now I'm wondering what sites might have more guys in my age group, approximately 55 to 67, active and involved .... especially those who are who are, how do I say this? not looking for a traditional kind of person. I'm often interested in alternatives to the mainstream.

I've tried eharmony.com (I agree with previous posters, forget it), match.com, personals.yahoo . I checked out okcupid.com after someone wrote about it here - it looked interesting but seemed to have very few guys over 35, so for now, I think I'll put my energy elsewhere. But where? I'd love to hear experiences, suggestions, both sites and hints about how to do this, from others, especially those over 50. I think different age groups do this differently, but maybe I'm wrong.

posted by judybxxx to human relations (11 comments total)

Have you tried the one in the sidebar of the Onion? It's linked to a number of various other sidebar sites (unfortunately Fark for example, but also many others).
posted by Pollomacho at 10:08 AM on November 10, 2005

Have you tried your local craigslist? I scanned the Men Looking For Women section and saw a few guys in their 50s posting.
posted by iconomy at 10:22 AM on November 10, 2005

The Onion sidebar one is SpringStreet Personals. I met my curent girlfriend there and it did have a good quality of people by comparison to some others, particularly Yahoo (which seemed more excort ads than anything else). They've changed their pricing structure since then, unfortunately. I don't know how that's impacted their quality.

Would you be better off with some print media, Judybxxx? Even at 35 I notice that the percentage of people in my age group who are firmly aghast at the idea of internet dating is greater than it seems to be for people 10 years my junior. Add to that the percentage of people who are resist to technology that is higher in older age groups and you might not be swimming in a very big pool.

Depending on HOW non-traditional you're looking for you might want to look at Adult Friend Finder. They advertise as a sex finder site but they seem to also appeal to some more fringe groups and perhaps more 'alternative' (whatever that means) folks.

If neither of those float your boat you might want to just look at special-interest sites and groups to see what they have. Were you a tattoo or piercing enthusiast you could go to the personals board on BME, for example.

good luck.
posted by phearlez at 11:07 AM on November 10, 2005

Maybe it's a DC thing, but I should add I met my wife on an Onion date.

Contrary to what phearlez has found, I have found that my age group - 30 somethings - are the most uptight about the internet dating thing. The younger folks seem unfazed by technology in every part of their lives and the older folks seem, well, they just seem more relaxed with the whole concept of it.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:15 AM on November 10, 2005

I met my wife via a Washington CityPaper personal ad. Do you have something similar where you live?

I did match.com, nerve.com, and the CityPaper fairly extensively, and I found the best ads were the ones that acted as filters rather than ones that included the standard physical descriptors, activity likes and dislikes, etc. That is, say something really off the wall that will attract only the type of person you want to date. Don't worry about repelling the ones you wouldn't want to date. It seems fairly obvious, I know, but the filtering system worked really well for me, and I'd say that even if I hadn't ended up with the lovely and mysterious MrsMoonPie.
posted by MrMoonPie at 12:01 PM on November 10, 2005

One avenue: Going through age-targeted sites. I was going to suggest ThirdAge, but then I noticed that they've partnered with eHarmony for personals. Drat. Perhaps there are others you can find...
posted by skyboy at 12:57 PM on November 10, 2005

That's funny, I know a guy in his 60s who just married a match from eHarmony. Diff'rent strokes, I guess.
posted by SuperNova at 2:05 PM on November 10, 2005

There are also dating sites that cater to folks of similar political interests, if that's something that might help. A friend of mine (in her mid-40s, looking for men in their 50s) was on DemocraticMatches.com (I think) for awhile, and said it definitely was populated by fewer 20/30something guys than on any other site she'd been on. (She said they didn't have a very large membership overall, though, and it was definitely more urban-centered, which may or may not work for your purposes.)

Also, I really agree with MrMoonPie's advice about using an ad as a filter. Avoid cliches and generic descriptions like the plague! Illustrate your alternative interests with a few well-written details, references, etc. -- you don't want to sound pretentious or off-putting (or worse yet, like you're just trying too hard), but you do want your ad to resonate with the kind of men you're seeking.
posted by scody at 2:24 PM on November 10, 2005 [1 favorite]

yes, different strokes (eharmony). All I know is I only got one match, was guaranteed 3, and never got any others, over a period of years. I didn't match with that population - and ran out of energy to hassle them to continue the membership per their guarantee.

Yep, I suspect there are other age targeted ones, I was hoping for some direction here, . . . I don't feel at all "Senior" yet, but maybe no one does.

I will try to come up with something off the wall - how does "Smart men who read fiction are sexier" sound? 'Off the wall' is a good idea, but tricky, I think.

And I did try Spring Street in it's original form - I liked the format but never met anyone. I'll probably go back.

It's probably a good idea to try print - I just haven't done it. It seems harder to deal with the voicemail stuff that City Pages has here.

Any stories to tell?

My motto is - persistence, when I have the time and energy.
posted by judybxxx at 2:40 PM on November 10, 2005

The CityPaper ad had a voicemail component. I was kinda down on the whole dating scene at the time, having just broken up with someone; the ad I linked reflects that, I think. So for the voicemail, I didn't prepare any script, didn't put just the right music on in the background, nothing like that. I just called and recorded a message, in the style of "Um, hey, yeah, thanks for calling.....I'm Mike, and, um, I'm looking for..." I'm sure some women, probably some nice ones, were put off by that, as I'm sure some women were put off by my ad, but, again, I probably didn't want to date them anyway. (Ironically, my (now-) wife remembers which song was in the background.)

I have to add, though, that this cool confidence took years to develop, years of breakups and mis-judged signals and bad dates and other heartaches. It was a pretty good payoff, though.
posted by MrMoonPie at 3:36 PM on November 10, 2005

See my earlier post and answers.
posted by lalochezia at 4:42 PM on November 10, 2005