Ouch! How does anyone afford the crippling cost of midlife dating
Afriend is telling me about her date on Saturday. ‘i’ve booked a hotel so i don’t have to worry about driving,’ she says.
‘The train gets to London at lunchtime, so there’s time for a massage, facial and blowdry. i’ve got tickets to the play you recommended. And i’ve booked a fancy restaurant for afterwards.’
i mentally do the sums. At a conservative estimate we’re talking around £500. ‘So this is your first date?’ i say warily. ‘You’ve never actually met before? not even for a coffee? i do hope he’s worth it.’
Welcome to the crazy world of midlife dating. i respect my friend’s tenacity, i really do. At 53, she’s come out of a long, mostly platonic marriage. She deserves romance and excitement. She’s been chatting to a promising-sounding man on an online dating site. And they’ve decided to make a night of it.
But when did dating get so expensive? research suggests the average Brit spends around £ 1,280 a year on date- related activities (transport, entertainment, gifts, clothes, babysitting, contraceptives, hair and beauty). it’s an astonishing investment.
Once upon a time (well, in our 20s) you’d have got away with a few shandies. if you were lucky, your suitor might stretch to scampi and chips at a Berni inn — the height of sophistication in the West Midlands when i was growing up.
Back then we didn’t really go on dates. You met a man at a supper with friends and before you knew it, you were considered an item. if that lasted, bingo. But if it went wrong, you waited for married friends to introduce you to that nice man in accounts (spoiler alert: they rarely did).
not any more. These days there’s a major dating industry (worth £5.89 billion a year), ready to capitalise on our hopes and fears, dreams and vulnerabilities.
And after a shaky start, we Brits are now the biggest investors in dating in europe by a long way. The average cost of a date in the UK is £129, according to Match.com. The next biggest spenders are the Spanish at £55, followed by the dutch at £52.
When i heard the figure i laughed hollowly. for us midlife singles, it’s way higher. Just getting out the front door on a date virtually requires taking out a second mortgage.
At 50-plus we may be older, wiser and better insured. We may have been round the block a few times. But we are also prey to heightened body insecurities. Pre- date prepping is likely to include (*delete as applicable) roots re-touching, a blowdry, a manicure/pedicure, leg waxing, eyebrow threading and tinting, overnight teethwhitening, facial reflexology (for that pesky double chin) and a spray tan. And that’s just the men.
This is not vanity. Just a basic MOT for a vehicle that has been sitting in the garage for a while, gently rusting. The
funny thing is when you’re contentedly single, you may not realise there’s a badger stripe of grey where your parting used to be. But, the minute a date is mentioned, the scales drop from your eyes.
if there’s the slightest chance of taking your clothes off in front of another adult, the forth Bridge needs repainting — Pilates classes, gym membership, glucosamine supplements, hair- thickening treatments, you name it.
Then there’s the date wardrobe. Most people invest in three good outfits (dress, jeans, separates — have you seen the British weather?), plus new underwear and decent shapewear.
Pre-date prepping isn’t all frivolous, either. At this age you need something to say for yourself. i try and read three newspapers, skim a best-selling novel and see a new film beforehand, for fear of appearing shallow. Annual membership to a gallery or a theatre is around £80, but at least you and your date get access to the members’ bar.
Transport is another money pit. in our youth we had all day to get ready. now you’re probably juggling work deadlines and family commitments (not to mention darting home for a spot of dogwalking or cat-feeding). You swear you’ll leave early, but of course you end up fleeing the office at 7.30pm and jumping into a cab.
never mind, you promise yourself, you’ll get the bus home at the end. (date maths is always an exercise in optimism). Whether the date goes well (drunk, happy, in an unfamiliar part of town at 1am) or a disaster (tears, rejection, heels hurting), you know it will be a cab again.
And these days the bar is set pretty high for the date itself. forget going out for a pizza. Once you hit midlife, it’s all about experiential dating.
We want to pull out all the stops to impress with our creativity and originality. Maybe a pop- up supper club in an edgy basement (£50 a head), a hot air balloon tour, a wine-tasting or a masterclass with a chocolatier. i’m taking out a second credit card as i type.
it mounts up if you’re going on several dates a week. i’m happy to go dutch (it is the 21st century), but watch out for penny-pinchers. One friend was pursued for weeks by a man who wanted to take her to the theatre. She gave in and was pleasantly surprised by the play and the top-tier seats he booked. That was until the day of the date when he called to say: ‘By the way, you owe me £50.’
To make a point, she got a new £50 note and handed it over in a Basildon Bond envelope. Sadly he failed to register the irony. When
dates in real life can prove disappointing, no wonder many of us are experimenting with paidfor dating apps, sites and personal introduction services. But, boy, do you pay through the nose.
A subscription to a reputable dating site will set you back around £320 a year. The longer you’re on a site, feeling slightly past your sell-by date, the more you’ll be tempted to pay extra to upgrade your dating profile.
Many offer costly ViP services. One friend sent me the brochure for an elite dating company called Attractive Partners (aren’t we all?). The Ultimate Package offers ‘access to one of the largest UK databases of carefully vetted and unattached people’ and costs £4,795! i could buy a beach hut for the price. And likely have a more rewarding relationship with it.
Love is a lottery. A bad date makes you weep about wasted money (‘You spent how much on that outfit?’). But success doesn’t come cheap, either. dates two to four may require you to cash in an iSA, before you both admit what you actually earn.
By date five, you can stop buying outfits and calm down on the blowdrys. But will your new flirtation pass the property test? if there’s an outside chance of taking your date home, how presentable is your bedroom?
A date-friendly home may mean investing in a cleaner, handyman and gardener. Then throw in new bedding, a scented diffuser, agedefying lighting, and a subscription to netflix (ask the millennials what ‘netlix and chill’ means).
no wonder they call dating a vocation. it could set you back a cool £5,000 a year to try to meet The One. for those of us on modest salaries, celibacy beckons.
Unless — whisper it — i can convince my accountant midlife dating should be tax-deductible. now where did i put that receipt for facial reflexology again?