I’m proof that ‘Gloria Bells’ can enjoy dating again
Julianne Moore’s latest film shows how fun post-divorce dating can be. Josa Keyes is also relishing it after 31 years of marriage
The film trailer says it all. Gloria, played by the luminous Julianne Moore, is in the throes of a midlife awakening. Twelve years after divorce she’s done with being lonely, dealing with dismissive adult children and a boring job. Instead, we see her spinning around a dance floor, going on dates and then for the obligatory bikini wax when one of those dates gets serious. For what comes next, you’ll have to go and see the film, but this second coming of age will be one that many women will recognise. “If the world blows up, I want to go down dancing,” Gloria announces, and we’re with her every step of the way.
I’m going to confess to having skin in the game here. I finally got divorced this time last year, after eight years of separation and 31 years of marriage. Failing at marriage felt like mourning – but for the marriage, not the relationship. For many years, we’d been locked in a coupling that had nourished neither of us. He went abroad, while I stayed at home in London with our two boys, then nine and 17. Our daughter, then 20, was at university.
I experienced all the clichés: loss of family connection, husbands making drunken passes, friends dropping me, invitations drying up, unhelpful “advice”. When I was invited out, I felt like a charity case. I did experience frenzied sexual interest, but only from family dogs. It was perfectly bearable, so I resigned myself to the whole
ageing singleton deal – apart from cats. I’m allergic, so there’d be nothing to eat me when I died alone.
Then, in 2015, everything changed. One warm September evening, a few days after I’d started divorce proceedings after five years apart, I found myself talking to a man, rather younger than me, outside a party. He said he’d suffered depression and his father had been unsympathetic, so, jokingly, I offered to punch the offending parent. He looked a bit startled, but then asked me to dance. Greatly to my surprise, he kissed me on the dance floor. A first non-marital kiss for … oh, you do the maths. I was so shocked, I ran away and hid behind the band. Later, he walked me to the Tube, and texted me the next day to invite me out to dinner. I didn’t go, I was too shy, but, like Gloria Bell, it woke me up like some kind of superannuated Sleeping Beauty.
Feeling a new sense of confidence, I thought I would try online dating. I went on various sites, to spread my bets, including Okcupid (for geeks and nerds like me), Muddy Matches (could I bag a nice farmer?) and a university one (gloomy and dull). Only Okcupid produced hits, hundreds of them – from men of all ages – asking me out. For the first time in my life I felt the positive effects of the male gaze. They seemed particularly keen on my hourglass figure, of which I’d been hitherto unaware. Having felt invisible for years, this was overwhelming.
I decided to try an experiment. I would go on a date with any guy who asked, if he sent appealing messages – easy to screen as most are, “Hey, how you doing?”, as if none of us had ever watched Friends. I’d set myself time limits and safety rules, and be bold about getting up and leaving if it was uncomfortable. Between Christmas 2015 and the end of 2016, aged 57, I went on dates with 36 different men and chatted to hundreds more. Dates ranged from seven minutes with a 30-year-old married Romanian web designer and 10 minutes with an American who smelt peculiar, to friendships that persist to this day. Reader, I didn’t marry any of them. One 30-minute date had taken early retirement to retrain. He began boasting about his Saturday evenings when he got together with mates. Oh good, I thought, he’s got friends. They watched sport and snorted cocaine, he then explained. I reminded him of the murderous social impact both here and in South America, and this aspiring caregiver scoffed: “Oh, I don’t bother to think about that.”
A City banker shouted at me for “interrupting” when I tried to get a word in edgeways, as he mansplained my job to me without having a clue what I did. Another, after two glasses of wine, offered to tell me in detail how and why I was failing to attract men. He looked like a garden gnome.
Of course, there are plenty of predatory creeps, but they can’t help revealing their hand (or other parts of anatomy) early on. There was the chap who said he worked on a newspaper, so I thought we’d have something in common. I quickly realised he was lying, and left after one drink. This was before I’d learnt the fine art of blocking, so I woke to revenge pictures on my phone of parts of him that I will now never be able to unsee.
Don’t be put off, but do be safe. The minority of awful dates make good stories. The majority were lifeenhancing,
Aged 57, I went on dates with 36 different men and chatted to hundreds more
and taught me so much – even when there was no attraction – broadening my understanding of people, which can only help me as a writer. So, my advice to all the Glorias out there is, try it. Enjoy your freedom.
Go on Tinder, Bumble, Hinge or Happn – or anything that floats your boat. There are plenty of specialist sites such as Jdate, for the Jewish community, and Fitness Singles, for the sporty. Shed your illusions, expectations, conditioning and inhibitions – and your knickers if your date is really irresistible. Remember your body is gorgeous, sexy and female, and don’t worry about stretch marks or anything else. We can’t all share Moore’s milky perfection, but dating should be fun, not a beauty competition.
Do hang on to your heart and reinforce your skin – unlike poor Gloria. Men never were the answer to anything – whatever romantic literature might tell us. They’re just fellow humans, subject to all the same strengths and weaknesses, lusts and longings, fears and worries.
Don’t draw up lists of desirable qualities or dismiss people on grounds of age – older or younger. Most of all, be interesting and creative yourself, get more education, say yes to invitations, force yourself out of your comfort zone. Make new friends: relationships don’t have to be romantic to have impact and meaning in your second lease of life.
I’m just completing my master’s in creative writing at Brunel University London, learning new skills like teaching workshops and screenwriting, and no one gives a fig that I’m 60. Although, rather sweetly, they liked it when I read to them – 20 years of bedtime stories certainly paid off there.