Love is lovelier the second time around

Was Frank Sinatra right and is later life the best time for romance, asks Katy Bravery

There used to be a saying that you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than to find a new relationship after the age of 50. But that gloomy weather system has most definitely moved on.

In the past few years, Bake Off’s Prue Leith wed husband John at 76, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel author Deborah

Moggach got married at 65 and Hugh Grant at 58. Late-life love is so hot, there are even plans afoot for a 60-plus dating show, a spin-off from ITV’s The Bachelor (on hold for obvious reasons but still very much in place).

And, while many would assume dating would have taken a downturn because of the pandemic, the opposite appears to be true. One reason has been the blossoming of live internet chat software, Zoom. Its ease of use opened up the ability to talk online to a whole new audience, many of them older people becoming more digitally confident in general.

And, since last March, we were all stuck at home and everyone – not just those without a relationship – was looking for connection. As a result, single people of all ages lost that dispiriting feeling of being left behind while everyone else was out and about.

Those factors, together with the fact that around 80 per cent of us over-50s are now using smartphones and computers, made dating apps and websites boom in usage last year – up by at least 15 per cent. That trend was in place prepandemic, but the lockdowns seem to have accelerated a distinct and joyful movement: more of us are looking for, and finding, love in later life.

Cold statistics, from the latest ONS

survey, prove this warm fact – the rate of marriage among older people has increased by around 50 per cent in recent years, bucking a general trend against getting married.

Only eight per cent of couples in a 65-plus age group were marrying for the first time; almost all – 92 per cent – were divorcees, widows or widowers (figures which also do not account for cohabitees).

Same-sex marriages and cohabitation are also on the rise among older people. The most recent ONS figures reveal that around one in five people forming same-sex partnerships in 2019 was over 65 – in 2013 it was only one in 25. One friend of mine waited until her parents died to marry her girlfriend, a generational inhibition hardly felt by younger gay men and women.

So is “love lovelier the second time around” as Sinatra sang? A brief survey of myself and friends in their 50s upwards says: absolutely. One of my great friends found the love of her life last year when she was 67 and he 70.

There can be a whole gamut of different emotions at these ages: from relief at leaving a destructive marriage and discovering there is still happiness out there, to surprise that love and passion feels as strong as it ever did.

By the time our birthday cake candles have set off a fire alarm or two, we’ve probably experienced the full range of broken dreams, rows and heartbreak as well as romance, heady sex and joy. It makes us vulnerable, but it makes us wise, too.

Some previous partners are a hard act to follow; others a salutary experience: we really do live and learn, and mostly about ourselves.

More important now than looks and pheromones is a shared set of values. And the codependence and jealousy that can stalk youthful relationships is replaced with the knowledge of the need for space and independence.

Of course, some things are very different second time around. Disrobing with a new partner may not occur with quite the same lack of inhibition that blesses us in our youth. But, bearing in mind that is usually the case for both parties, my straw polls reveal that sex can be just as passionate once those obstacles have been broached.

The pandemic of course pressed the pause button on all that, especially with the edict that sex was allowed only within an “established relationship”. But, as it turns out, that may not have been a bad thing.

“There are positives and negatives to not meeting in person straight away,” says dating coach Susan Quilliam. “It might be emotionally frustrating, yes. But it has slowed us down in forming relationships, which is a good thing. We

Older singles will be better behaved than a drunk 20-something who is desperate for sex

can take the time now to lay better friendship foundations preparatory to partner relationships.

“It’s given us time to be more congruent: to think, decide and focus on what we want.”

Too often, says Quilliam, author of How to Choose a Partner, we rush into unsuitable relationships based on alleviating loneliness – or to fill a gap left by a recent break-up before we have grieved and learned from it. We need time to really think about compatibility and the pandemic gifted that to us.

“In order to date successfully you need to work on yourself,” she says. “Work out who you are; what the dealbreakers are; what you really seek. The last thing to do, not the first, is write your online profile.”

The good news is that by the time we are in our 50s and 60s, that work has been done.

Of course, meeting online, be it Skype, Zoom or whatever, is not without its trials: how much make-up does one apply to look good but not as if you’re trying too hard? How much do you dress up? Do you need a script so conversation isn’t stilted?

Luckily, older singles will be better behaved than a slurred late-night session with a drunk 20-something desperate for sex, though one friend of mine was horrified to realise that one flirtatious man on a video “date” had clearly recent family photographs of his wife and children displayed on a shelf behind him.

While virtual dates come with their challenges – and there is no substitute for real contact – there are some good things about them. For a start, you don’t have to sit through a dinner date that, from the first five seconds, is obviously not going to work.

And a live face-to-face chat is a lot more honest than that 10-year-old photo on an online profile.

Perhaps best of all though is the fact that so many more people are now online than before. So last year’s lockdowns actually mean that the chances of meeting the right person have significantly increased.

Of course, the most important first step to finding love is to decide to be proactive. Quilliam calls it seeking with “conscious focus and intent”. Fortune really does favour the bold.

Yes, being older can sometimes make us our own enemies. Checklists of musthaves – or must-NOT haves – can get lengthy. We succumb to fear: of being hurt, disillusioned or deceived.

But if this past year has taught us anything, it is the value of human relationships. Unexpectedly, Covid has brought new opportunities and, perhaps, the impetus to use them. It has taught us that life is precious and too short to be wasted in sadness.

Also, there really is nothing to lose. A year on from the start of the pandemic, what better harbinger of spring is there than the scent of new beginnings?

to be the right thing to do.

“Love is better now than when I was a young man. Then it was all crash, bang, wallop and intense, but then the compatibility issues rolled in. Now though, as our relationship matures, every day we’re more in love – the inverse of younger love.

“At our wedding, a friend gave us one of the original illustrations from Helen Ward’s book, inscribed ‘To Dan and Nicola, who found each other’.”