Secrets to winning at the midlife dating game
As the numbers of midlife singles rise, Victoria Young talks to Genevieve, who was named this week as one of the UK’S most eligible over-50s
After years of Valentine’s Day being a non-event, this year 58-year old Genevieve has every reason to expect flowers, chocolates – or, who knows, even something more exotic: her last suitor bought her a piece of land in Scotland.
“After we met online, he nicknamed me ‘The Lady’, I think because he thought of me as sophisticated and stylish,” says Genevieve, who lives in Ascot. “After a few weeks of dating, a package arrived out of the blue. He’d made me into a real Lady – the Lady of Glencoe Wood – and bought me a tiny patch of land – we’re talking the size of my foot! – in Scotland. It was amusing and light-hearted and probably didn’t cost a lot, but the trouble he went to meant a lot.
“He was a lovely chap, but it didn’t work out in the end,” says Genevieve, who left her husband two-and-a-half years ago, after 28 years of marriage. This week, she was named as one of the six most eligible over-50s by the Lumen dating app – a specialist midlife dating service that has 250,000 members who joined since September last year. All six singletons, who are aged between 50 and 60, receive 275 per cent more profile views and 280 per cent more messages than the average user.
So what is her secret? It’s all in the photo she believes. “Men are visual. I’ve asked every man I’ve been on a date with and they all agree that the photo is the first thing they look at. I made my profile stand out by being smiley in all my photos, which are never more than three months old.”
She was also scrupulously truthful – about both her separation and her age – on her profile, which she wrote without help from friends (or her children, who’d prefer not to know too much about her new dating renaissance). And she is polite.
“I’m a bit old-fashioned and wait for men to contact me. But I always respond to anyone who has contacted me. And even if the date isn’t going anywhere, I’d never be rude enough to get up and leave by the back door – although that happens a lot both to men and to women!”
According to the Office for National Statistics, the biggest rising demographic of divorcing couples last year were those aged between 40 and 49. Longer life expectancy is likely a factor: middle age and the empty nest used to be seen as the beginning of the end. Now, increasingly, it’s a catalyst for people to make changes for the next chapter of their lives in which, having had a first love, then a second, they fully expect to meet a third.
In many ways, Genevieve’s marriage was a successful one, which produced two adored children, but as they grew up, she increasingly felt that there was something missing. “We cared deeply for each other, but we were not in love,” she says. “We weren’t romantic and were never terribly intimate.”
She accepted the status quo, looking after their son and daughter, now 26 and 22, while he became a successful finance director. But when their daughter left home for university, she instigated what she describes as “a totally amicable divorce”.
“He’ll always be my best friend, but I realised that we just didn’t have much in common. We tried counselling, but it didn’t help.”
It was part of a reassessment of her life that began when she turned 50. “I didn’t like who I had become. I needed to lose weight so I joined Lighter Life and lost 3st. I bought some new clothes, which built my confidence and, for the first time in my life, I was aware of not looking too bad.”
Still, leaving was not easy. “I was very frightened of leaving my marriage and dealing with bills, which I hadn’t done since I was 23. It was very daunting.” But she was driven by the knowledge that she has a “third chapter” left to live
– and her desire to do that with someone to whom she truly connects.
For anyone emerging from a long marriage, the dating scene is a brave new world. Genevieve says the landscape has changed since the days when she was introduced to her ex-husband by a friend. “There used to be dances at the village hall, but the only way to meet someone these days is online.
“If you are over 50, getting ‘out there’ can be daunting. We don’t have the faces or bodies we had in our 20s.” The fact that the midlife dating market is a growing business has helped: “We’re all in the same boat and we’ve all had a history.”
At first, dating other men took some getting used to. “I remember going to meet my first date at Clapham Junction. I was very nervous and took care to make an effort – but not in a provocative way,” she says. “We went for dinner and although it was very strange being with someone other than my husband, having decided I was entitled to be happy, it was exciting to be with someone I liked.”
Unfortunately, that date was an introduction to the harsh side of online dating. “We got on extremely well. I really liked him – and I thought he liked me… but I never heard from him again!”
Undeterred, she adjusted her expectations and went back online, figuring: “If I meet Mr Right – great. If I meet someone I like talking to, maybe I’ll meet a new friend. Many encounters have just been one date. Maybe 10 have passed the third date.”
Two years later, she has become something of a dating expert, with three dates turning into short relationships and several others becoming good friends.
Currently single, she’s on exceptionally good terms with her ex-husband and delighted for him that he has found someone else. And, in the meantime, she’s very happy to be on her own, which chimes with multiple studies that identify older single women – often divorcees who are attending to their own needs for perhaps the first time – as one of the happiest groups.
Genevieve now just has one clear rule. “I try to stay clear of men with children under 18, because I don’t want to be involved in their upbringing. That might sound selfish, but I wouldn’t want to feel responsible.”
She’s also cautious about the recently separated. “Twice, I’ve dated men who I quite liked, who have gone back to sort things out with their wife, which was disappointing.”
But all in all, she has only positive things to say about this new chapter.
“I’ve led an interesting life but there’s plenty of life left out there for me to live and I’d rather it was spent doing wonderful things – which I would quite like to do with someone else,” she says.
‘We’re all in the same boat and we’ve all had a history’