Grey Online (and Offline) Dating

Nan Bauer-Maglin is developing a new anthology, Grey Online (and Offline) Dating When You Are Over 60, 70, & 80: Our Stories (working title). Nan is the editor of Widows’ Words: Women Write on the Experience of Grief, the First Year, the Long Haul, and Everything in Between, which includes my essay "10 Scary Things I Have Done Since My Husband Died."

Nan has put out a call for Grey Online essays: details below.

Deadline for proposals: January 15, 2020.

If you’re frowning, perplexed, and saying out loud, “Debby whut are you thinkin??? Online dating, are you kidding?” etc. please read Nan’s note, below, where you’ll see that she’s casting a wide net, to women and men, gay and straight, from diverse backgrounds—economically, racially, culturally—with dating experiences comic and tragic.

Maybe you know someone who could write about this.

Feel free to copy and paste Nan’s note and send it far and wide, post on social media, etc. 

Me, I have nothing to say about online dating, elder or otherwise, but I’m writing and editing up a storm, and will be in touch.


Grey Online (and Offline) Dating When You Are Over 60, 70, & 80: Our Stories (working title)

Call for contributions to an anthology about older dating

Coeditors: Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood

I didn’t think I’d be dating in my 80s. My guy, pushing 90, is even older than me. . . When we’re not together, we’re on the phone, worried when one of us gets sick, more worried than we were when we were young — and immortal. From “My Nearly 90-Year-Old Boyfriend” by Phyllis Raphael (“tiny modern love stories,” NY Times)

Put simply, now that you’re past 50, dating is a different experience than it was when you were in your 20s or even your 30s. You’ve changed, the culture has changed, and who you’re looking for is likely to be quite different as well….Online dating isn’t for everyone, but it’s where the people are. Millions of them, in fact. And the fastest-growing group among them is people over 50. From "Dating After 50 For Dummies" by Pepper Schwartz

The older online dating cohort is a growing demographic. “The desire for companionship has led many older adults who are single, divorced or widowed to sign up for online dating,” reported NPR's Morning Edition.

We want to publish your story: from contemplating going online (or deciding not to), to exchanges online, to first dates, to the development of a relationship (or not), and all the baggage, excitement, and disappointment around such an experience.

Because you are over 60 (or 70 or 80), how is this different from when you dated as a younger person?

What issues do older daters confront?

We are looking for contributors who are men and women, straight and gay, from diverse backgrounds—economically, racially, culturally. We seek a variety of voices, tones (comic to tragic), genres, perspectives, and experiences.

While we are looking primarily for personal narratives, some analysis within the narrative can be included. Historical or sociological pieces are welcome. Write in an accessible voice. Writing with another person or persons in dialogue or as an interview is also welcome.

Some topics to consider (always in the context of age and relationships):

Good/bad online experiences/funny/learning/dangerous experiences

Choosing to go it alone/rejecting online dating

Online and offline dating after being widowed; dating after divorce or during separation

Ghosting, lying, inflation, and other online behavior

Differences in male and female experiences

Same-sex online dating

Issues particular to older daters: economic, health, sexuality, the weight of the past   

Family reactions

Compare different online sites: general, elder, targeted and specialty

Preferably by January 15, send us a one-to-two-page description of what you are interested in writing (cc. both of us). Include a few sentences about your previous publications.

Please forward this call to family, friends, and colleagues.
Nan Bauer-Maglin                                                      Daniel E. Hood
nan.bauermaglin99@ret.gc.cuny.edu                    dan.hoo42@gmail.com

Go West, Old Women

The summer Dan was ill, when my days consisted of driving a half-hour each way to work, and my evenings of driving an hour each way to the hospital, I began to tell myself a story, in which our dog and I drove west.

         We lived in Upstate New York, centrally located in the middle of nowhere, as Dan used to say. Now Dan’s illness was terminal, and as I drove, and drove, I planned a meandering route across the country, for the dog and me. We would visit friends in Chicago, and Colorado Springs, and Albuquerque. The other nights we would stay in Holiday Inns, because they took dogs and they had swimming pools.

         We would proceed slowly because we would, finally, have no appointments, no obligations.

         We would drive right to the Pacific and stand at the water. The dog would bat at things in puddles while I gazed out at the horizon. After a few minutes, we would look at each other, the dog and I, and I’d ask her, What do you want to do next? 

         A friend took me out for lunch during that terrible summer, and I told her this story. Fantasies are important, she said, and I thought, No, no it’s real.

         Dan died that August, several years ago. We had been together for 25 years. But I had lived alone before him, and now once again, I became a team of one. I started this blog, 2becomes1: Widowhood for the Rest of Us,

and there I developed an essay, “10 Scary Things I Have Done Since My Husband Died,” where I listed all kinds of things I accomplished.

         I traveled by myself, to the West Coast, of course, and also to Japan, China, Russia, places I had dreamed of seeing.

         I dealt with the snake in the bathroom.

         And I sold the house that we had shared and moved west 13 miles, to Hudson, a walkable city named for the river it bordered.

         The dog who would have driven to the Pacific with me grew old, and died, and after a while I adopted another dog, a nine-year-old with the attitude of an adolescent and the name of Sizzle.

         Last June, 2018: a raw, windy day in Hudson. The air should have been mild, and sweet with the scent of roses and the promise of outdoor swimming. Instead, the damp cold seeped through my jacket and the scent recalled not the grass beach at the pond but a stormy sea, tossing the ship.

         After a brutal winter, a winter so cold and windy that I forgot to go skiing

 the spring brought no relief—nothing but acute allergies. On that June day I was walking home from CVS, having scored yet another over-the-counter medication that might help. I was wearing a jacket and hat, socks on my feet and a scarf around my neck.

         And I was freezing.

         I was freezing, and I was thinking, I can’t take this anymore.

         Arriving home, I greeted Sizzle and went upstairs to my laptop. I Googled “San Diego, condominium, $250,000.”

         And what a sweet place Google showed me! Swimming pool! Patio! Carport! I tried to be skeptical: I looked at each photo twice. I studied the description, trying to read between the lines.

         Then I sent the link to my friend Tamara in San Diego. She knows everything.

         “Is this in a bad neighborhood?” I asked.

         She replied within the hour: “Not a bad neighborhood,” she said, “but it’s near Rose Creek, so it could be stinky sometimes. Here, try this one.”

         She attached a link for another condo, even sweeter, at $250,000. Swimming pool! Balcony! Garage!

         And I thought, I can do this.

         I thought, there’s no rule that says I have to suffer this stupid weather.

         And, I thought, I have time for one more adventure.

         Moving west started when I told myself I couldn’t do it: I didn’t have enough money, or my parents were too old to leave, or I was too old for such a big move.

         But moving west had stayed in my head, and in my heart, since I had comforted myself with a story years before. It wasn’t a fantasy, it was a dream.

         In February of this year, Sizzle and I left Hudson

 in sub-zero temperatures. 

 I had sold my house and bought a condo in San Diego.

 I had given away 22 cartons of books and 95 T-shirts.

         We drove west,

 Sizzle and I,

 just ahead of two winter storms. People would say, go to this museum, or that national park. And I would think, Honey, I have an 11-year-old dog in the car and it’s 11 degrees outside.       

         I drove.

         We did sing. I taught Sizzle some folk songs.

        

Sun’s gonna shine . . .

        

 . . . on my back door someday!

          Winds gonna come . . .

          . . . blow my blues away!

         Good job, Sizzle!

          (giggles) Yeah—

         Of course, I talked to her.

         “Look, Sizzle, the St. Louis arch!”

         “Yeah, Deb. Where’s the St. Louis hotel.”

        

St. Louis Woman

We didn’t stay in Holiday Inns, because bring-fido-dot-com didn’t list them, and in the final rush to get out of town, I forgot to pack my bathing suit.

         Missouri to Kansas: “Look, Sizzle, the trees and grass are all glistening with ice!”

         “HALP!”

         “God, Sizzle, this road looks like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

 Without the snow. Do you think all those trucks off the road were driven by men?”

          “Hilp.”

         I was careful about gas, until the day I wasn’t. Leaving Winslow, Arizona, I thought, we’ve got enough to make it to the next station.

         Well, we did, but what I remember of that drive is rocks and dirt and scrub brush and dirt and rocks, as I watched those little boxes on the gas gauge disappear, and my terror as the gauge blinked angrily at me and I still hadn’t seen a single human being—until, like a mirage, appeared a general store with two pumps.

         No cards, cash and carry, and as I paid the man, I made a weak joke about coasting in on my stupidity.

Judy and me with our high school yearbook

         “Well,” he said, “if running out of gas is the worst thing to happen to you . . . you’re all right.”

         We did visit our friends in Chicago, and  Colorado Springs and

3 gals in Corrales

 Corrales, New Mexico and also in Boulder

Sizzle petted in Boulder, CO

and Durango.

         

We didn’t drive straight to the Pacific but to our new home. The furniture wouldn’t arrive for two weeks, but I put Sizzle’s bed on the balcony and she stretched out in the sun. February 15th, still winter. Sizzle insisted that I keep the door open to the balcony—re-creating the car, I think—so I wore a fleece jacket, not a bathing suit.

        

I bought a work table, borrowed a chair, and got myself connected.  

         We had done it. Ready to change climates, to live where I had friends but no memories, and ready for one more adventure, these two old women packed up and drove west.