Let’s say you’re a Mainer in your mid-50s or 60s or older, and one way or another you find yourself interested in meeting someone new. Someone special. A partner, a lover, a companion, a spouse — someone to share life’s ups and downs. Maybe you’re widowed, maybe divorced, maybe you never did find that certain someone. And now, you’re in the mood to try again.
What do you do?
Increasingly, baby boomers head for their computers. Established online dating sites such as Match.com — which is 20 years old this year — and eHarmony are doing a bustling business with the older set. According to Match.com statistics, more than 30 percent of the company’s approximately 2.4 million subscribers in North America are over 50 years old. Match.com and eHarmony say the boomer generation is their fastest-growing demographic.
A quick, free search this week on Match.com turned up 173 single, heterosexual women and 193 single, heterosexual men between the ages of 50 and 75 within 20 miles of Bangor. In Portland, the numbers are much higher. It also is easy to search for a same-sex partner.
Although it once was a little bit scandalous to admit to dating online, it now is more common to know someone respectable who met their significant other that way, regardless of age.
According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 8 percent of American adults 45 to 54 years old and 6 percent of American adults 55 to 64 years old have used a dating service to meet other singles.
For 52-year-old Valerie Scott in Bar Harbor, online dating was a no-brainer.
“I didn’t think twice about it,” she said. “You don’t have to tell anyone about it unless you want to, but, really, it’s becoming the norm.”
Another 2013 study found that more than a third of all people who married between 2005 and 2012 met their spouse online, on either a dating site or a social media site such as Facebook. That study also found that marriages that start with an online meeting are likely to be happier and last longer than those that begin with a social introduction, a workplace meeting or other face-to-face encounter.
The big question
“How else would you ever meet anyone?” Dirk Faegre asked.
Faegre, 71 and divorced, has lived in the tiny Hancock County village of Gouldsboro for decades.
“There aren’t a lot of fish in that pond,” he said in a recent interview.
After his marriage of more than 20 years dissolved, “I fumbled around a little, trying to meet someone. Then I remembered there was this online dating thing,” Faegre said.
Now, Faegre, retired from his career in the computer industry, is in the process of moving in with his fiancee, Elizabeth Garber, 62, of Belfast, who also is divorced. The couple met online last year and plan to marry next summer.
Garber, a writer and acupuncturist, said Faegre’s profile intrigued her from the beginning. A subsequent email “blizzard” between them revealed he was smart, sincere, a clear thinker and a good writer — all important qualities to her. Their initial face-to-face “tea date” lasted four hours and confirmed the potential for a meaningful relationship.
“We started seeing each other every weekend after that,” Garber said.
Garber and Faegre had dated online for several years, on and off, before finding each other.
“It used to be kind of embarrassing to say you met someone online,” Garber said. “But now it’s so commonplace. And, really, how else would we ever have met?”
Better together
Val Scott’s beloved longtime partner died in 2012 after a battle with advanced ovarian cancer.
“It was a long, slow goodbye, and I was essentially alone for the last 18 months of it,” Scott said. “But she told me she’d come back and haunt me if I stayed alone, and I always knew I was better together, in a relationship, than I was alone.”
Mount Desert Island is another small pool — especially for women looking to meet other women — so Scott went online about nine months later, “when I was ready to talk to people who weren’t my family or my best friends.”
She decided how far she was willing to travel to meet interesting women, initially drawing a 50-mile radius from MDI. Later, because she travels regularly on business, she expanded that distance considerably.
After broadening her geographic search and having several casual dates with women who still remain her friends, she met Sarah Cline, 56, of Brunswick and knew she didn’t need to look any further.
Cline’s decision to go online came after a couple of fizzled lesbian relationships that followed the dissolution of her 12-year marriage to the father of her son. It was a challenging time.
“There was a huge learning curve,” she said. “On top of getting back into dating generally, there was this whole new world of lesbian dating.”
Friends encouraged her to try the online scene, and, reluctantly, she did.
“I had a lot of insecurity about what people would think,” she said. “I would have felt the same way if I was looking for a man. It was just the idea of going public.”
Scott and Cline connected in the fall of 2013 and were married about two years later — legally, thanks to Maine’s 2012 same-sex marriage referendum — this past September, surrounded by loving friends and family.
Getting it right through clear communication
Peter Lindquist, 59, and Sarah Ruef-Lindquist, 53, met 14 years ago in what was then the brave new world of online dating. Both were divorced at the time and living in Portland. They married in 2003 and now live in Camden.
Back then, Ruef-Lindquist recalled, women didn’t have to pay to use Match.com, perhaps in a bid to bring more women into what was largely a man’s world.
“A lot of men misrepresented themselves in terms of who they were and what they wanted,” she said. Others made it clear they were more interested in a sexual encounter than in meeting someone for the kind of serious, long-term relationship she wanted.
For the most part, she said, there was just not much information exchanged before two people agreed to meet.
“It was pretty much like a blind date every time,” Lindquist said. “But Sarah required a lot of emails and communication before we ever went out on a date. I had to express myself in words, and it became an exploration of our common interests and ideas.”
Deliberate, open communication remains a central theme in their relationship, an essential tool for keeping their marriage on track.
“We both really want to get it right this time,” Ruef-Lindquist said.
They enjoy telling friends they met online.
“A lot of people are still hesitant about trying online dating,” Lindquist said. “But if you do it right — honestly, openly and with a little courage — you can meet someone really special.”
Love: A healthy impulse at any age
Dr. Clifford Singer, a geriatric psychiatrist in Bangor, says that as people age the need for companionship, partnership and intimacy often increases rather than decreases. Happily partnered up with a woman he met online, Singer, 61, says the Internet can be a great resource for finding a close new relationship in midlife and beyond.
But older adults may also be at heightened risk for being scammed, he cautioned.
“People with even mild cognitive impairment may lose their financial judgement and sense of discretion,” he said. “And they may become more impulsive if they feel that time is running out, that they don’t have many choices left.”
Dating sites are full of tried and true advice for staying safe, protecting against financial scams and navigating the emotional shoals of online relationships. Most are just common sense: Take your time getting to know an online contact. Meet the first time in a public place and let a friend know where you’re going. Don’t give out your address, phone number, workplace or other personal information to anyone you’re not sure of. Never give money to an online contact. Pay attention to your intuition. Learn to break off an online relationship firmly and move forward. Be kind. Be clear. Don’t take rejection personally. Don’t get discouraged.
And do be flexible in your thinking.
“It’s a lot like looking for a job,” Dirk Faegre said. “Don’t turn anything down without considering it, keep your options open and follow as many leads as you can. There is not just one person in the world who’s right for you.”
