Dating over 50 can be daunting and, at times, overwhelming.
But with a little preparation and knowledge, dating can be an exciting and rewarding experience.
Today, I’m sharing my advice on how you can get back out there, increase your chances of success, and start enjoying the dating scene again—so you can find love and keep it forever.
To accomplish this, we’ll cover:
- The truth about dating later in life
- Whether you’re ready for love
- How to find the right person for you
- Why not being perfect is perfect
- The secret to online dating success
- My first date advice
- The most important part of making a date successful
Let’s get started!
The Truth About Dating Over 50
Your mind is wired to return to what you know and avoid what you don’t.
So it’s no wonder that you can feel out of your depth when it comes to dating over 50—especially after a long marriage or hiatus.
We can find ourselves thinking:
“I haven’t done that for so long.”
“I’ve fallen out of the saddle.”
“I’m out of practice.”
“I don’t know how to do it anymore.”
But you’re no less lovable than you were in your twenties. This is because you’ve grown so much; you know exactly who you are and what you want—you have so much more to offer.
How exciting that you get to relive this part of your life? You get to go out and meet new people and potential partners who have so much life experience and know exactly what they want—just like you.
So you may feel like you’ve forgotten how to date. It may feel strange to you and like all this happened a lifetime ago. But it’s simply unfamiliar to you.
Before we dive into how to make dating over 50 more familiar, there’s one question you must ask yourself first…
Are You Ready for Love?
The biggest mistake anyone makes in attempting to find love is doing so before they love themselves.
It’s so important to understand and recognize that you’re not looking for your other half—because you’re not a half. You don’t need another person to complete you.
When you have the perspective, “I’m only half a person, I need my person to complete me. Where are they? I’m not fulfilled without them.”
That’s not working in your favor.
Rather, you must come at it from, “I am worthy, I’m whole, I’m amazing, I’m going to find someone equally amazing.”
“We’re going to have an amazing life together.”
So please don’t believe you’re incomplete until you find the person you love—you have to believe you are complete now.
To attract the love you want, the number one thing you need to have, above everything, is a belief that you are worth it.
The only thing you need for love is, “I’m worth it.”
“I’m worthy of love because I’m lovable.”
“I’ve got something to offer.”
If you need help with learning to love yourself, then check out my highly-effective Lovability self-hypnosis audio course. This course is designed to help you instill the inner belief that you are lovable by reprogramming your mind with conviction so strong that other people may sense it too.
Because before you love anyone, you need to love yourself. Once you do, the next step will be so much easier…
Finding the Right Person for You
When we’re younger, in our teens, twenties, or even thirties, we often look for all the wrong things in a partner. We are out for adventure and excitement—someone who’s incredibly good-looking and perhaps even a bit of a rule-breaker.
We go on a wild adventure with this person that’s thrilling and exciting but often ends in heartbreak.
As you reach your later years and start dating over 50 and beyond, you realize this isn’t what’s important in life at all. Perhaps you’ve even been through a divorce with someone just like I just described.
So my advice is to not pick someone 20 to 25 years younger than you. Instead, pick someone with whom you have shared interests, who makes you laugh, and who will support you throughout life’s challenges.
My husband ticks all of these boxes. He may not look like Brad Pitt, but he’s screamingly funny, and I love that.
When we argue, he’ll get into character and say something that makes it impossible for me to stay angry with him. And he never stays angry because I’m kind of playful and silly.
If you only ever look for the perfect partner, you will never find them…
Why Not Being Perfect Is Perfect
Perfect people simply don’t exist, and wasting your valuable time trying to find them will only ever leave you dissatisfied, sad, and disappointed.
Delaying pursuing a relationship with someone because they’re not what you consider perfect will only ever guarantee yourself one thing—loneliness.
Just as you can’t expect others to be perfect, you can’t expect yourself to be either.
In fact, this may surprise you, but the amount of movie stars, rockstars, and supermodels I’ve met who are lonely is extraordinary because people find them too perfect—they’re intimidated.
So you don’t have to live up to an expectation of being perfect because, actually, we don’t even like people who appear perfect. They make us feel inadequate and second-rate. We like real people who are like us, after all.
The sexiest thing about a person is their confidence and sense of who they are.
Therefore, accept that you are flawed, and other flawed people surround you. Your flaws are what make you real, genuine, and authentic—that’s a wonderful thing.
Once you realize this, you can go out there and find someone, equally as imperfect as you, who loves you for you, and who you love because they’re them. Then, together, you can build a beautiful, flawed relationship, loving and supporting each other.
Take my wonderful husband and me, for example. I’m flawed, my lovely husband is flawed, and we have a beautiful, flawed relationship. I don’t have to be perfect for him, and he doesn’t have to be perfect for me.
We don’t have a perfect relationship—it’s too much to live up to.
And guess what? This relationship will be miles better than anything you’d have with someone you consider perfect. Because now you don’t have to worry about how big your clothes are, your height, the number on the scales, or the number in your bank account.
All these things don’t matter.
What matters is being a real person and finding real love—when you do this, you’ll have found the right person for you who equally knows you are right for them.
Do this, and you can absolutely find and maintain real love that will last forever.
The Secret to Online Dating Over 50 Success
Of course, it’s all well and good knowing what you’re looking for in a person—but you also need to put yourself out there to find them, too.
Online dating is a great way to meet new people far and wide, and there are so many sites and apps you can use to find those of a similar age as you, with the same likes and dislikes.
But when talking to someone online, it’s so easy to try to become who you think they want you to be. You post a picture on a site that’s perhaps five or 10 years out of date, text them back, and suddenly it’s like you almost become this fantasy person.
When speaking on an app or phone, you can hide your flaws and who you really are. But this isn’t a good thing—when you give someone a filtered version of yourself, and they like it, you inevitably start worrying that they will be disappointed with the real you.
“I’ve told you for a whole year that I’m this smart, sharp, sassy, confident person. And I’m really not.”
“I spent a whole year faking it, and now I can’t hide that.”
But as we’ve already discussed, we’re all flawed—I’m flawed, you’re flawed, and the person you meet will be too.
You’re going to meet somebody real, and they’re going to meet somebody real.
So being open to showing your true self when dating, whether online or in person, is so important. You’ll find the people who like you actually like your flaws—they make you real, genuine, and authentic.
While it may feel like new territory, make yourself familiar with showing potential partners the real you rather than a filtered version. When you do this, the next step will be far less intimidating because you’ll already be confident that they like you for you…
Going on a First Date? Here’s My Advice
For the first meeting, you don’t want to make a big thing out of it. It will heighten the pressure of the situation and may make you feel more uncomfortable and unnatural in what can already be an unfamiliar circumstance.
Instead, go for a coffee or go out for lunch. It’s enough time to get to know someone better without committing to more than an hour of your day.
If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there are many other things you can do. For example, go to a gallery or theater and do something interesting together. When you’re busy doing an activity, you forget to try to show someone a polished, perfect version of yourself. After all, dating over 50 should be fun!
When you can find something you both have in common, it makes life so much easier. Do something that will make you laugh, giggle, or forget, and just be yourself.
The Most Important Part of Making Any Date Successful
No, it’s not the conversation you will have with your date…
The most important part of making any date successful is the dialogue you have with yourself.
Think of the words you say when you have a date coming up. Is it something closer to option A or B?
A. “This is going to be awful. It’s going to be so difficult, I haven’t done this in so long.”
B. “Wow, this is going to be easy. I already feel like I know this person so well.”
You always have a choice.
Choosing to tell yourself words that are positive and encouraging will transcend into your thoughts, beliefs, and actions and will have a huge impact on the way the date progresses.
Since you make your beliefs, and then your beliefs turn right around and make you, you might as well make great beliefs.
So tell yourself positive and encouraging things like…
“Wow, at last, I’m going on a date. It’s going to be great fun and perhaps could lead to something even more amazing.”
If you believe that to be true, it will very likely become absolutely true because it’s not terrifying or stressful to go on a date—it’s exciting and wonderful.
Final Thoughts on Dating Over 50
If you are dating over 50 and looking for someone to spend the rest of your life with, seize this opportunity to go out and have fun and find that special someone.
All you need is to believe you are worthy and deserving of love. So tell yourself this every day until you believe it.
That’s really all you need—a certainty that you are worthy of love, deserving of love, and lovable just the way you are.
So be ready now. Please don’t look for someone perfect. They don’t exist.
Go out there knowing you are deeply, deeply, deeply lovable.
If you’re ready to take action toward an amazing, loving life now, then check out my Attract Your Perfect Relationship audio course. This powerful course helps to rewire your mind to exude an aura of lovability and confidence that attracts and maintains loving and lasting relationships.
When you have this lovability and confidence, you will find your thoughts radiate from you and back to you like a boomerang. You’ll start to develop relationships with people who match your thinking and love you for you.
That truly is the beautiful secret of finding and keeping long-lasting love.
