Most people who are looking for love/companionship or even just friends are joining up to dating sites, and more and more people over 50 are doing it. This could be either they have friends who are already using the sites, or maybe their children have suggested it after a divorce, separation or even death of a partner. For whatever reason, once you start using these sites you might notice that dating has in itself, become a massive industry.
Most of these sites are quite helpful in that they offer a service specifically for older/mature dating, and even offer tips and advice as it can be quite daunting to put yourself out there again after all this time. But it seems that joining up to a site just isn't enough these days to find a partner as apparently there are dating experts, matchmakers, dating coaches, people who will take your photos for you to put on your profile, who will write the profile for you, and people who aren't in your position for at least another 20 years but apparently are experts at older dating and they all want to help.At a price of course.
Let's face it, men being the visual creatures that they are, will probably only notice the pictures and not even bother to read your profile. Women on the other hand want to know a bit about what job men have and what they like to do in their spare time. If you've got a couple of brain cells it's not exactly rocket science to put a decent profile on these sites and because older dating is a whole different ball game, I doubt that any of these experts can actually help.
But while all these sites can tell you how to actually meet people,none will give advice as to what happens next.
The biggest rise in STD's is in people over 50. Fact. This is partly due to women having gone through menopause so as they can't get pregnant they have unprotected sex, some men will have had a vasectomy so will probably not have been using condoms for quite a while. It's all down to ignorance but there's been a huge 82% increase in cases of HIV in the past 15 years in older people,not to mention chlamydia,gonorrhea and syphilis. So while a lot of advertising is aimed at younger people about safe sex maybe it's time to try to get through to these older players without spoiling the fun in the bedroom.
As much as children don't want to think of parents having sex (with anyone) it wouldn't hurt to give a gentle reminder to mum or dad when they start seeing someone new about safe sex, as no one likes to think that one of their parents could be in those statistics.
The main thing though is to get out there back in the dating game which can be a lot of fun,no doubt about it, but I very much doubt any of these "experts" have any idea about the men or women you are likely to meet when you're on the treadmill of older dating.. All these people you meet have had life experience and some of the rules of dating certainly won't apply to some of them. Some will be desperate to replace a previous partner, while some will want to have some fun to prove that they're still attractive after coming out of an unhappy marriage. Whatever happens hopefully it will be a pleasant experience meeting new people and maybe instead of paying for a service you don't really need, you can spend it on a bit of a make over for yourself.
Good luck.