CLAUDIA

I met someone for coffee and he brought water with him. And I said to him, "are you going
to pay for my coffee?" And he said, "If I don't pay for your coffee, what's the outcome?" I
said, "we're done."

LAURA STASSI
Dating does not get easier as you get older. Sorry!

ROBERT
My dates haven't met my expectations. Let me put it that way.

DEBBIE
I don't want to date anymore. I said no, no, no.

LAURA STASSI
This is Dating While Gray, the grown-ups guide to love sex and relationships. I’m Laura
Stassi. I was married for almost 30 years before getting divorced. It wasn't my idea, but I
probably should've seen it coming. I fought hard to keep it together. Aren't you supposed
to stick together no matter what? Aren't you supposed to put your own happiness and
personal fulfillment aside for the sake of your partner, your kids? Maybe I was in denial
and truthfully kind of scared to be on my own after spending my entire adult life as part of a
couple. Being on your own means when your car breaks down on a very rainy night, the
first call you make is to a towing company. It means when your dog gets sick as you're
running out the door for a really important meeting, you're late for the meeting. And being
alone also means when there's a new movie to see or a new restaurant you want to check
out, you figure out which one of your friends might be available instead of automatically
assuming you'll have a companion. Now, four years later, I figured most of this being alone
stuff out. Maybe I wasn't completely whole when I was married. But I'm whole now and I'm
independent. I'm great on my own. But at the same time I'm ready to find someone to
share my life with. I happen to be looking for a man around my age. I'd love for him to be
smart, active and funny, reliable, and it should go without saying he needs to be available.
But how do I find him? That's what I haven't quite figured out yet.

So I started investigating. I'm a writer whose tackled a lot of big research projects. I
thought, hey, why not use my professional skills for my personal life? The first thing I
wondered was, is it even possible to find love after 50? My first interview was with a
woman who had been married and divorced three times before she turned 50. She swore
she would never get married again. But guess what? At the age of 67, she walked down
the aisle for the fourth time. They happened to meet when they were both on vacations.
How random is that? I've always believed in this idea that what's meant to be will be. Is
that enough? Or as we get older, do we need to be more intentional if we want to couple
up? So I dug around some more. Literally, there are millions of older single people out
there. Some are widowed. Some have never found that special someone and some are
like me, we're dating because we're divorced after being married for a long time. In fact,
the divorce rate for older Americans has exploded over the past several years. It even has
its own nickname, gray divorce. And it's happening all over the world: South Africa, Japan,
in Australia and England they call it silver splitting. You know, the more people I talk to, the
more I realize I'm not alone. Whether people are looking for opposite sex or same sex
partners, there's a lot of confusion out there. On this first episode: the struggles and
successes of people over 50 looking for love.
It's a Friday night and I'm at a restaurant slash sports bar a few miles from my high school
alma mater. Go Spartans! The place is jammed because a bunch of us have gathered
here for our 40th reunion. 40 years. I cannot believe it. My ex-husband is also a Spartan,
but we didn't know each other back then, even though we graduated together. I doubt he'll
show up tonight, even though he knows about it. I know he knows because I told him when
I saw him at our daughter's college graduation a few months ago. I also gave his email
address to the reunion committee. Knowing my ex, he's probably still waiting for his
engraved invitation. Sorry, I'll lay off my ex for now. I've been hearing a lot of stories about
older people reconnecting with their high school flame and living happily ever after. But I
didn't come here with that expectation. I did bring my recording equipment, though, in case
I come across some gray daters. I can't be the only one. Let's find out.

SUSAN
Hi, Laura. I'm Susan. I was only married for seven years and I've been divorced since
1988 and never got remarried. You're different when you're this age. You know, I'll be 59
next month. And I've learned to trust a little bit where as I was kind of putting everyone in
the same bucket, if I had gotten hurt from someone, I made sure that wouldn't happen. If I
thought it was, I cut it off. What I've done with this relationship is not expect anything. Take
it day by day. We're on our third year and he's younger than me. We met at work and it's,
it's going well. We'll see where it goes. Because, you know, you're into three years. I'm not
gonna wait forever. So we'll see where it goes. We have plans, but there's kind of
complicated. He's got to settle some things. And he has a child still in high school. He has
his place. I have my place. And that's another big thing. I'm a control freak. It's got to go
my way. And he's a strong personality, too. And so I've learned to let it go. I give him
control to a point. When it's abused, I speak up, you know, because you lose respect. And
respect is more than love.

BRETT
Look at all your fancy recording equipment. I'm impressed. My name is Brett. I'm on my
second marriage. I liked marriage so much I've been married twice now. Hang in there.
There's somebody for everybody. I really feel, feel that. And never give up hope. Never
give up hope. Cause at some point in my life, I was at a very low low. And I just had to pull
myself up and say, no, this is not this is not the end. I gotta pull it up and go forward. And I
did. And life couldn't be better right now.

LAURA STASSI
You wanna talk? Do you wanna talk?

HS REUNIONER
No.

LAURA STASSI
Oh, you don't wanna talk?

HS REUNIONER
About what?

LAURA STASSI
Dating While ...

HS REUNIONER
No no.

DEBBIE
Debbie, I was pretty heavy back in the day by mid 2014 when my significant passed away.
I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't like the way I felt. I lost about 20-25 pounds before I
decide to enter a gym because I felt very intimidated by looking as big as I was. I just
didn't want to go in that heavy. Met a personal trainer cause you get two free sessions
when you join the gym. After the two sessions he talked me into signing up with them and
the more I did them, the more I fell in love with weightlifting. I realized that I really wanted
to pursue a bodybuilder lifestyle. I became just became more of a gym freak and stayed at
the gym five, six days a week. You know, there's a lot of people at the gym that I'm
interested in, but at the same time, it's very hard. I feel like to have a relationship in a gym.
Everybody is looking to improve themselves, right? There are some that look at me and
are jealous. I wish that wasn't the case, but I feel that. That they think that my body looks
better than their body or whatever. And so the jealousy might hurt having a relationship.
Having a relationship outside the gym has been a struggle, too. There are people that
once in awhile ask me out. A lot of times people don't. And I think it's because they know
I'm a gym freak. I may not fit in their lifestyle. I do go out. I love to dance. I'm a big, big, big
dancer at bars. Some guys that I dance with, they think thats means something, right?
You know, that's not how it works for me. I'm not like, OK, I'm just gonna go home with you
or I'm just gonna go out with you just because I dance one dance with you. For me to go
out with somebody, I really need to know that person.

LAURA STASSI
Here's an update on Debbie. She's still bodybuilding and has even gone out on a date with
a gym buddy. As for me, I did not make any love connections. Not that night.

Before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you a quick story about how this podcast
got started. A few years ago, I was listening to WAMU in my car and I heard about the Pod
Shop, a donor supported program where I could learn how to make a podcast. I barely
knew what a podcast was, but I pitched Dating While Gray and WAMU chose me. That's
the reason I'm here today. WAMU members really did make Dating While Gray possible.
So I want to encourage you to support all the great work that WAMU does. You can click
the link in this episode's show notes or give online at WAMU.org.

Ready for a quiz? I'm going to say four names. Three of them are actual usernames of
men I came across when I tried online dating. One of the names I made up. Guess which
one I made up. McLoving. The Gentle Leo. Dr. Wood. Penguin Lust. Trick question, all of
these are actual usernames of men dating online. And let me tell you, I came across far
worse. So perhaps you can understand why I didn't stick with online dating for long. I don't
have the dedication or the stomach for it. It's so overwhelming. Not that I'm all that. But the
first time I got online, I was bombarded with emails and winks and waves and nudges and
whatever else people do to try to grab your attention. Sifting through the mess was a lot of
work that yielded a lot of horrified laughs, several first dates, but no potential partner. I
really wasn't surprised. Does anybody meet a potential partner online? Then I talked to
Michael Rosenfeld. He's a sociology professor at Stanford who did a study on how couples
meet.

MICHAEL ROSENFELD
Internet is the number one way couples meet for people of all ages. It's been the number
one way same sex couples have met for quite some time. For heterosexual couples,
meeting online has been the number one way couples meet since about 2013.

LAURA STASSI
Alright, Professor. Not that I'm skeptical. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'm skeptical.
My personal research totally contradicts your scientific findings. But it reminds me of a
man I met online. His name is Jim. And on our first and only date, he went into great detail,
describing his methodical and analytical approach to online dating. I couldn't believe he
put his faith in an algorithm over his gut. And yet maybe this is what it takes to succeed at
online dating. I decided to ask Jim about that. We didn't click, but he was a good sport
when I asked if he'd talk to me on tape. We met at a Whole Foods in Northern Virginia. It
has a rockin' happy hour on the weekends, but on this late Saturday morning there are
only some grocery shoppers with some very tired kids.

JIM
I'm Jim, I'm from Seattle. I've been in Washington, D.C. for almost 30 years. I met my my
my future now ex-wife at a at a sleazy pick up bar. We started dating and got married too
fast for the wrong reasons.

LAURA STASSI
Oh, OK. But there was something there cause.

JIM
I got something. Yeah, I got stayed married for a long time. She walked into my office at
home one day and said, “I'm moving out”. Three weeks before our 30th anniversary as I
always tell everybody I did not object.

LAURA STASSI
Ah.

JIM
We'd been living parallel lives for years.

LAURA STASSI
When did the thought enter your mind, I think I want to start dating?

JIM
Fairly quickly. I think I started dating at about three months later. Y'know that that would
some, might surprise one of my kids, not the other one and some other people. But I
mean, it was not like I needed to get over anything but the official stuff. That sounds a little
cold. I know, but it'd been, it'd been a long time of not much of a relationship at all. Before I
started I wanted, I did actually quite a bit of research in just in terms of reading different
articles because I wanted to be a, I wanted to be successful, whatever that meant. And I
wanted to be good at dating and be a good date.

LAURA STASSI
You did it by the textbook, it sounds like, about creating your profile.

JIM
I did, and also what and also what I did is I sent it to my, I sent it to my sister-in-law and
said, "please give me feedback." I got my neighbor from across the street.

LAURA STASSI
Yeah.

JIM
To come take a picture, a couple pictures of me and one with the dog, because you can
never go wrong with having a picture with your dog.

LAURA STASSI
So you were very strategic about doing this.

JIM
Well, just strategic in that. I wanted to, y'know present myself well in a way that well, would
be, you know, well received.

LAURA STASSI
Explain to me the process.

JIM
So, OK. What I did is when I set up a series of searches for myself that had the key
attributes and I didn't have a lot. You know, there's all kinds of things you can search by.
Hair color, eye color, body type. My, my my only ones were basically college degree. No
one taller than me, mostly because they weren't interested in me.

LAURA STASSI
And you would update your searches fairly regularly, right? I mean.

JIM
Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would go through it. I'd run the search and I'd look who was, you
know. Look who was there. And if I was interested. And the, one of the things I liked about
Match is it, it had the most flexible and user friendly ability to sort and look at things the
way you wanted.

LAURA STASSI
Sure.

JIM
I'm a numbers guy. And you could sort numbers in Excel. I wanted to be able to sort and
look at things in ways that I wanted to and Match allowed me to, to do that.

LAURA STASSI
I guess I wanted to believe there was something more mysterious or magical about online
dating.

JIM
I think it's both. And to me I, I really look at it as both. I mean, every every date is potential
magical opportunity.

LAURA STASSI
Did you get on thinking I just want a date? Or were you thinking I really want to find
somebody else to share the second half of my life with?

JIM
Yes, some of, some some of both. But, you know, I went out on a on on a lot of dates and
I can say in that whole time I probably only had three or four dates that I considered a bad
experience.

LAURA STASSI
I wasn't one of those three or four was I?

JIM
No, you were not. We did not we did not have.

LAURA STASSI
Let's make this clear.

JIM
We did not. We did not have a spark.

LAURA STASSI
We did not.

JIM
We did not have a match. And we communicated about that.

LAURA STASSI
Yeah.

JIM
To be honest with each other, like adults.

LAURA STASSI
Yeah.

JIM
But I had a very nice time with you.

LAURA STASSI
Yes.

JIM
We went to the Portrait Gallery, had some wine afterwards.

LAURA STASSI
I remember.

JIM
It was a nice time. But it was just
LAURA STASSI
It was fascinating from the research standpoint. One other thing you told me during the
date.

JIM
OK.

LAURA STASSI
You asked me if I knew.

JIM
Oh my god.

LAURA STASSI
What.

JIM
Oh my gosh.

LAURA STASSI
The third date rule was.

JIM
I forgot about that.

LAURA STASSI
And I said to you, you don't even think about having sex with someone until after you've
been out at least three times. And you said...

JIM
If, if a woman's not willing to sleep with you by the third date, you move on. But it was that
that's that everything that I've said comes from men's magazines. I'm quite confident that
was I forget which one, but I know I read that in. And they did have once again, what you
know after you see something.

LAURA STASSI
Right.

JIM
You see it everywhere.

LAURA STASSI
Right. Well, that's really sad because we're all grown-ups. You could have three dates in
three nights.

JIM
Yup.

LAURA STASSI
Do you know what I mean? So it's like, seriously?

JIM
So I'd, I would have to speculate that I when I asked you that question I wasn't asking you
to like to find out if that was a compatibility test.

LAURA STASSI
Oh, no, no, no.

JIM
I think it was cause we were exploring, cause you were so new to dating. We were
exploring and you were asking me questions.

LAURA STASSI
Yes, yes.

JIM
And you were trying to learn things. And I was like oh. So as you're dating.

LAURA STASSI
Yes.

JIM
You were there the third the three date rule.

LAURA STASSI
Yes.

JIM
Just to clarify for the listeners.

LAURA STASSI
It's what made you memorable. Tell me about Laura.

JIM
Laura.

LAURA STASSI
Not me Laura.

JIM
Girlfriend named Laura. Right. We met on Match. Actually, she contacted me. So, so for
all the systems in the world that you have. She contacted me.

LAURA STASSI
What was your first date like?

JIM
She was. She was 45 minutes late.

LAURA STASSI
Oh.

JIM
And she was just so impressed that I was nice and waited and didn't complain that she
was late. And I just like it's traffic in D.C.

LAURA STASSI
And how long did you date before you decided you wanted to be exclusive?

JIM
I think it was about six or seven weeks.

LAURA STASSI
Oh.

JIM
Seven or eight weeks.

LAURA STASSI
So if you don't mind me asking what came first? The commitment talk or the sex?

JIM
Oh, wow. Sex.

LAURA STASSI
Oh.

JIM
We did. But then we actually stopped having sex cause I said that I was uncomfortable
seeing more than one person and being in a sexual relationship. That's a, it's one thing to
be dating more than one person. It's another thing to be.

LAURA STASSI
Having sex with.

JIM
Sleeping with another person at the same time.

LAURA STASSI
Do you miss dating?

JIM
Not. Not really. No. I mean, the ultimate objective was a long-term relationship. And I have
a good one. With woman I love. So, no, I do not. Do not miss dating.

LAURA STASSI
Good for you.

Jim and the other Laura dated for about three years before moving in together. A year
later, Jim reports that all is well. And he is happy to be out of the gray dating scene. Can't
blame him. Clearly, online dating worked out for Jim and the other Laura. And you heard
the Stanford professor. Online dating is how most straight and gay couples of all ages get
together. But part of me is still clinging to the idea of serendipity, especially when I hear
stories like the next one.

WHITNEY
And so I started to actually time things so that I could see him take the dog for a walk and
just think this is deranged.

LAURA STASSI
That's coming up next.

This week, I'd love for you to persuade a friend to listen to Dating While Gray. Surely you
know someone trying to navigate love, sex and relationships. Pause the episode right now.
And text them the link to datingwhilegray.com.

Losing a partner is devastating no matter how old you are. And maybe at this age, it's easy
to slip into thinking I'll never find love again. But you never know what will happen next.
Meet Blair.

BLAIR
Married for 35 years. Three kids. We moved up here for a job change September of 2013.
And just as we were coming up here, we learned my wife had brain cancer. She passed
away in January of 2015.

LAURA STASSI
Blair lives in an apartment building in Maryland.

BLAIR
This apartment building has a shuttle van and it was a, believe it was a Friday afternoon.
And I got on the van and Whitney was on the van with her parents and her partner at the
time. I was just kind of really taken by her beauty immediately.
LAURA STASSI
Whitney also lives in that apartment building. She's been divorced for a while, moved here
from up north for the job of her dreams. She has a long-distance boyfriend and he keeps
breaking promises to end the long-distance thing by moving down here for good.

WHITNEY
Sounds crazy. I just remember this jolt like, wow, wow. Something about this man.

BLAIR
After that, walking Linus periodically. And I would run into Whitney when she would be
coming home from work or out running errands or something. And it would be a nice sort
of chance meeting. I have to say, I was kind of looking for her to, to come by any time I
was out there walking the dog.

WHITNEY He'd say, "maybe we should get together for a cup of coffee sometime or a glass
of wine." And I would say, "oh, I'm out of town. I'm really sorry." Because I was in this
relationship. My job as a medical reporter took me all over the place. I was virtually never
home. I was really concerned with just, you know, I was already there was separation
between me and, and the man I was I was seeing. So I would not telegraph at all that I
had had that zing and was really attracted to Blair.

BLAIR
I met some women in bars, but nothing ever developed. I was always hoping that Whitney
would be available or interested.

WHITNEY
I started to enlist friends in the building and I'd say, "let's get together on the roof," cause,
you know, we have this beautiful roof and view and we have this sun deck. And I'd bake
something for dinner or I'd, you know, or I'd, we'd have wine. And, and I truly actually
thought this man is probably lonely and it probably would be very nice for him to have
somewhere to go and people to talk to. So I started inviting him to join myself and other
women in the building and other friends in the building. Every time he came up, I noticed
that he was completely impeccable and he was just always such a gentleman. Impeccably
dressed. He was impeccably clean shaven and not a hair out of place. I know this man is
courting me.

BLAIR
She was absolutely right. I was trying to make myself look and present myself as best I
could knowing I was gonna see her.

WHITNEY
All the women in building are in love with him, too. And they would see us up on the roof
and they they just would say, "oh, my goodness, he's the cutest thing, he's so wonderful,
he's so lovely."

BLAIR
One time she was saying how she was frustrated that her y'know boyfriend was y'know up
in New Jersey and not willing to come down. And I said to her, "I can't understand how a
man wouldn't wanna spend as much time with you as possible. How they could stay away
and not want to be with you all the time." I said, "I can't understand how a man could know
you as well as he does, or even as I do, which isn't as much. And not wanna spend all the
time he could with you."
WHITNEY
I had moved recently into an apartment that gave me a view of the street. I noticed more
and more that I was able to see Blair taking the dog out for a walk. And so I started to
actually time things so that I could see him take the dog for a walk and just think this is
deranged what I'm doing this crazy. Normal people don't do this like wait to go to work
until they've seen the guy walk out with the dog. It really started to make me panic that
other women were gonna see what I saw. I just started thinking, how could this man stay
free? I started really getting sad because I started thinking, I really like this man. And one
day, Blair was walking into the building as I was walking out. And I don't really even quite
know why I did this, but I put my arm through his arm. I said, "I've been meaning to talk to
you. Could you walk with me?" And I said.

BLAIR
Turned me right around.

WHITNEY
"Every time you ask me out for coffee or for wine. I'm not a flake. I know what you're really
asking me. And I'm not telling you no, it's just I need some time."

BLAIR
Got a text from her. “Okay. You can take me out to dinner now. It's Okay.” So we went out
and we had a wonderful time talking and we were just really connecting. And at one point I
reached my arm under the table. I said, "do you mind if I hold your hand?" And it was just
it was really electrifying. And then Whitney sang me a couple of songs from The Sound of
Music.

WHITNEY
Well, I don't remember what prompted that but all of a sudden I found myself sitting there
singing to him and he was astounded.

BLAIR
You got a beautiful singing voice. She does. She sang Edelweiss.

WHITNEY
Edelweiss, Edelweiss.

BLAIR
I knew I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. I knew that this was a person I didn't
want to let go or wasn't gonna take lightly. I also knew I probably had grown emotionally
and emotionally matured from my first, from, from being married, that there were probably,
you know, my wife used to accuse me of sometimes not sharing my emotions as much
and, when after she was gone. And I thought if I ever found the right person, I wasn't going
to let the opportunity go by without making sure that I really let my emotions be known.

WHITNEY
From the beginning, I would say, "alright, here's everything you want to know about me, all
the ugly stuff, all the bad stuff, all the scary things, all the things that I still, you know, don't
talk about. My shames, my fears, things that happen to me that you probably aren't gonna
believe. But it's true. It did." You know, like all of it. Just download, get it out of the way.
Get it up front. Do you still want to be with me? And his response after a few days of kind
of unloading all that was, "I want you to know I love you so much that you can take all the
love now and go back in the past and just pour all the love I have for you over everything
that hurt and let it fill those cracks. Just know that you're gonna get to this point. You're
going to be OK." I was a single woman doing her thing and succeeding and he came
along at a point in my life where I didn't need him. And I actually used to say that to him, "I
don't need you."

BLAIR
She's lovely. She's funny, she's fun, bright, caring, emotional. By the way I've got a list on
my phone of over 40 adjectives, I think, that describe Whitney.

WHITNEY
It really was this energy that Blair brought to my life. And everyone sees that I'm whole.
And I didn't need this man, but maybe I really did.

LAURA STASSI
Blair and Whitney got married. They had a small ceremony with just their family, including
Whitney's son and Blair's kids. They were all thrilled. And Whitney 's ex-husband and her
former long-distance boyfriend both sent their best wishes. Whitney changed her last
name to Blair’s, and after the honeymoon, they moved in together into an apartment in the
building where they used to be just neighbors.

Sometimes dating feels so daunting to me. It's a really big world out there. Finding the
right person is going to take a whole lot of effort and time, maybe money, disappointment
and heartbreak and anxiety. Or I'll have to figure out exactly where to stand so that when
my special someone falls out of the sky, he will land right on top of me in a good way. But,
you know, I'm not complaining. It's exciting to be having so many new experiences at this
stage of life. I'm doing things I've never done before. I'm meeting people I never would
have met had I remained coupled whether there are potential partners or friends. I've
expanded my circle. I've built a new community.

Dating While Gray is produced by Poncie Rutsch, Patrick Fort, Ruth Tam, Julia Karron and
me, Laura Stassi. Our theme music is by Daniel Peterschmidt and Mike Kidd mixes the
show. WAMU'S general manager is J.J. Yore and Andi McDaniel oversees everything we
make here. We'd love to hear from you. Send an email to datingwhilegray@wamu.org or
follow us on Facebook. Search for Dating While Gray and like our Facebook page. Or you
can see what I'm up to on Twitter @datingwhilegray. Dating While Gray would not be
possible without the support of listeners like you. Support our work right now at
WAMU.org. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with more stories of Dating
While Gray.