More Over Fifties Are Finding Love a Click Away

More senior and mature daters are finding the answer to meeting a soul mate online. Dating online for the over fifties is here to to stay and is taking off in great steps in the United States

WASHINGTON -- Murray Katz, 82, a retired senior federal patent-appeals examiner, has made a transition that lies ahead for millions of Americans.
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"When I was growing up, I didn't see women who were in their 60s and 70s as women," he said recently. "Now, it's amazing. The men I know are all looking at 80-year-old women. They're our friends. We listen to them. We dance with them. We have sex with them when we can. It's beyond comprehension."

For many it's simply unbelievable. But one of the things new under the sun since Kitz was a boy is an 18-year increase in U.S. life expectancy, much of it spent in healthy retired life.

Those who are living through these autumnal years of their life are doing it in the tried and tested American way: pursuing happiness. And so it is that senior citizens aren't just dating more, they're the fastest-growing users of Internet dating services and the fastest growing group of cohabiters. Who would have believed that less than ten years ago? Is Britain going to follow suit? Highly likely. That's why websites such as Nifty Fifty, the over fifties dating agency will become more and more popular.

To be sure, older men remain in short supply and millions of widows decide that meeting one man's needs was enough. A few million more are ailing beyond caring. Still, there are more couples than ever like Eleanor Robinson and John Kunec.

She's 85, a Scrabble player, poet and table tennis champ whose social hub is the bustling Holiday Park Senior Center in Wheaton, Md., just north of Washington.

He's 83, fit and friendly, a retired government accountant.

Both are widowed.

As surely as she carries his harmonica in her tote bag and they finish each other's sentences and watch ballgames together, they're a couple.

"I never had a relationship such as I have now," confided Robinson, a Roman Catholic from West Philadelphia who married at 19 and was widowed 54 years later.

"It's like I'm a kid," she said. "When I'm with him, I'm caring for him, and when I'm not with him, I'm thinking about him."

Her man -- still a term in their set -- had less to say. But Kunec's a fine harmonica player, and the first tune out of his mouth during the break at a senior centre dance was an impressive rendition of Ray Charles' hit "I Can't Stop Loving You."

However, the couples remain living in their own, sperate home and marriage isn't something they seriously consider. "The complications wouldn't be worth it," Robinson said. "I've limited income that I've decided to share with my grandchildren, and I wouldn't want to interfere with his family."

Reduce the ages by a decade or more and increase this by several million and you have an insight into what the mature dating overfifties and over sixties folk are up to, or at least, would like to be up to.

A muh healthier and longer life expectancy is part of the explanation. There are also considerably more men around these days due to better working conditions, much better health facilities and medication

Seniors, such as the over fifties group, are also are ealthier, their constant-dollar incomes more than triple what they were in 1960. Sex is most definitely not ruled out these days thanks to viagra and other drugs and solutions to erectile dysfunction which about 14% of senior men use, according to an AARP study.

Finding partners is easier, too, with the Internet being a superior resource to barstools or the friends of friends. According to Mark Brooks, a consultant and newsletter writer who tracks the Internet-dating industry, the number of seniors joining online dating services has risen at double-digit rates annually since 2003, the most of any age group.

But attitude changes are probably the biggest factor in their expanding social lives.

A generation ago, romance among the elderly was derided, said Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist who's studied dating among older adults.

"Falling in love at an elderly age was seen as somewhere between unwise and dementia," she said.

Having said all that, remarriage is fraught with dangers; it can threaten pentions, cause unrest with children, especially with the thought of inheritances being lost so remarriage is flat amongst this over fifty and beyond dating set.

But, according to Susan Brown, a demographer at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, cohabiting among older people increased 50% from 2000 to 2006, based on census figures.

The total - 1.8 million - counts only couples who live together full time and were willing to admit it to census interviewers. Part-time cohabiting -- traveling together, sharing a summer house, spending weekends together -- is up at least as sharply, according to seniors.

Having a family that is open to over fifties moving into a new era where online dating and the use of online dating agencies or a dating agency are OK is crucial.

"The need for approval and support from their children is really large," he said. "No matter how deeply they love in late life, the importance of the love of their kids never diminishes."