The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Online dating in my mid-fifties

The author, as seen on Hinge. Photo (cropped to fit properly here) at home, taken by my best friend, three months ago.

After two recent relationships that didn’t work out—and the odd flash-in-the-pan romance that was never even likely to—I find myself back on the dating apps again, two years after first arriving in Australia. Many well-meaning people have tried to discourage me from looking for love via this unlikely method. “You should meet organically, in real life,” I’m told. But there can’t be any should about it, since this is not something within my control.

For although I am a highly gregarious person and I meet interesting people both through my work and through various sociable hobbies—especially hiking and dancing—all the time, almost none of those people are male, close or close-ish to my age and single. And those are just the starting conditions for romance the necessary, though not sufficient conditions—before you factor in all the other things that must align: being open to the possibility of a relationship in general and then specifically liking each other, finding each other attractive and being in the same part of the world. The same general part, at least. I would move to another Australian city or divide my time between here and there, for love—but that already rules out 99.66 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

Added to that, I dislike the feeling of mining my real-life acquaintanceships for potential partners. Paradoxically, one of the things I love about being in a relationship is that when I meet a new man who seems intellectually stimulating, fun, sweet or otherwise like a potential friend, I evaluate him purely on the basis of who he is. I'm not glancing discreetly at his left hand; I’m not keeping my ears open for any allusion to a girlfriend; I’m not slicking down stray eyebrow hairs and reapplying lipgloss during a toilet break. I feel completely relaxed: there's nothing at stake here, as only good things can come of this new acquaintanceship, not disappointment. The dating apps are not replete with potential partners, either, but, unlike real life, I can prefilter for men my age, single and—at least according to their own declarations—looking for a serious relationship.

Younger people or those lucky enough to have avoided the apps often think that they discourage commitment because they offer a never-ending smorgasbord of possibilities with more banchans than a Korean wedding feast. But by your mid-fifties, you will probably find that the buffet has been picked over and you are a harried wedding guest, who has missed the dinner service and is now standing in front of a crumb-strewn tablecloth full of congealed dishes, leery yet starving. And yet, as in some surreal nightmare, you are one of those congealed dishes.

It does not help that the apps don’t present you with a fresh set of people each time you log on—swiping left (which signals rejection) makes no difference; every time approximately eighty percent of the faces you see are familiar and perhaps twenty percent are new. I know this is the result of an algorithm but somehow it always feels personally vindictive. “I know you rejected these guys last time,” the apps seem to be telling me, “but perhaps you’re growing desperate enough now to give them a shot.”

(That the apps drip-feed new people to their users is in some ways a blessing, however. I don’t want to get too deeply into the technical minutiae here, especially since they differ—though only slightly—from one platform to another, but it’s impossible to doomscroll on these apps all day. Generally, after a maximum of twenty to thirty minutes, you are effectively asked to pay extra money to continue or cut off.)

I have only myself to blame—if anyone is to blame at all—for being in this situation. In my twenties and thirties, I was in relationships that could have lasted and that broke down for reasons that were mostly my own fault. I’m a late bloomer in this and many other ways. I’ve been very slow to mature emotionally. And talking purely statistically—there are honourable exceptions, of course—the people who are the most emotionally stable, especially if they are fortunate enough to be attractive and intelligent, get married early and stay married. They are blessed.

Of course, that still leaves many people like me who have been married and are now divorced. Some of those people are now wary of commitment; others are absorbed in the role of a parent and don’t want anyone else to be so important enough in their lives that they might take time or money away from their children. And then there are some who have never been married and who have avoided wedlock because they are averse to commitment. But among all these, there are some of us out there who are hoping for a second round, a triumph of hope over experience, or who just want the kind of physical and mental intimacy and companionship that loving friends and affectionate dogs cannot provide.

I’ve written about some of the problems with dating apps in a previous post (linked below) and I don’t want to repeat the points I make there. But I think the most important casualty of their continued use is enthusiasm. It’s hard to feel excitement when you know how poor the odds of success are in any single case. Most interactions on dating apps fizzle out very quickly. You match, you exchange a few sentences—perhaps you speak over the phone—and then there comes the point when you ask a question and there is no reply and your sent message lingers there on your WhatsApp screen (or on the app itself) with those two bright blue ticks beside it, indicating that it has been read and received, while the radio silence grows longer and longer, as if you were on distant planets and only able to communicate during a brief interval in which orbits aligned.

This is almost equally true if you progress to the stage of meeting in public. In a past that has begun to feel increasingly distant, I would have butterflies in my stomach before a date and spend a lot of time changing outfits, agonising over lipstick colours, trying to fluff my ultra-fine hair up into something resembling airy curls. Now, I approach a first date with all the enthusiasm of someone going to a job interview—for a job they think they are unlikely to get and don't even know if they want anyway. And I’ve learned the hard way that “I would love to see you again” doesn't mean that you will see the person again and that even being kissed on the lips doesn't signify any special interest. And those are the cases in which I would like to see the man again—and those cases are in the minority. It’s not that I have a laundry list of requirements: I would simply like a man who is intelligent, kind and attractive to me and who is open to the idea of a lifelong partnership. But those four parameters create a Venn diagram with only a very modest area of overlap.

Most single people who begin relationships in their forties and fifties meet on apps. My own acquaintances have been part of this trend. The majority of couples in this age group whom I know met on apps. Many of them are now living together, engaged or married. I don't believe the apps are some kind of a curse, that they will prevent you from being happy together, if you meet the right person. But I do find them dispiriting in the extreme—despite the fact that I've had no truly bad experiences. Mostly, I’ve just encountered a succession of people with whom I found it very difficult to sustain a conversation and had a lot of mildly awkward encounters.

Whenever I’m in a bad mood—whenever I feel low or grumpy or frustrated—I can almost always trace it to this source. Repeated mild disappointments will sap your joie de vivre. Looking through a couple of dozen people in the morning to find no one you would want to date will give you a keen sense of the unlikelihood of finding love ever, at all. And spotting someone who does spark your interest and being rejected by them is even worse. Being turned down for a job or an apartment may sting, but in dating the other person is evaluating not just one aspect of you, but your appearance, personality and character as a whole. “You? Nah, I’ll pass.” That is hard to hear, however politely the message is couched, however sensitively it is delivered.

I persevere for this reason: I am and have always been happiest when I have my person: a lover, a companion, a witness, an ally, a constant. Nothing can replace that. Gerard Manley Hopkins—who chose celibacy—once wrote in his diary that “Not to love my University would be to undo the very buttons of my being.” I feel the same way about this: my desire for sexual and romantic love feels structural, load-bearing. I not only won’t give up hope—I can’t.