Hoyt: 0:03

This is Behind the Swipe, a podcast that takes you inside the lives of real men and women over 40 who have taken the plunge into the often murky and sometimes exhilarating world of online dating. Each week we explore new topics through the experiences and expectations of real online daters just like you. I'm your host, hoit Preissach. Join me as we peel back the one-dimensional dating profiles to discover the real men and women behind the swipe. We all have an idealized image of who our Mr or Ms Right will be the perfect fit for us. In a perfect world, we would all find soulmates that check every last one of those boxes in our Romantic Partner Shopping List. There's only one problem with that we're all human beings. We each carry our own very personal sets of physical attributes, personality traits that invariably come with quirks and flaws and messy histories. So if perfection in a romantic partner is unattainable, then we must learn to navigate differences. But we all have red lines, non-negotiables and never's. We all have our sets of must-haves that we refuse to relinquish. How do we strike the balance? Author Jody Picot perhaps said it best you don't love someone because they're perfect. You love them in spite of the fact that they're not. Today's episode is on dating with differences. It works and what does not.

Hoyt: 1:56

My guest co-host today is a woman I've been looking forward to having on this show since Behind the Swipe was launched. She is Karen Hadigan, author of Secrets of Dating After 50, the Insider's Guide to Finding Love Again. Karen has been a TV comedy writer, amateur actor, hippie tree planner and real estate investor Just writing this witty and charming book. Karen has blogged extensively for the dating site ZUSC and frequently conducts workshops on dating for those of us in the second half of life. I am so happy today to be joined by Karen Hadigan. I told you a little bit about Karen's book in the opening. The book is Secrets of Dating After 50, the Insider's Guide to Finding Love Again. And Karen, welcome first of all.

Karen: 2:49

Thank you for coming. It's great to be here.

Hoyt: 2:51

I love talking about this your book was, in no small part, the inspiration for me doing this podcast. I love it Because, when it was an idea and I was kicking it around, I went out and bought a few books and yours was probably the first one that I've read and it was so charming, so packed full of really useful information, but delivered in such a humorous and story-focused way that I just loved it and I said all right, I could make episodes out of every chapter of this book. So thank you for writing it for me. You're welcome for the outline. So, karen, tell me a little bit about you and about what inspired you to write this book.

Karen: 3:37

Well, I think, like a lot of us, after I was married for 17 years and came out of that marriage in a divorce and was 64 at the time, coincidentally so I got to sing myself the Beatles song Will you Still Need Me? And I was very nervous and scared about what I was going to do, because I'm a people person and I do well in couple them, and I wanted to be back there and didn't know how I was going to get there. But the actual idea for the book came when I happened to be hanging out with another girlfriend who was also in the same situation dating. We used to hike together a lot and tell our stories and, while the situations can be difficult and challenging, while you're in them, if you can share them with somebody, you see actually the humor in it and the challenge of what you're trying to do. And it really helped with motivation to keep on until you find somebody.

Karen: 4:36

And I've been a writer all my life, published some educational books but nothing like this before. But I write a lot of memoir stories. And she ran into a guy on a date she was having who said I've been married for 30 years. I don't know how to do this. I wish there was a book. She said, karen, you should write the book, and suddenly I saw it. I mean, I almost saw that same outline that you're referring to. It's like, yeah, this, this, this, this, and maybe by writing it I can help people avoid some of the traps I fell into or at least feel okay about themselves when they do. And I think that's the biggest feedback I've gotten about it is that, thank you, I don't feel alone, I'm not crazy. This happens to other people. Just have to keep going.

Hoyt: 5:24

And there are really so many differences. I think when you're dating in the second half of life after a long relationship, then it might have been like in your twenties and thirties. So like what is it for you that was fundamentally different in that experience of dating again after 60?

Karen: 5:45

I'm not going to go to a bar, I'm not raising a child, so I'm not running into other single parents. I mean, a lot of your social networks have changed and for the most part, I was living in a community where everybody was coupled up, so there weren't a lot of opportunities. I tried meet up groups and guess what? 80% women, 20% men. So I was not nervous to try this because I actually had met my first husband online Back, when there were no photos, there was nothing.

Karen: 6:16

It was like the original Craigslist you put a post, you wrote something and somebody answered or they didn't. So I had faith that it could happen, because it happened to me once and I had a determination and I think that's what it takes. There's a lot of people that I've talked to, a lot of clients that I had who were very easily discouraged. I tried it. It didn't work for me, or I tried it and the guy was a jerk and I'm not doing this again. But when you're determined, it's the people who are like just get back up. Just get back, take a break if you need to, but get back up and keep doing it and hopefully you'll find somebody. I did.

Hoyt: 6:55

And so today I'd like to talk about a particular set of topics and I call it a set of topics because I'm lumping this under the category of when you have an early relationship and there are fundamental differences of some kind between you and that person, like how do you navigate those? So there are their age difference, there's energy match differences, there are lifestyle differences and you've identified a few more of those right Financial differences. All of these kinds of things, if not discussed in the early relationship, if not brought out on the table, can create conflict and distance, and so I want to explore some of those differences that people encounter and what's a deal breaker and what can be worked with.

Karen: 7:50

Yeah, I think it's different for everybody. Your own deal breaker list and what works and what doesn't may even change depending on who you're dating and where you are in the dating cycle. Luckily, the dating sites, if you're doing it online, like I did, help you screen out a lot of the differences that are deal breakers right up front. Do you sculpt, do you not? Where do you live? How old are you? How tall are you? I mean, we'll have deal breakers about all sorts of things what religion, politics A lot of that can be weeded out early if that's important to you. So you have a basis to go on and in my mind, that's what makes it better than going to a bar. You don't know anything about the person, except you know if you think they're cute or something. So with that baseline then you usually start to reach out, and I encourage women to reach out to men online. It's a new world. Don't wait for them to come to you.

Karen: 8:43

I have developed over time questions to ask people that would get at things like that. What did you do for a living? If finances are important to you, that might give you an idea. How do you feel about moving if there's a long distance thing? Would you ever move?

Karen: 9:00

It's hard to ask some of the other questions but, for instance, one of the things for me was I didn't think I was interested in somebody who'd never been married and never had children. And then I met this guy and I don't remember if he said it in his profile, but I found out fairly quickly he had never been married and didn't have children. But he was a delightful person and we dated for a couple of months and I'm all about my granddaughter that I'm there all the time or spend all my energy on her. I love her to death. It's kind of important when I talk about her or go to visitor that my partner be interested in that.

Karen: 9:38

And there was just like it wasn't that he wasn't interested. It said he didn't know how to be interested in that kind of relationship. So I saw that difference starting to emerge. But that wasn't enough to break it up. He was very. Then it came out that financially, yes, he was a homeowner but he was mortgaged to the Hilton he had didn't have two nickels to rub together. So I was like there's that.

Karen: 10:06

And so the difference is, rather than being like one thing and you're gone, started to pile up and I said you know what? This isn't my person, as sweet as he is and as nice as he is, and as many things that we do have in common. Some of these are now becoming important and lifestyle things that I don't think. This is my person.

Hoyt: 10:26

So that was just too many straws on the camel's back.

Karen: 10:29

And you weigh it against what's the quality of the relationship?

Hoyt: 10:32

because if there's that spark that can keep you going even when there are significant differences, Speaking of those kind of differences, you were telling me that you are now in a relationship and there are, in fact, some differences for you. Can you tell us your story there?

Karen: 10:48

Yeah, the guy that I'm with now. We started off, as most people do, by connecting online. We lived far enough away that it was, you know, a drive, but you could do it in a day and so the distance wasn't a huge problem. But it was like not my hometown, which is okay. I lived in a small town. He was very funny in his text. He had a sort of sarcastic edge, which is my style, and so very quickly we were joking back and forth and having this very sparky kind of text relationship and then we met each other and kept up.

Karen: 11:25

He's very chatty, he's very outgoing. I like an outgoing social person and I guess I made some assumptions about that. So we start dating, we're having a great time and eventually there's some festival or something. Because I'm left to go to concerts, festivals, dancing, and he said I don't dance, but you know what I'll learn for you. That's very sweet. But then it came time to go to the festival. He's like I hate festivals. I'm like, why, why? Oh, I don't like crowds. I'm like but you're a social person. He goes, yeah, but give me like two people to talk to or a small dinner party.

Lyla: 11:59

I don't want to.

Karen: 12:01

So, I had to think about it. I'm like wow that's like a big part of who I am, but in my mind also it goes back to this person can't be everything, so I'll go to festivals with my girlfriends, okay, so he likes to be active. We did a few kind of sporty things together, but he was an athlete in his younger life and he had a ton of injuries and a ton of surgeries.

Karen: 12:26

And pretty soon that started to raise itself up as an issue. He had to get injections. Suddenly he can't hike, he can't well, he's in pain for a week, and I think this is not just in particular to our situation. But we're not in great shape in our seventies and you're going to be watching each other decline. You know we laugh about I'm a quarter-wit and you're a quarter-wit and together we're a half-wit. You know, did you remember? Oh, I felt you have to know if you want to deal with that In terms of people's health issues, they could have something chronic. His cousin goes, so we try and take it much of it when he's feeling well and not in pain. But I kept doing this for a while, and he too. There was things about my temper that he had problems with, but I think in the end we found we were both sufficiently enamored of each other and had a great time together, and then the final piece was being committed to working it out. So okay.

Hoyt: 13:28

Well, that's really important. So how did you do that? Obviously, these things reveal themselves over time. It's not part of the resume that you are reviewing.

Karen: 13:39

The laundry list.

Hoyt: 13:41

The laundry list. So they revealed themselves, and how have you found the best way to bring those issues to the table?

Karen: 13:50

Well, some of them bring themselves to the table because you're having a problem and obviously things are not right. You hear what I call in the book the glitch. It's like oh, we're having a fight, the first fight. How are we going to handle it? And we did not handle it well at first. He had a tendency to go silent. A lot of people are like nothing's wrong, but you know, something's wrong.

Hoyt: 14:16

It might be because he's a man, but you know there's that.

Karen: 14:18

Yeah, and women are more familiar with the whole feeling side of life in general. So it was always, I think, a matter of discussing it, sometimes not very skilled, and we waited. We learned to wait till we calmed down because when you're agitated you don't behave your best and when we talked it through it was very satisfying and with that as a basis it was like okay, like we can take on other issues. But the balance always seemed to be more fun than problems. When it gets to be more problems and fun, then I think something's wrong.

Hoyt: 14:55

So another kind of difference and I can attest to this directly and meaningfully is dating with an age difference, and I've heard this from many people that they say, no, I only want to date somebody that's three years this way and three years that way for me, and you know, good luck to them. Oftentimes that works out, but I think that for many people they're excluding some really great potential partners for themselves. A little over four years ago I was on Bumble. My now wife, katie, was on Bumble. There is a 12-year age difference.

Karen: 15:35

I take that she's younger than you. Yes, she's younger.

Hoyt: 15:39

I'll tell you the female side of that later. I would love to hear that For her. She had created this profile on Bumble and I literally made the age cut by 45 days. Had I been 45 days older I would never have shown up on her profile and we were one of those magical stories. But the difference for us manifested itself in ways that had more to do with other people's perceptions of that age difference than how we match with each other. So it was really more of an energy match for us. I could keep up with this Spitfire redheaded woman and thank God for that. So age difference works in that way and it also sort of works in the other way. But there are ways that it doesn't work. Where that age difference? Because there's a cultural sort of mismatch. So you don't like the same music I like. We've got different tastes in movies and television.

Karen: 16:52

And you don't know why I'm obsessed with wood stocked.

Hoyt: 16:55

Right. So do you have experience with an age difference dating?

Karen: 16:59

Yes, I was one of those people because, as a woman getting older and older, I was aware that men tend to go to fall apart more quickly, and so I was like I don't want to guide. It's 10 years older than me, so the older I got, the more my age range shrunk down, and by the time I was 70, I was looking for men 68 to 74. That was it.

Hoyt: 17:28

Uh-huh.

Karen: 17:29

Yeah, and I was stretching to go to 74. But there were a couple of guys and God bless them who said I don't care about age. That's not a big deal to me, but most of them were. One of them very bluntly said you're too old. I looked like two years older than him. I didn't know that again. So I think, culturally, men have the benefit of being able to reach back fairly far and women are still interested in them. Women do not have that. So how it plays out I think depends, like you said. How important is it that she doesn't have the music that I have? How important are any of these things when there's a really good connection? But I think we all have to decide that for ourselves and see how much we're willing to stretch and what kind of accommodations we want to make.

Hoyt: 18:23

I had heard someone Karen tell me that their belief was that men are more visually focused, which is why, if they can, they tend to date women that are younger, where women are looking for a broader set of qualities in a human being it flipped out.

Karen: 18:44

I said we're looking for substance.

Hoyt: 18:48

And occasionally you can find all of those in the same package.

Karen: 18:53

No, it's true, I've had some clients who were. I was looking online with them, helping them to select. They would be like she looks like a grandmother, she looks way too old. They did a lot of that and there was actually one guy by the time we got to phone calls and he heard my voice. He said oh, thank God you don't have an old lady voice, because I can't do that. I just get date woman who's what is becoming all late in voice. I'm like, wow, you guys.

Karen: 19:18

But you know, one of the points that that makes is you have to develop a tough exterior and be confident in yourself so to be able to laugh at the guy who says you're too old and go, that's fine, you're not my person, keep looking. Or the one who says, oh, lady voice, not going there, it's like, okay, fine, there will be some. But it is tough because our age shows and that's why, when I've talked to people and I even say this in the book quite frequently is that the websites that I think older people do well are the ones that focus more on the profile and your interests and or so photo reliant, although bumble is that?

Hoyt: 19:57

Oh, that's interesting.

Karen: 19:59

I don't have any room to write anything. Correct, it's very photo oriented, so I tended to stick with things that are sites that would let you write fairly long descriptions and had some questions about yourself that you could answer. So if somebody could get themselves past your photo and learn out who you are, you have a better chance of making that connection, and it's also why I tell women reach out to guys, because if your picture hasn't caught their interest, maybe your opening text will.

Hoyt: 20:32

Well, that's a great point and it's great advice. So, of those sites, what in your mind sort of fits that category today? I would think of something like eHarmony, or you know some of those more in-depth.

Karen: 20:44

Interesting. Eharmony was a big bust for me. I don't know. I usually end up when I was online. I would do more than one site. I would take a short subscription and just see what was happening and I think the most common one, the kind of mothership is a match.

Karen: 21:04

I also had success sometimes on Zeus, and there was another one oh the OK Cupid which I thought was brilliant for the way that they had an endless number of questions that got at your lifestyle, your values, your habits, your preferences. Are you a slob or a neat person, Do you wake up early or are you night owl? You can go on forever and they then algorithmically send you people who are better meant. But the problem with that site also was they gave you lots of features you could use without paying, so there were a lot of guys who were just playing around on there.

Karen: 21:45

Oh I see I got a lot of not serious stuff.

Hoyt: 21:49

They're not serious because they're not paying anything for it. They don't want to stay in the game and they're completely broke, which I'm sorry.

Karen: 21:55

guys who don't have money, it's an issue.

Hoyt: 22:00

That is a perfect segue, because I had an opportunity to chat with a woman named Lila who has a good fortune of being fairly well situated financially, even though her profession would indicate that she's not a woman of means, so of means. So I want you to hear what she's got to say, then we'll talk about this.

Lyla: 22:26

Great.

Sharon: 22:29

I've always had a financial safety net and when I got into dating, the men I was dating didn't necessarily have that. I like creative guys, they're self-employed and it got to the point where it was awkward with one of my boyfriends because we'd go to dinner and I'd get a margarita and I'd see him get nervous about it and that wasn't the reason we broke up, but it was part of the puzzle that led into our lifestyles not mixing and I also couldn't rely on him to show up on time for dinner because he hadn't finished his job for the day. He didn't end at five, he just worked 24-7 and took naps whenever and stressed himself out about finances and I couldn't do anything to help and that made for a bad relationship for us. I start to feel uncomfortable about our financial differences. If they feel uncomfortable about it, and typically because of the patriarchy, men expect in their brain to be the more financially secure person and so when the woman is, it just kind of nudges on them a bit and if it consistently does that, the relationship is doomed.

Hoyt: 23:53

Do you approach dealing with those kind of differences once you begin dating?

Sharon: 23:59

At this point I have found that I need to be focusing on dating people who are financially stable, not because I have a judgment towards those who are less financially stable, but for not a match if one of us is always worried about dinner or can't go to a concert. So now I just specifically look for people who do have that part of their life stabilized.

Hoyt: 24:26

So you might prefer to go to a nice restaurant that you could afford to go to and then, being the guy, he's thinking, well, I'm going to pick up the check here because that's what I do as a man and that might push the boundaries of his comfort level with his finances. Do you deal with situations like that?

Sharon: 24:45

Yes, you don't find out that you are overspending quote, unquote until they make the face and you've already ordered something. So now you already ordered it and you're both just pretending that they didn't make that. This is not going to work out for me. Face, the panic face. I did go on a date recently with someone who was financially stable and we went to a nicer restaurant than I'm used to going to and we ordered really nice things and I made a panic space and he was like oh, I need to be very clear, this is on me, and that was completely different for me. I'm used to being the receiver of the panic face.

Sharon: 25:22

So, it does go both ways. You can't tell someone's finances on day one of dating them. But it's not a comfortable dinner moment, that's for sure.

Hoyt: 25:34

So, karen, this sort of flips the script a little bit on the whole notion of gold digger world, because here she is with the wherewithal and that's creating barriers for her. It sounds like she's taking the right approach and saying, ok, well, I need to take a few of these issues off the table, but for more and more successful women, that's got to be the reality for them.

Karen: 26:02

Well, and I think there's a lot of ways to look at financially stable, because you could be stable in that, let's say, you own a house and you have a pension income, but it's not a high income. It seems that what we want to do, what most of us want to do, is find that place where the water is equal. You know, maybe we both are in that situation. Then it works. You're both financially stable, but you're not financially loose. You can't go to the high end restaurants, but it's OK with both of you because you're at a different level. So I know that that was one of my deal breakers too. I felt like I'd lost already half my kingdom in the divorce. I would really like somebody who was at about the same level. It didn't have to be rich, and I didn't want to be at the other end either, and it didn't have to be exactly what I had, but somebody who could live in a proximate lifestyle like I was used to. And it shows up with things like travel. You know, if somebody is not able to travel and you really like to travel and you have the means to travel, are you going to pay for them to travel? Are you not going to travel anymore? Are you going to travel with different people?

Karen: 27:21

I know a guy who I was coaching for a while. He ran into a woman with quite a bit of money and he was comfortable, he had money to burn and she had a lot of money and she was kind of personally, let's go to Paris for the weekend. And he stumbled over that for a little bit and I think they finally talked about it. I don't know if they did on the first trip where he tried to contribute, but she said look, this is where I'm at financially and I don't have a problem. If you can keep up with that, come along, I'll pay for it. No big deal. He didn't last, but that wasn't the reason that they broke out.

Hoyt: 27:58

So you do see more and more of that, don't you? Well, this is probably a good opportunity for us to take a quick break here, and after the break I want to come back and talk about, maybe, some of the more hopeful sides of managing these differences. We'll hear from another gator, and then I want to ask you a couple of questions about your book too. Okay, great.

Hoyt: 28:16

So we'll be back in a minute. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend Podcast Movement in Denver, colorado, where I met a ton of great and very interesting podcasters that were doing fantastic work, and I thought why not bring some of those programs to your attention here at Behind the Swipe? So today I'm pleased to have with me Randy Schultz. Randy is the cohost of Camp Codger. Randy, can you tell our audience about Camp Codger Camp?

Karen: 28:52

Codger is rocking chair wisdom from three old guys. We decided the world needs a place where older folks can go a podcast to listen to as we embrace getting older with humor, grace and a willingness to keep learning. So we have done shows on everything from e-bikes and sex for seniors to the tribute to Jimmy Buffett. One of my favorite shows was about decluttering how to get rid of the stuff in your life, in your garage, in your attic, in your spare bedroom.

Hoyt: 29:25

Well, Randy, tell us how to find the podcast Camp.

Karen: 29:28

Codger is wherever you get your podcasts. Go to campcodgercom and hit subscribe, and you'll get an email every time we drop an episode. Come visit us at camp, as we say.

Hoyt: 29:40

That's fantastic, randy. Thanks for coming today. Thank you. So I am back here with Karen Hadigan. Karen is the author of Secrets of Dating After 50, the Insider's Guide to Finding Love Again and, as I said in the first half of the show, this has been a very, very important book in the inspiration of Behind the Swipe. I am so grateful to have Karen here with me today. I'm grateful to be here. So let's talk about some of the other kinds of differences that might exist out there. What's your take on navigating differences in politics?

Karen: 30:21

Wow, don't go to politics, get it one further. I think, like I said in the beginning, that's one of those things that I think the website specifically put on the profile to give you an opportunity to state your politics, because it is so strongly felt by so many people and that, and things like how tall are you, where do you live? For long distance issues. I think one of the things that people feel when you're online and it's true to an extent is there's an endless parade of people. So why take the difficult situation with somebody whose politics are opposite to yours or someone who is religious and you are anti-religious.

Hoyt: 31:03

Why invite that in?

Karen: 31:04

Why invite that in? And so, on the other hand, sometimes people think it's going to be the smorgasbord I've gone to have. A ton of possible candidates will fit my criteria and it's somewhere in between those. It is a bit of a smorgasbord, but when you start to weed out what you're looking for and what works for you, you're going to find there's not that many. So it's striking a balance between how much am I going to shut that door and how narrow am I going to make that keyhole.

Karen: 31:37

And maybe at first I think a lot of people would be more selective. And then after that, like I used to say, they have to live in my town, they have to be this age, they have to this, they have to that. And then I was like OK, I think I'll travel, I think I've seen all the guys in my neighborhood and my community and I think I'll stretch that age range a little bit. And I still look in their profiles for things that I really like or things that I think could be a red flag. Sometimes, when you explore those, they are a red flag. So finding the balance between how picky you are and what might you think is a no-go that turns out to be not a big deal.

Hoyt: 32:15

I had one woman on as a guestator who said look after my divorce. I wanted to experience the world more broadly in dating and so I took most of the filters off and treated it as an opportunity to learn about me and not really so much putting this bar on it. Oh, this might be the one. And she kind of convinced me that that was a legitimate path to take. Because you talk and I think most of the people that I talk to start out narrow, start out saying here's, I've got this idea of what Prince Charming is yes exactly.

Hoyt: 33:01

Right, and so I'm going to paint that picture and there are going to be profiles that show up in that, and so you tend to, as you said, widen that out if you're not having the success that you think, and maybe it's just a learning experience. But it could be that this approach that says all right, let me go broad first and then narrow down, might, might be legitimate.

Karen: 33:26

Well, I think again, people will look at the sites and decide which things on the dealbreaker type list they're willing.

Karen: 33:33

You know, some people drink alcohol, others don't.

Karen: 33:35

It's very important Vegans and vegetarians versus meat eaters.

Karen: 33:39

There's all those things that may end up being important or not.

Karen: 33:44

Even when you filter, even when you've texted for a while, even when you've had the introductory phone call, you can end up on a date with a person that you just don't spark with, and it was my daughter who pointed out to me I write this story in the book that you don't have to get all tied up in knots because your expectations were that this sounds like it's going to be right.

Karen: 34:09

You're just enjoying dinner or a snack with a person and you're having a conversation and you're learning about them and you're learning about yourself, and they might be kind of friends and you might never see them again and it might go horribly wrong and you can laugh about it the next day. But take each thing as an experience in life, as opposed to putting all that weight on it, that this has got to be the one, and I think then you can loosen up to be more yourself, you can feel more comfortable in the day not sweating bullets and not be so tied to the outcome, and then I think maybe the outcome you're looking for comes a little easier.

Hoyt: 34:47

It's really interesting, karen, because it also seems like if you can do that, if you can frame that experience for yourself in that way, you're probably showing up more authentically yourself.

Lyla: 35:01

That's so nice.

Hoyt: 35:02

Yeah, yeah, and so, and you want to do that too, right? This is a two-way street, so, all right, I got to find out if I'm really attracted to you and everything that you are in that you represent. But you've got to feel that way about me for this to take the next step.

Karen: 35:18

Exactly, exactly. And I think another pressure we put on ourselves and it's a real one is we're getting older every day. I don't have a whole lot of time, so let's put as many cards on the table as we can and see if this is something we want to progress with. So one of the happy things I discovered I call it one of the secrets of dating at this age is that you're going to run into more serious people, sincere, than maybe I've heard about in the 20s and 30s and 40s, where guys are playing games and they're ghosting you and doing all that stuff. The same thing can happen as an older dator, but it's much less frequent. Most everybody I mean only married friends said aren't you afraid? Or what about scammers? What about this? They said well, I take precautions, but I and I've had some bummer days, but nobody who was a freak know they're all people looking for a partner. I think we're mature enough that it's not the same game as it is for younger people.

Hoyt: 36:20

And so what do you attribute that really? I mean, is that just comfort in your own skin as you get older, or is there something more to that?

Karen: 36:30

I like to think we're a little more mature and we're not into wasting time. I mean, maybe it converges with that point. I don't have a lot of time to waste. I want to be with somebody.

Hoyt: 36:41

Oh, that's a great point.

Karen: 36:43

And one of the other great secrets is you can fall in love again and guess what? You get to feel like a teenager. A lot of people just don't believe that. It's like you get all gushy and nervous and butterflies and all that stuff happens. So I think that's part of what makes it worth it. We get to have a rejuvenation in our older age and our friends who've been married for 40 years are kind of looking a little enviously at us.

Karen: 37:13

All the chemistry still works right, I may not be able to put it to use the way you used to, but it's there.

Hoyt: 37:21

No, I love that. All right, I want to ask you about something in the book. We had talked about this a while back. That's the inevitable glitch in the relationship. Oftentimes you'll get into this relationship. It feels right, you're excited about it, you're feeling those butterflies, and then something happens right, and I thought you had a great chapter about that, about how to address that and deal with it. So I wanted to ask you about that.

Karen: 37:53

Well, I think we all have really different styles of reacting when our buttons get pushed, and we've all got them from childhood on, and there might be a situation where they do something that they didn't even realize, that they've hurt your feelings or you've hurt their feelings. You know that something's not right in Whoville, somebody's not talking, somebody's not feeling good, and how you get through that to what I was saying before with my partner, how we get to talk it through, and what skills you have in that arena become very important, or the relationship can just blow up. I mean, I had a situation with a guy that I was dating where we both got to a point where we said, okay, we're not going to be dating anybody else, so we're taking our profiles down. And at some point he revisited and he had this stern look on his face Like what's wrong, and he goes. I thought you took your profile down? I said I did, he goes.

Karen: 38:57

Well, a friend of mine said they saw it and I was like, oh my God. So we had to go onto the site and one of the things people need to be aware of is if you do online dating, I think that the sites have gotten a little bit of blowback. So they fixed some of this, but it used to be very hard to take your profile down. There were like a series of steps and a place you had to go into, and at our age we are not computer whizzes. And if you didn't do all those steps, your picture and your profile were still visible, even though people couldn't text you and you didn't realize it. And of course the reason for this is then the site looks like there were people on it, that's right.

Hoyt: 39:36

That's right.

Karen: 39:36

So, because they were able to be direct with me and say that. And we were able to straighten it out. Everything worked out OK. But if he had just decided to ghost me or to not take my calls anymore, that would have been that.

Hoyt: 39:50

And you would have never known. Yeah, the exact same thing happened to me, karen, and this was after I had been engaged for one month.

Karen: 40:00

Oh, she discovered you were still online.

Hoyt: 40:03

Or hey, there's something you need to know, yeah.

Karen: 40:07

And the other side of that is when a problem arises or maybe it's a fairly significant problem the I think I talked about in the book as FOMO we start thinking about well, this is not exactly what I had in mind. Should I go back? Maybe I'll just peek at some other profiles see who's out there. So there's decisions to be made about. Is this a serious enough problem that it's over, like your caller talked about, with the money making the funny face? Is that enough?

Karen: 40:38

to kill this Probably not the first time, but once we start to see it play out, it becomes a problem for her and it was big enough. She said that's why they split up, but it was certainly a factor. So, learning how to deal with conflict and conflict styles and people who say everything's OK when it's not OK, people who pearl insults and then later they're like yeah, I'm sorry, how important is that to you? How much does that hit your buttons? Or can you educate each other on what kind of language works? But the glitch represents differences. A difference has come up. We're not getting through it, or I'm not sure if we can get through it. I'm not sure how important it is, but if I was advising people, I would say don't run away at the first sign of trouble, anything which you can do about it.

Hoyt: 41:28

And try to go into it and honestly, Karen, that's just great life advice.

Karen: 41:33

Exactly.

Hoyt: 41:34

It doesn't have anything to do really with romantic relationships, because every relationship in your life is going to hit some kind of a glitch Right, and your communication, your openness to communication and how softly you're able to deliver hard facts right, yeah, really defines how well you get through that. So it's just a great life skill.

Karen: 41:57

And I think that online dating is a factor in that, because if you were just dating somebody in real life that you'd met in real life, I have the feeling you would put in more effort to making that work, whereas in the back of your mind, with online dating, is like there's a whole bunch of people out there.

Karen: 42:16

And some of the sites are so insidious that even when you get off of them they will send you little emails, like Larry noticed you, or Harry wants to talk to you, and so you've got these little temptations in your head and I think that makes it harder to say. You know, I think I'm going to see this one through versus Harry might be the one.

Hoyt: 42:42

That sounds devious, but effective it is very devious, you know, on the more hopeful side of this, looking at the value of differences in a relationship, I had the opportunity to talk to a woman named Sharon who lives in Northern California. She's in her fifties and she will go back and forth between dating online and meeting people through her professional career, as she travels organically and it's very good at both. But in this part of the interview she talks about the difference between the two. What she doesn't say in this part is that one of her lines in the sand is that she absolutely loves fine wine and so if you're set up with somebody that's involved in AA, it's probably not going to work. But let's listen to Sharon.

Lyla: 43:33

What makes me laugh about differences is that the men that I do date, that I meet in real life, I probably would never pick them on a dating app because I would eliminate them because of one or two things. One or two things that I don't want to, don't think that are going to be compatible. But then when you meet someone in real life, you have a connection on a different level and some of those other things that you might judge on an app might fall away. I might filter them out for political beliefs or family dynamics, kids, wives, lifestyle. There are certain things that are non-negotiable, but other things that you might think are non-negotiable. But are you really going to eliminate a potential partner because of their political beliefs or does it inspire debate and good conversation to open your mind to other points of view?

Lyla: 44:32

On other topics, I've been reading a little bit about happiness in general and how people who, since the pandemic and that, along with dating apps, have created a lot of isolation, and isolation creates a lot of unhappiness, and so a lot of this online dating is matched by compatibility, Like you're looking for your things, that you have a laundry list of items that you think that you want in a partner because that's how you are, and so you're looking for the mirror image of what you are for your compatible partner. But I think what they're finding is it doesn't necessarily work that way, because compatibility is not a laundry list, it's not a checklist, it's a list of priorities. It makes it more interesting to have a little bit of a difference and a little bit of friction.

Hoyt: 45:22

Karen, what do you think about that?

Karen: 45:24

Well, I think she brings up a really good point in terms of how we get to know a person. The difference in real life is we don't generally immediately meet someone and start dating them. We get to know them as a person and then that smooths the road, I think, for differences later, Whereas in online you date from minute one and then you find out about the person.

Hoyt: 45:52

I had not thought about that, Karen, but that's really so true. And so how?

Karen: 45:56

you meet makes a huge difference on who you're picking and how big your deal breaker list is. I mean she does allude to there are some. I would never date a smoker. I can't, I won't, I don't, Sorry, even if it was my Prince Charmin. So we do, we all have deal breakers, but don't let that list be too long when you're online dating because, as she said, you may eliminate the guy that would be a great match for you. Compatibility and deal breakers are different things.

Hoyt: 46:27

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, when she was talking about the differences and you're talking about getting to know people long time, it made me think well, you know, well, you might be on the same pickleball court with this person for 10 times Before you even start up a real conversation. That might lead to a relationship, and that's the way that the world works in real life. But I hadn't thought about the effect of online dating being oh, we're here for this reason and if we don't go past texting to a face to face within a week, then it's on to the next yes. Next batter up no.

Karen: 47:16

And I think the whole idea of differences is very interesting because there's a friction that can happen with differences and we can either enjoy that like she said a great debate or it can be annoying, or we can see differences as a place of discovery. I think we're always playing that balance with differences.

Hoyt: 47:36

I think there are some people that are wired to be more or less flexible just in their personalities, and the ones who are wired to be less flexible probably actually need those tighter lane guards as they moved out.

Karen: 47:54

They might need them or they might need to look at whether they're going to find somebody, if that's how restrictive that they they're going to be.

Karen: 48:03

And there are some people who try dating and say you know what I think I'd rather be alone and that's okay too, and I think it's also why a lot of dating relationships that start online are short term, because when you get this happened to me for the first couple of years kept having relationships that were like three and four months long and I was like, am I doing something wrong here? But I think, because you flip the script and you're just you're starting with dating and then getting to know them, you get to a point where you go, okay, not a batch, and then there's the one where there's enough of a match that you go forward.

Hoyt: 48:40

That explains so much.

Karen: 48:43

Don't feel bad about yourself if you had some short term relationships that don't go anywhere.

Hoyt: 48:48

You know, and I feel like in the in the year and a half that I was online dating, I had some really great relationships, but they tended to fall in that category a couple months, three months and those were the good ones and I have great memories of those. I love those people and I hope they found their right person. But you're exactly right and I think it's like we didn't get to know who we were together until we had that extra time and more often than not, in real life, you have that opportunity before you decide to couple up in the first place, yes.

Hoyt: 49:25

So, karen, what else do we know about the magic of dating in the second half of life?

Lyla: 49:32

Well, I turn me back over.

Hoyt: 49:34

What's your favorite part of the book?

Karen: 49:37

My goodness, living it, I think, was my favorite part, and also getting finished writing it. But dating for me became because I did it for several, many years before I met somebody I stuck with. I kind of tried to merge it with my philosophy of being retired, which is this is our second childhood, only there's no parents this time. So we get to do what we want, we have free time, and dating got to be that way too. Once I could relax and just say I'm meeting another person.

Karen: 50:10

Today, you still know that you're going out of your comfort zone. There's not a lot of us who want to put yourself in a situation with a stranger on a regular basis. So I've always had, you know, a little bit of sweaty hands, a little bit of nervousness, but my daughter's wisdom would carry me through it. She's like mom, it's just a person, just go meet them and talk. It's something will happen or it won't. So to me, the favorite thing is the is the fun part of it, and my partner now. We laugh a lot, we play a lot, we take trips, we stay at home.

Hoyt: 50:42

Whatever we do, we're having a party there's a level of freedom that comes in the second half of life that you didn't have when you were 45, right the kids are grown, I don't even want a dog anymore.

Karen: 50:53

I don't want anything to take care of or anything to make it, so I have to stay at home.

Hoyt: 50:58

Well, karen, this has been an absolute joy to have you on the show today and tell people how they can find secrets of dating after 50.

Karen: 51:06

I know that I'm probably on Apple Books and Barnes and Noble, but the easiest best way is Amazon, as most of us shop there, so just look for it there and I hope that I hear from people's and hear their reviews and I can't wait for a sequel to the book but talk thing about a sequel is, while you're dating you can tell all these stories and nobody knows who you're talking about. You're right, and we know what you're talking about.

Hoyt: 51:36

No, we'll trick you. Well, karen. Again, thank you so much for doing this today. I've had so much fun and what great advice. I encourage everybody to go out. Listen, even if you're not online dating, even if you're not in a place where you. I'm thinking about doing this. How would I even do it if you tried it? You've been out there. I'm telling you you will learn stuff from this book that you will not get anywhere else.

Karen: 52:00

I guarantee and I just want to say one thing to men, because it may sound like it was written by two women. It's about women's experience and I had a guy come up to me I was doing a show or a reading at a bookstore and he said are there any books by guys? Because I want one for guys. I said do you realize that this entire book is a lesson for guys what to do? Because it through our eyes. He went oh, I never thought of that. So yes, it's for men too perfect.

Hoyt: 52:28

All right, karen. I hope to have you back again at the show another time.

Lyla: 52:31

Thank, you so much. I appreciate it, thank you.

Hoyt: 52:34

I am so grateful to Karen for joining us on this episode. At the end of the day, a successful relationship means embracing even elevating differences. The tricky part is deciding which differences add to your joy and which detract from it. Thanks for listening to behind the swipe. Be sure to share this episode with anyone you think may enjoy it, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at behind the swipe podcast for more. Until next time, I'm your host. White price on swipe, fearlessly.