At 70, I’ve signed up to a dating app but it’s knocking my confidence

Dear A&E,

I’m 70, have been divorced for 16 years and have (finally!) decided I’d like to meet someone and bring some romance back into my life. My children are behind this decision as they say I look glamorous, am good company and they’d like to see me having fun with a lovely man. I signed up to Hinge but I’m finding it rather confusing. Sometimes nice-looking men match with me but then go silent. Or they chat over text for a bit and then disappear. Apparently this is ghosting and not unusual but it is knocking my confidence, I have yet to meet anyone in person and I’m not sure whether there’s any point in keeping going.

- Faltering

Dear Faltering,

First of all, despite the confidence knocks, please listen to what your children (so often one’s harshest critics) are telling you. You are glamorous, fun and deserving of love. This is from some of the people who know you best, not the men on the apps who are so befuddled by the smorgasbord of women and the dopamine hits that they end up behaving in strange and discourteous ways. The algorithms of dating apps are designed, like so many technologies, to feed and accelerate hyper-focus, effectively evolving it into a kind of addiction, like gaming. This makes us start to treat people as disposable. And disposable is never a good way to feel.

Dating apps are certainly worth a go but perhaps they should be part of your plan to welcome romance back into your life rather than the only channel on which you pin your hopes. Perhaps the best way to view dating apps is as practice. A way to re-ignite your flirting muscles and fire up your conversational dexterity.

Remember that, when a man goes quiet, he is not rejecting you. He has never met you. He is merely swiping away carelessly. Without the magical chemistry that can strike when we meet someone face-to-face, the apps can make us ruthlessly rigid and judgemental. “I don’t like her shoes.” ‘She looks a bit tall/short.’ ‘She has a cat.’ It’s all most peculiar.

When you do connect with another person online, the texting can be shockingly fun or deeply disappointing but, again, it gives us a very limited view of a person. Now and then it fires up, awakens our hopes and dreams and begins to feel like a meaningful involvement when it is, in fact, merely a false start. There is an expression: ‘death by text’, which refers to fabulous and flirtatious messaging. So fabulous, in fact, that it develops its own narrative and momentum; its own beginning, middle and end. Only for you to find that the relationship does not survive a real-life encounter because all the juice has been squeezed out of it before you’ve even met.

The key is to keep right-sizing your connections. To remember that these are just little encounters. Some work, others don’t. Some men keep chatting. Others fall away. We would suggest going on the apps for a month and then off them for a month so that you can reset yourself during the spaces in between because it can feel so overwhelming. Another thought is to ask your children to help you with your profile pictures and description. Just to give you the best chance of being noticed.

Remember, Faltering, that you have friends. Let them know that you have changed gear and are open to meeting new people. Have dinner parties and ask people you haven’t seen for a while as not only will that liven you up, they may bring with them a fresh pot of friends who may know single men and so on and so forth. Think about those concentric circles. Look into solo holidays, local clubs and some of the events that the larger dating websites run within your preferred age bracket.

And do not forget, as this process tugs at your heart-strings and nibbles at your self-esteem, that you are perfectly fine as you are. You want a partner. You do not need a partner. If you can re-frame this as an exciting time of personal growth and new activities and the reinvigoration of old friendships then you might even have fun. It really could be all about the journey; the shopping for clothes that make you feel sensational; the flowers and lighting in your house for the parties you are going to have; the tour of Greece that you are considering booking. Open up your life Faltering, not just your heart, and beautiful things will grow. Your search for love may or may not bring you love. You could ensure that – along with inevitable wobbles – it brings you joy. And a joyful person is an attractive prospect.