Dating Again After 60

1. Write one plain sentence describing the arrangement you'd genuinely welcome: companion, partner, spouse, or something you don't have a word for yet. Just the shape, not the person.
2. Sort your wants into three piles: the few real non-negotiables, the strong preferences you'd bend on for the right person, and the old checklist items that don't actually matter anymore. Notice how short the first pile really is.
3. Run the readiness test from Chapter 2. Picture a pleasant date that goes nowhere, and note honestly whether the disappointment feels survivable or crushing. Let the answer set your pace, not your calendar.
4. Catch one moment today when you reach for your phone or the idea of dating, and ask what's driving it: genuine curiosity, or nine-o'clock loneliness. Just notice the difference. Don't judge it.
5. List the one or two people you could be fully honest with about all this. If the list is empty, that's your first project, and it matters more than any date.
6. If grief or guilt sits on this for you, write a few honest lines to the person you lost, or the marriage that ended, saying that you're carrying it with you and choosing not to be lonely. Both can be true.
7. Look back at the week. Which single realization felt most true? Sit with it for five quiet minutes. That's the week's real work done.
8. Find one in-person group or activity near you that gathers around something you actually enjoy. Write down when and where it meets. Don't commit yet, just locate it.
9. Tell one trusted friend, out loud, that you're open to meeting someone. Use the plain sentence from Chapter 3 if it helps. Turn one person into a friendly lookout.
10. Choose a single dating app to consider, based on where people your age are and what a friend recommends. Look at it. Read a few profiles. Sign up for nothing today.
11. Find or take two recent, honest photographs of yourself, ones that actually look like you now. Kind, clear, and true beats flattering and fifteen years old.
12. Draft two "specific, not impressive" sentences about yourself, one pleasure and one quirk, described so exactly they could only be you. Read them aloud.
13. Turn those sentences into a full first profile draft, honest about what you're looking for. Read the whole thing aloud. If it sounds like a brochure, add a real quirk.
14. Actually go to the in-person activity you found, or put a firm date to go on your calendar. Showing up once is the whole hurdle.
15. Set up your chosen app for real, with a helper beside you if the sign-up is fiddly. Get the profile and photos in place and the basic safety settings on.
16. Spend fifteen minutes reading profiles, and notice, specifically, who you'd want to talk to and why. You're training your own eye for fit.
17. Send one warm, specific first message to someone whose profile you actually read. Reference a real detail. Then close the app and let it be.
18. Practice moving things toward real life. With anyone promising you've been messaging, gently suggest a short, public meeting rather than letting the texting run on for weeks.
19. Write out your safe first-meeting plan on a card: public place, your own transport, the friend you'll tell, the check-in times. Have it ready before you need it.
20. Reread the romance-scam red flags from Chapter 7 and hold them up against any online contact. Fast, intense, can't-meet, wants-you-off-the-app, ever-hints-at-money: any of these earns a hard pause.
21. Look back at the week. If you sent a message or went somewhere new, that's a real win, whatever came of it. Name it as one.
22. Save the two fraud-reporting resources into your phone, and agree with one trusted person that you'll run any new romance, and any money request, past them before acting.
23. Write down one honest question about intimacy or sexual health you'd want a doctor to answer. Putting it on paper is the first step to putting it on the exam-room table.
24. Locate your will, beneficiary forms, or healthcare directive, and simply read what they currently say. Know where you actually stand before love makes it urgent.
25. Have one real conversation, by phone or in person, with someone you've met or hope to, or, if there's no one yet, rehearse the plain "here's what I want" sentence from Chapter 8 until it sounds like you.
26. Plan an actual short, safe first meeting or a next date using your card, or, if you're not there yet, plan your next visit to the in-person activity. Keep moving at your pace.
27. Do the "larger or smaller" check from Chapter 10 on any connection you have going. Over the time you've known them, has your life grown or shrunk? Trust the first honest answer.
28. Tell your check-in friend how the month has gone, and ask them to keep watching alongside you. Company makes all of this safer and lighter.
29. Review the month's notes. Circle what genuinely helped and cross out what didn't. Keep only the parts that fit your actual life.
30. Write yourself a short plan for what comes next: the pace you'll keep, one habit you'll hold to, and one safety rule you'll never break. You're not finished, because there's no finish line. But you're started, and steady, and that was the whole aim.

Dating app / dating site

a website or phone program where people post a short profile and can message one another. Different makers, same basic idea.

Profile

the short description and photos you post of yourself, so others can decide whether to say hello.

Match

on most apps, a mutual signal of interest that lets two people message each other.

Living apart together (LAT)

a committed couple who choose to keep separate homes rather than marry or move in together. A common and complete arrangement, not a lesser one.

Catfishing

when someone uses fake photos and a false identity online to deceive you, often the opening move of a romance scam.

Romance scam

an organized fraud in which a criminal fakes a loving relationship online to get money, following a predictable pattern of fast intensity, no in-person meeting, and eventual money requests.

Ghosting

when someone you've been talking to suddenly stops replying with no explanation. Common, impersonal, and rarely a real report on your worth.

Reverse image search

a free way to check whether a photo someone sent appears elsewhere online under a different name, one simple test against a fake profile. A helper can show you how once.

Blended family

the family created when people with existing children, and sometimes grandchildren, form a new relationship, bringing their prior families together.

Who is Dating Again After 60 for?

For anyone single again after 60, by widowhood, divorce, or circumstance, who is curious about company and wants to go about it sensibly.

What does it not do?

It makes no promise that you will meet anyone, it is not medical, legal, or financial advice, and it will not tell you that you ought to be dating at all.

How long is it?

About 25,200 words across 10 chapters, with 13 full-page illustrations. In paperback that is about 120 pages. The audiobook runs about 2h 38m.

Can I read some of it first?

Yes. The foreword and the whole introduction are on this site, free, with nothing to sign up for.

What languages is it in?

The books exist in five: English, German, Spanish, French and Dutch, each localised properly — its own illustrations with the labels drawn in that language, and its own country's institutions named in the text. This shop can sell you the English and the Spanish today; the other three are finished books waiting on their paperwork.

What does the complete set include?

All thirty guides in print, in one box, and the ebook and the audiobook of every one of them at no extra charge.

En español