Not much is written about a second chance at love in one’s so-called senior years. After all, people with children, grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren aren’t expected to enter the dating scene in their advanced years. But everyone needs affection and caring. Remember my article about Senior Dating? In that article I mentioned that I was single again but not dating. I said I didn’t think that any man could keep up with me.

Interestingly enough someone who reads my column thought to himself, “I think I could keep up.” And we are now spending time together getting to know each other.

But “getting to know you” as the song says takes some doing in one’s elder years. What a long history one builds up over years of marrying, taking care of a spouse, then losing a spouse and meeting up with a companion who has a completely different history. My close friends kept reminding me that I would never find another partner just like the one I spent 62 and a half years with. Of course that is true. You cannot repeat the past. But one can find a whole new pattern of living with new experiences that are warm and exciting.

Marrying at an advanced age may bring up issues of the children’s inheritance. I once joked on the comedy stage about not having a date and saying, “Even if I did have a date I would never marry again. So if any of my children are in the audience you know that your inheritance is safe.” Some people feel they marry for life and even if a spouse dies, the living partner never seeks to bond again. After my husband died a friend once asked me if I ever talked to my dying husband about my dating after his death. I just laughed and said,” If you knew how independent I am you wouldn’t ask that question.”

People who believe they will be reunited with a spouse in heaven may have difficulty if they have had more than one partner. Can’t you just visualize dying and having to choose which spouse you would prefer to be reunited with in the hereafter? I didn’t have that problem but loneliness after being widowed is often a concern. It can be tempered by continuing with an active life including family contacts, making new friends as older friends die, or having a pet cat or dog. Add to this the closeness of a loving human companion and life can be rich and rewarding. But there are compromises to be made when one is interacting with another human being with a different past than you yourself have experienced. “You mean you like your eggs over and well done?” or “You don’t care for Earl Grey tea?” These differences can be easily overlooked if the electricity is exciting in a dating relationship. With more independence for women in our time there can be more choices other than marriage only. Older women don’t have to worry about having children so that is not an issue. But it does mean that each partner needs to respect the other’s lifestyle that was built before starting the new relationship.

Yes, whenever two people come together for friendship, companionship and love, there is always give and take so that each gains without giving up one’s core values. An exciting journey into companionship is a lesson in caring about another human being who has entered one’s life. If I figure out how it is all done I may write a How To book about it.

But I’m not quite ready for that yet.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer to be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net or
206-935-8663. Thanks for the wonderful feedback I have received from my readers.