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Dating at any age is hard. Dating over age 50 can be even more challenging. And dating during a pandemic can seem downright impossible.
"We are both the luckiest people alive.”
However, despite the pandemic, people continue to find ways to connect, to create romance and to flirt. These four stories prove that, while the social scene for older adults can be tough—whether on Zoom or in person—a little dating fun and even an epic love story isn't out of the question.
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"We talked every night for a month. He'd text during the day. He sent flowers and a fruit basket ... it was the sweetest thing because we hadn't even met."
Finding ‘the one’ over FaceTime
"I realized I wasn't interested in looking at anyone else and he did the same thing."
Mike Faith, 56
Company CEO, splitting time between Nashville, Tennessee, and San Francisco
"You can flirt on the phone and at a table ... you don't have to go in for a kiss or hug to say ‘Hey you are looking good'”
Mike Faith has been dating since his divorce four years ago, and he became pretty familiar with FaceTime. “At the risk of sounding cheap, I didn't have to go out anywhere or buy drinks,” he jokes “It was pretty efficient.”
After COVID-19 hit, he transitioned to FaceTime dates only to be “more cautious,” video chatting with people he met on dating sites. It took only three dates to find “the one."
"I pretty much knew right away,” he says, referring to his first date with now-girlfriend Anju Tomar. “We had lots to talk about. We are both immigrants ... she's from India and I'm from the United Kingdom.”
That shared experience helped them connect. Faith found Tomar funny and accomplished, saying “conversation just worked between us.” The only catch was that she lived hours away. But what happened next sealed the deal for Faith.
Since neither was busy during the pandemic and neither wanted to travel by airplane, they flipped a coin to decide who would drive eight hours to meet the other person the next morning. Tomar started driving.
"She had the boldness of doing the [long] drive,” which fit with his own personality, Faith says. “I'm an adventurer and a risk taker."
Since that first meeting, the couple has traveled back and forth between Faith's home base of Nashville and Tomar's home city of Milwaukee as the pandemic has allowed them both to work remotely. If not for the pandemic and the flexibility it provided, Faith says, the relationship might have progressed much slower, and maybe even stalled
"We are both the luckiest people alive,” he says.
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