Bucket lists, PTA meetings, Ozempic—welcome to online dating for 50-plus Indians

The Print

21 hours ago

After escaping the death trap of marriage, kids, and draining EMIs, Gen X is coming out to play and choosing to deal with the frustrations of online dating. Even Carrie Bradshaw toyed with it for a couple of episodes in And Just Like That . A regular 50-something's dating app profile is often loaded with unconventional truths.
Gen Z need not feel special about modern relationship drama because singles in their 50s are being breadcrumbed, ghosted too. And what's worse, lovebombed into co-parenting kids they didn't raise. Since most midlifers have about two divorces under their belt, they are wandering around the prison of romance pool like hardened criminals. They are swiping and scandalising on dating apps and not even sharing it on social media. Way to rob the masses of juicy lore.
'Father of two, taking a last chance at love,' read the dramatic bios. They don't have time to hold back. Many on Hinge answer the prompt, 'We'll get along if…' not with shared interests but with a list of everything their ex did wrong — 'if you don't scream in traffic, hoard clocks, or snack in bed.' The emotional baggage is bullet-pointed. They might not even have finalised the divorce yet. Putting up selfies taken in the bathroom of their marital homes, they ask their matches not to judge.
Statistically, the elders are having more fun online than the people who invented sexting. Beyond the usual Bumble, Hinge, Tinder, and OKCupid, they are also populating the unconventional mating spaces. Think the ethical non-monogamy hotbed of the Feeld app or closed groups on Facebook, catering to all kinds of adventures under the kink umbrella.
Sentient armrests
Post-50s could almost be a golden age of dating — if middle-aged men weren't doing their best to ruin the fun. Women who refused to resign to the empty-nesters' club find themselves on dates where men rant about their children's spending habits. Lost without the safety of a serving wife, men are hunting for her replacement.
'I am looking for a nurturer,' they'll say, meaning someone to wash their dirty laundry. Jennie Young, a professor of English and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, studied the 'rhetoric of dating' and explained how these men approach women. With lines like 'Don't text too much', 'Don't be difficult', and the smoothest of them all — 'Act like you want me' — they're seeking submission, with benefits.
The subreddit of Later Daters — a Netflix show following six golden singles on a series of blind dates — is flooded with one question in different literary styles. Why are older men such losers? Even without a single strand of hair to cover their soft skulls, all they can think about is stringing women along.
A Delhi-based 'later dater' in her 50s is sick of men her age talking about ticking their bucket list. 'When it's time for them to kick the bucket soon!' she said.
Every other guy seems to be on a mindfulness journey, either raving about Vipassana, cycling marathons, or overselling his post-Ozempic glow-up. All while doing heavy drinking, testing the already battered liver. They all claim to have cracked feminism without ever doing the dishes. Worst of all is that they have no rizz. If there's any hope for romance, they expect the woman to plan it, spark it, and carry it on her back while they sit there like sentient armrests.
Also read: That older, wiser guy is undateable—just ask women his age
Competing with PTA
Then there's the ultimate vibe-killer for midlifers: the parent trap. The man on his 'weekend Papa duty' can't even step out for a coffee date. All his money and time are funnelled toward his kids. When will he have fun?
One woman tweeted how she was on a date and her daughter kept blowing up her phone because she couldn't find her socks. Single mothers are anyway called a hectic variety of people to see romantically. Men fear they will end up emptying their pockets, cajoled into being someone's stepdad, but also just a boyfriend to the child's mother. It's called a lose-lose situation because the moment the gentleman chimes in with an opinion about his girlfriend's offspring, he's told to slow his roll.
While it's an admirable quality from a parenting perspective, it can be pretty annoying for the childfree partner who just wants to go out without competing with PTA meetings. One tormented girlfriend in her 40s only gets to see her partner on the second weekend of the month. She's also not allowed to call him on his phone without asking. She has shared custody of her man.
If the dynamic was already that messy and volatile, there's the ex-factor. The former partners, with a history spanning a decade or two, are not NPC. They're either too involved or buried (metaphorically) under the living room sofa like a sworn enemy no one talks about.
Is that why middle-agers end up dating younger? Much like the middle-aged men they've long endured, women now finally have a progressive dating pool of their own — one that lets them swipe right on younger men, skip the boredom, and avoid babysitting the oldies. Forty-nine-year-old Charlize Theron recently made headlines for hitting it off with a 26-year-old and bragging about it. She's an inspiration.
Clearly, the Gen X dating game is enviable — even with its grown-up fuss. The lucky ones aren't even compromising on closet space, and somehow, they're still living a fairy tale.
The love life of a 58-year-old professor in Mumbai now looks like the third act of a Nora Ephron movie. Right after matching on Bumble, the first phone call she had with her now-boyfriend — a 60-year-old who never married — lasted five hours. By the third date, they were chilling by the beach in Dapoli. 'He's up for fun and doesn't snore,' she said when counting the two best qualities of her partner. The couple has been in an LAT (living apart together) relationship for the past two years. It works like a dream.
This article is part of a series of columns on modern dating in India—the good, the bad and the cuddly.
Views are personal. The author tweets @ratanpriya4.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)