Online Dating for Widows

Dating Tales of Widows and Single Moms

I was in a graveyard when I decided to start my first online dating profile. Nine months after my husband’s passing, I was visiting his grave and wondering how much time I still had. Please let me know that finding someone is acceptable, I begged no one in particular.

I was disappointed by the results of my search for the best online dating services for widows and widowers. With a brief search, I discovered websites like “Our Time” and “Silver Singles,” but I was more than ten years too young for both of them.

The other two, “Just Widower Dating” and “The Widow Dating Club,” had names that suggested they would be promising, but each of their covers featured couples who looked to be at least 20 years older than me.

My buddies and I both chuckled when the first image we saw on one widow dating website was of a man who was obviously older than my father. My options were unfortunately limited if I wanted to date other people who had gone through a loss comparable to mine because I didn’t want to date a 70-year-old man. How did the remaining young widows and widowers fare? Maybe we weren’t that numerous.

There are Chances of Pretenders too

I had a look at some of the most popular dating websites. Yes, I could declare that I was a widow in my profile. But would that discourage men? Even worse, could it draw odd men, like the ones who tracked my Facebook profile while pretending to be widowers?

They harassed me with texts under the guise of “widowed military men” until I blocked them. I was open and honest about who I was and what I wanted, but how could I do that and still draw the kind of man I wanted to meet?

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to write down on the online forms. But even as I debated whether or not to make my profile public, the broader question lingered.

My husband has died. I was at a loss for words with my date.

I recently met a nice stranger with whom I had a discussion on spirituality and religion. The man responded, “I believe in God, but not a God who intervenes here on Earth.

I replied, “I agree, because if otherwise, why the fuck is my spouse dead?”

It had the unintended effect of stopping all conversation. Of course it did. According to my research, this kind of behavior is common among widows. She spoke before I had a chance to thoroughly evaluate my response. In many ways, we’ve lost the ability to engage in small talk or speak about anything outside what’s on our minds. The majority of us lack the patience to play games because we have experienced experiences that our peers won’t experience for decades. You receive what you see exactly. That means that in my instance, you’ll get a 39-year-old widow with three young children. How might I best post that on a profile?

Not just the profiles are challenging to master. Nearly of the widows I know have a strange story about how someone responded when they told them they were married. One of my acquaintances had her son’s hair trimmed while getting groped by the barber friend of her late husband. Another sought love among others who were grieving, only to learn that the man was a ruthless insulter and that their only connection was the terrible misfortune that had brought them together. Another went on several dates with a “decent” guy who, it turned out later, had been arrested and spent ten years in prison for collecting child porn. That will scare you into never dating again, she warned me.

Facebook Comments Box

Leave a Comment