Finding a New Relationship as an Antidote to Loneliness with Dr. Gloria Horsley & Dr. Frank Powers

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our Successful Aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program, and I'm your host, Joseph Casciani. Each program, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. You can learn more about our club at our website. Be sure to take a look at My new training and activities manual, Better, Longer, and Happier: A Guide to Aging with Purpose and Positivity. This is a series of 12 modules in a card deck format developed for activities directors at senior living communities to learn more about psychologically healthy aging. Visit our website, livemeto100.club/blh. Now on to our podcast. On this program today, our guests are dubbed the Golden Dating Doctors. We discuss the art of finding new relationships after separation or loss of a partner. Both in their 80s, Doctors Gloria Horsley and Frank Powers met each other online after their marriages ended. They have a new book, Open to Love: The Secrets of Senior Dating. It chronicles the process of finding love in our senior years. Gloria and Frank met on a dating site for seniors, decided to meet in person, and the rest is history. In this podcast, they share the ins and outs of online dating, the pitfalls, and how to learn from mistakes made. Their goal is to make things a little easier for those entering or re-entering the world of dating. How do we meet people? What risks should we be on the lookout for? Stay tuned. First, a little background. Dr. Gloria Horsley is a licensed marriage and family therapist and clinical nurse specialist. She's the president and co-founder of the Open to Hope Foundation. And co-hosts the award-winning Open to Hope TV series and podcast. A former faculty member at the University of Rochester School of Nursing and the Academy of Intuition Medicine, she's co-authored 10 books and written numerous articles. Widowed after 60 years of marriage, she has 4 children, including a deceased son, and 10 grandchildren. She and her partner, Dr. Frank Powers, mostly split their time between Palo Alto, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona. And Dr. Frank Powers has been a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona for the last 30 years. He served as chairman of the Psychiatric Security Review Board for the state of Arizona and is a past psychology professor at Scottsdale Community College. He studied sexuality under William Masters and Virginia Johnson and received advanced training in couples therapy with the Imago Institute of Harville Hendrix. A graduate of George Williams College, he holds master's degrees from Arizona State University and Columbia University and a doctorate in psychology from Union Institute.. He's an award-winning sculptor, and in his spare time he enjoys golf, pickleball, and tennis. He has two stepdaughters and one step-grandson from a previous marriage. Gloria and Frank, welcome to our program today.

Thank you.

Thank you. Happy to be—

great, glad to have you with us. I always like to open by asking our guest, in this case two guests, to, um, tell us about the journeys that brought you to where you are today. I know There's a lot of history between the both of you, but maybe the highlights that you could share with our listeners.

Ladies first.

Uh, let's see. So, uh, going on 4 years, my husband, uh, of 60 years died of a staph infection after back surgery. He'd had a number of back surgeries and had had a staph before. And, uh, he passed away and, um, I got involved, uh, because I've been a therapist for years. I saw out therapy myself and, uh, joined a therapy group. And in that group, I met a guy who golfed, which wasn't Frank. And he and I—

they golf their grief—

and he and I golfed every day for almost a year. And then he decided that I was too big a presence and had too big a family.

He ghosted her.

He ghosted her. Okay.

We went to Hawaii over Christmas.

Lucky me, right?

Yeah, go away over Christmas. And he did. He left me. He was living at my house and he left the key and said he was done.

Wow.

So I decided to write a book for widows, and I decided in this day and age, if I was going to write a book for widows, that I should put in something on online dating because this guy had told me that he had online dated very successfully. So I decided I needed to go online dating, and I got COVID. And so I was in my room for 2 weeks and I wanted to write this book for widows because I was pretty cranky that this guy would—

very cranky—

blow me off.

Sure.

So I decided to write a book for widows and I went online, Silver Singles, and Frank happened to have gone online and I met him online and we met in person as soon as I got back to Arizona where I was staying. Yeah. Yeah.

It was instant. We knew right away. Said, oh, wow. Both of us found our missing parts.

Yeah. And so Frank comes from a different perspective than I did.

I was divorced several times, and one of my ex-wives was a psychologist, and we had tried to write a book together but were unsuccessful. So when Gloria mentioned that she wanted to write a book—

I told him I was doing research.

Yes, I looked at her and I said, this is not true.

And so I said, well, why don't you write the book with me? Because I don't know the milk.

And I said I had had a terrible experience. I, I, I was a little hesitant in trying, but it was like a totally different experience. So I knew, hey, this lady is a keeper.

How, how did you know, Frank? I mean, you met online. What was it about Gloria's profile and Same question for you, Gloria. What was it about Frank's practice?

I just felt so comfortable the first day we met. And, uh, I, I was planning to retire from my practice and I was thinking about going to a senior community because I know the numbers of the senior community were in my favor. So I thought, well, okay, maybe that's the place to go. And then I thought, well, I had had some success. I had met my previous wife on, on, um, on SilverSingles. So I thought, okay, well, I'll try to— I'll try it one more time. Thank God, because, um, her profile came up. It just looked like I had known her for years. We had the same kind of background, the same kind of people, uh, that we had worked with, uh, and we knew the same people. We just talked the same language. So this is one of the things that we talk about in in the book is also that at this point in your life, when you're a little bit older, it's much easier to find someone that you're very similar to in personality and experience. So it was really, really good. And, uh, it was a very— it was— I, I mean, we, we met for happy hour, uh, and we stayed through dinner, and, uh, I invited her to come see my etchings. My studio, my sculpture studio. And she gracefully said yes. And we just hardly ever separated after that.

Yeah. One thing we do, we both had pretty robust websites. Frank had his sculpture website and I had my Open to Hope website. However, I'll have to say that we did not spend a lot of time texting. No, we did not talk on the phone at all. He never had my phone number. He really didn't. He knew my website, but we didn't spend a lot of time.

Such an impressive lady. I mean, my God.

So once you, once you met in person, that, I mean, just, we, we just knew.

All of that in person.

Yeah. She was one of the, I, we talk about websites and unfortunately people try to put their best foot forward and sometimes a fantasy foot rather than the real person. And her website was actually less than when I met her personally. I mean, more gorgeous, more vivacious, funny, enjoyable. I, it was just magic for the first.

Yeah. I, I think I'm pretty realistic because, you know, I've been a therapist for all those years and I'm like, I'm not playing around. If you don't have golf clubs, don't get in touch with me.

She, she asked if I had a handicap and I, she said, not a physical one. You got a golf handicap.

That's a different conversation.

Yeah. And it was also like, you know, I support myself. I expect you to be financially responsible, you know.

Uh, and that's all the things that we suggest people to do when they go online.

Be realistic.

Realistic. And check out the person. Uh, you want to verify that who you're talking to or texting with or whatever is the person that you're texting with. And I think all those safeguards are really important, and you have to be a good consumer if you're going to use online dating. And, uh, uh, and also many of us are not, at our age, are not familiar with online dating. So you have to find someone like a dating buddy who's going to be able to help you through the process.

I'd like to get to that more, but before we move to that, let me ask you about, you know, the whole notion of dating in our senior years. I mean, relationships are so important, but being alone is not so uncommon. We know there's a lot of loneliness. We know there's loss and separation and divorce and spouses pass away. Don't, don't a lot of people just want to avoid the risk of another relationship?

And well, that's one of the fears that we try to deal with in the book, is the fear that, uh, you know, well, wait a minute, I've had a successful relationship or two in the past, and, uh, you know, maybe I'm just too old and there's no one out there. And, you know, all the kind of fears that normal. But we also know that if you have a healthy relationship, um, you know, in your later years, it probably adds at least 7 years to your lifespan. Um, that's the average and the statistics that are about that. To have a healthy older period, for most people, it's going to be that you will do it in relationship. Um, being lonely is the number one senior mental health issue that the attorney, uh, that the Attorney General, yeah, Surgeon General, Surgeon General, had said. Uh, so loneliness is an issue, and you do live longer and usually happier if, if you're in relationship.

I mean, the statistics of people dying after a spouse dying are very high, or coming down the hill.

Really, it's 6 months for a long-term relationship.

One of the things that I find with women and families is that your kids will say, oh, she's really happy. My mother lives alone and she's striving. And like it's some kind of a badge of courage and medal. And she is. Well, of course she's happy when she sees them. What are you going to do? You're going to go to dinner with them and say, I am lonely. I am miserable.

You got to find me somebody quick.

Whenever you cover that, of course you cover that.

Whenever you see these widows, they're happy because you're seeing them because they want you to be.

And they don't wanna be a drag. So they, they kind of fake it most times. Uh, I mean, there are of course people that are happy on their own and have a very fulfilled and wonderful life. However, for most of us, we do better if we in relationship.

And I mean, guys are dying 2 years after their wives. I mean, the statistics are really quite startling.

Yeah, brutal.

So, yeah, so the, yeah, the, the statistics, the research is showing how the, you know, the importance, the value of having that relationships and closeness, uh, that really makes a difference. What do you say to the person? By the way, I just heard about a case, not a case, but an example of a 102-year-old, uh, you know, veteran who went back to Normandy, um, celebrating the—

Wasn't that wonderful?

Yes.

And he, he proposed to an old girlfriend of his who lived in France.

Class reunions are now the new meetup.

There you go.

You go back to a class reunion and you meet someone that— oh, I dated you when I was 16. How are you doing? Wow, I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing?

You know, it's, it's, it's becoming the norm now. It's not the exception anymore. And I, I say the numbers just kicked in the way.

I had several in my practice that met at class reunions where they went back.

Oh, that's great. So let's not be so surprised when people do have these engagements later on. I think that's great. So what do you say to the person who says, I'm too old, I've been through all this, I've been through a marriage or several marriages, I'm too old. What do you say to that person?

You know what? When Frank and I get together with people they want to get into relationship. When they see us, it's much more profound than my saying by myself, saying, oh, well, it's great. You really might want to think about being married. I mean, it's almost like seeing is believing. I mean, it's like, it's great if that's what you want. If you want to go through— when I was a kid, nobody expected a woman to get married, and they were 60. I mean, you just didn't expect— I didn't expect my grandmother. My grandfather died at 55. Did I expect her to get married? Heaven to no.

Now people are living in, you know, into their 70s and 80s and very healthy. It's not that they're not— they're living, but they're not infirm. They can have a relationship and they can enjoy doing things together.

They can have passion and purpose. Yeah. You know, yeah. But you know, this, I think this is a pretty startling statistic. The average woman will be widowed at 57 to 59. Yeah.

I hadn't heard that. That's pretty striking.

Yeah, it is striking.

The average. Yeah.

And so you've got all those years that, and I know some women are like, well, I've still got kids at home, so I'll wait till they leave. And I'm like, you've got high college-age kids. Don't wait.

Yeah.

You know, if you want to be in a relationship, don't wait until your house is empty.

We had one situation in my practice where this, this woman wanted and thought and said something to her son about wanting to maybe try online dating and meet someone. So she did, and she, she got kind of frightened and went back to her son and, and said, I, I, I don't know, it's kind of scary. And he discouraged her.

Yeah. And then he said what?

So she got a dog and she lived for 5 more years. And we met up with him and talked with him and he said, you know what? I'm really sorry I discouraged my mom.

Sure. Yeah, we all have that drive and resilience, and sometimes we listen to other people and who tell us to put it back, you know, put it away and don't pay attention to that drive.

Go back in your woodshed, stay there.

So let's get to the specifics. What, how do you— what steps do we take when we're looking for a relationship? I mean, if somebody is saying, okay, I'm gonna, you know, put my, put my toe in the, in the water again and see what it's like, what do you I certainly had a lot of men especially come into my practice and, and say, you know, I don't know what to do with myself.

I'm retired now. I'm playing a little golf maybe or whatever, but I, you know, I'm just, you know, not sure to jump back into the dating thing. So one of the things that I say to them very clearly is that You know what, what do you have to lose? I mean, you're gonna be meeting some people. Some of them are not going to be candidates, but some of them might be very interesting people to meet. And how are you meeting people these days? You're not working. You're usually retired. And, uh, you know, you may have some, some different interests that you have, but in most cases, you're not going to meet the large number of people that you can meet online. And so if I can convince them to just go online and just look, you know, just take a look at all the different kind of women that are out there, these very interesting, very intelligent, creative, uh, exciting people to meet, uh, what do you got to lose? What do you got to lose?

Sure. Sure. And there are a bunch of sites for seniors dating.

Well, there, there are sites that specifically are for people who are a little older. SilverSingles is one. That's the one we met on, but there are several others that, that do cater to people who are a little older. And it's, it's a little bit easier and they try to make the process easy, but I will tell you, it's a little daunting for most people when they first start off. Usually you need to get what we call a dating buddy or dating buddies, someone who is more familiar. And sometimes that's your grandchildren who are more familiar with the dating sites who can help you get on, navigate it, and they can have fun with it. Most of them have fun doing it.

So what, there are risks, of course. What, what, what, what are some of the, the bad outcomes you've heard about?

Not directly. Yeah, there, there are, and you have to be a good consumer. And that's the reason why dating buddies are a good idea because they help you sort out whether this person is a real person or not. And you can check, uh, through public records, uh, the, the background of the people. You can go and get Google them and usually find out some information about whether they— yeah, White Pages or eVerify are, are really good sources. And we encourage especially women to say to, uh, the man, you know, I, for, for just safety purposes, I want to check you out and make sure that you really are who you say you are. And you know what? You should do that with me too. You know, just check me out. We'll both feel safer. We'll both feel more comfortable if we know that we are who we say we are and we're not some scammer who's, who's trying to look. And the biggest thing that Gloria and I say all the time, no matter who you talk to and no matter how many great conversations you've had with them, Don't give money under any circumstances. No money. Because if, if you have that rule and you let the person know right up front, you know what, I, you know, I, I just, I've been told to do this by Gloria and Frank that we're not supposed to give money.

No, it's really, women have always been scammed and men. I mean, let's put a new roof on your house. You need 4 tires on your car that just blew out.

And do I have a deal for you.

It's always—

you need to change the air in your tires. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, let's not play like it's not always happening.

Yeah.

It's always happening.

But I consider one of the risks for women, and I do talk to them about this, is that you want to have these long conversations on the telephone.

Or text.

You want a text message. Some people want to do that.

Meet the person.

It's fine. You know, if you want to do that, good for you. That's not something I do because dating is time consuming. And I like to see people meet up as soon as possible. The apps protect you if you let them. You don't have to give them your telephone number. You don't have to give them the email. The app will take you through the app. People put themselves at risk when they, when they open up information, when they give people information where they know who it is. But you know, that being said, these people are looking for money.

Yeah, really.

And so they know up front.

They're looking for somebody to fall in love with them and give them money.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's a good tip, Gloria. Um, what are some of the reasons that you've heard why people ask for money? I mean, I'm sure they're very plausible.

I'll give you one example. This, this gentleman was a principal of a high school, and he, he was very, very lovely guy. And he, he contacted this woman who was not in his local locality, and it was a long-distance communication, and he communicated with her for a while and she was talking about, oh, you know, I'm, I would love to come out and meet you, but my mom is sick. She's in the hospital.

That's the big one.

And I'm, I'm really having a struggle right now. So he asked me, he said, well, should I help her out? And I said, I think you should check her out, not help her out, check her out and make sure this is right. So he did. He went on eVerify and found out that the person that she said she was did not exist.

Or do I need airfare? I want to meet you.

Oh yeah, I want to meet you.

I can meet you in Seattle.

Yeah, it sounds like a reasonable, plausible request.

The moment the money comes into the relationship, we say, you know, and it is harder if you communicate with someone texting, or, or even if you have Zoom calls or whatever. We had one lady who said that she had a Zoom call with this guy who was supposedly working in Saudi Arabia or from Nigeria.

He even had his kids—

he even— he brought kids onto his Zoom thing, and he didn't have kids.

And it turned out the guy was— the guy was from Nigeria. Yes.

Yeah. And she gave him money. It caused her a $30,000.

But she was in love with him. That's the problem.

She fell in love online, you know, and, and that's a danger. That's the reason why you want to meet them as soon as possible.

Yeah, I, I, I think that's a great recommendation. We can talk a lot on the phone or text back and forth, but what you're recommending is meet in person, face to face, that way, you know, that they are who they say.

Plus, you know, um, and if you meet their friends and if you meet, their family, you have a pretty good idea that this person is genuine.

Oh, well, once you get down, that's a long way down the line.

Yeah. I mean, but that gives you a good idea.

You have your first meetup.

Do that before you fall in love.

You go for your first meetup in a place that you planned.

Yes.

For a half hour at a coffee shop.

Well, I'm sure you're familiar with The Golden Bachelor and, and, oh yeah, I don't watch it, but I— and my God, you know, uh, that it was, it was great television. It was wonderful to see people get excited about relationships that are older. However, these people knew nothing about one another, and it, you know, it only took 3 months for them to find out, hey, we're not as compatible as we look like on TV.

Yeah. What about when people make a bad decision? Uh, you've heard about probably some regrets or mistakes. What do you do? How do you help people work through that and go back into the pool? Is it possible?

Yes. Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You help them to see themselves in a positive light as being—

We try to, to use a reframe and say, look, you know, you learned a lot in this process. You learned a lot about dating. You learned a lot about yourself, and you learned about what works for you and doesn't. So now you're an experienced dater. Now you're gonna do better. You're gonna have a better chance of finding someone and having success. So you can expect the first time for it to work out. But you learn and you become a better dater, a better onliner. You, you become someone who is a veteran and you're much more likely to find the right person for yourself. You only have to find one.

I mean, it's, yeah, you're only looking for one person and the pool is so much bigger than waiting for your next door neighbor to introduce you to somebody. And I, we also, I have a client who I was talking to her and she really settled for a friend. And she said 10 years later that she wished that she would have kept dating until she found somebody she really had some sparks with.

A 10-year relationship of a friendship, and that's wonderful, but she could have had more, possibly.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that recommendation, Frank, of the whole notion of reframing because we can interpret these events in our lives in a very negative way and label it.

It's a learning experience. This is graduate school for dating.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's important. Any other recommendations? I mean, other, you talked about the importance of meeting face to face, avoid the money, you know, a dating buddy.

You don't want to go in your head alone. You know, you want to have people that you can have fun with and enjoy going over the profile. Going over the meetups and talking with them and having fun with it. Because if you don't have fun with this process, you're, you're, you're going to probably not do it.

Yeah, you can't sit—

it's got to be fun, got to be enjoyable.

Grudgery, drudgery. But you do have to create space for it.

Yes.

You know, people are busy and, you know, they're babysitting their grandkids or their own kids, they're working, and it does take time. Uh, so you have to think about You know, um, giving it enough time. Yeah. And how many— you might even plan how many dates you're willing to go on or meetups you're willing to do a week or a month or—

but it could be the most important activity that you get into.

Sure.

In terms of spending time and effort. And, uh, you, you can't expect success right away. You're going to meet a lot of people who are what we call almost— they're almost the relationship, but they're not quite So, and these people are really interesting and you have a good time meeting them and whatever, but you, you know that this isn't the one that I want to spend the rest of my life with. When you find somebody you want to spend your life with, that is a true—

for sure.

That doesn't always happen right away. You've got to be prepared.

Yep.

You're sure there's no, um, no set time at what's a, what's a general timeframe we'd looking at 6 months, 12 months.

Generally, I've had people meet within the first month and successful. I've had other people that it's taken a year or more. So it's hard to really say. It's like the luck of the draw, you know.

And sometimes people want to take a break.

Yeah.

You know, and then they'll say, I'm going to—

and sometimes they'll even change websites because if you if you feel like nothing's really happening, I'm not meeting anybody on this website, the good news are there is a number of websites you can try. And, uh, you know, we, we actually helped a person that we knew. We were dating buddies for this lady, and, and we helped her go to a professional matchmaker. Actually, uh, she found that she had as much success online as she did with—

well, one of the things that happened is that one of the people she met from the matchmaker she'd already met online.

Oh, okay.

So here's the—

yeah, so here, here she's paying like $5,000.

Here's the thing, if you want to, if you want to spend $5,000, I get it. If you've got more, if you've got more money than you have time, they will vet for you. But you can vet for yourself because they're getting those men offline, online, because where else do you get them?

They're recruiting them online.

They're recruiting them online. So you can do it yourself.

But it was— she's surprised when she met up with this guy that she paid all this money for and she had met him for $35 a month.

I've got to tell you something really interesting about matchmakers for people. I was fascinated about this. Matchmakers do not let you see a picture of the person you're going to meet up with.

Yeah, because they understand.

Yeah, they understand that there's more than just—

you want to find out about them.

Yeah, you wanna— there could be some energy even if the guy's not 6 feet tall. I can't tell you how many people tell me they have to have somebody 6 feet tall, and I'm like, give me a break. Matchmakers don't tell you whether they've got beards, whether they are 6 feet tall.

They just say, I've read their profile, I know them, I think there'll be a good candidate for you to meet. So, well, a lot of times when your friends set you up on a blind date, you don't see the person.

Sure.

Your friends do the screening for you. And, uh, so this is the way the matchmakers do it.

Yeah, I try to get women not to be quite as particular. Give them a chance, you know, it's only going to be 20 minutes.

Yeah, let's not get lost in the physical appearance.

Yeah.

So what's the, what's the average fee? There's a subscription typically, uh, what, $50? What?

Matchmakers are regular.

No, no, no, the dating site. The dating site?

I, I'm not sure. The average is usually around $40 a month. They usually have a month or 3 months that you can do. We tell people that if you do it, uh, take the shorter time and just get used to it.

And take the basics.

And take the basics.

You can do other things.

Yeah. Because they want you to pay all kinds of fees to, to send flowers, uh, you know, premium account flowers.

You can take trips with people to Italy with avatars. I mean, I mean, I mean, they're getting really inventive online.

But, but just the basics are all you basically need. And get used to the system. Get a dating buddy. Have fun with it. Sit around in your pajamas and look at all the profiles and see the abilities and see if there's anyone that's—

Do you know what's really fun too and funny? Once you sign up and pay your money, your little— your attitude, your little amygdala in the brain and your little hormones say, I'm dating. And then you get out of your sweats and you go to a restaurant and you look around to see who's there.

You have a different, different attitude, different—

Yeah, you kind of reinvent yourself in a way.

Exactly.

You might be somebody at class reunion, or your neighbor might introduce you to somebody.

Yeah, who knows? We never know, right?

We never know. It does change the way you look at life. It changes your view. When you start dating.

And I, I don't think it's just mental. I think it's also physical.

You also become more like a teenager.

Yeah.

It's, it's amazing.

That's why it's hard for your kids to date.

Fun. Yeah. So tell us about your book, Open to Love: The Secrets of Senior Dating.

Yeah.

How's it going? Was it, how was it?

Oh, it's going really well. We're, we're really excited. And, and in fact, uh, you see, Silver Singles has taken us on, and they sent out some people to do a photo shoot with us because they were really excited about us helping people use their online process better. So, uh, we, we have a, a relationship with Silver Singles now that we, we didn't even expect. And they were very happy, and they have us do a blog. We send a blog in every month to talk about the issues in the book to help people, become better daters online. Yeah. Especially seniors. I mean, because that's their, that's their biggest growing group is the senior population.

My, my thing, you'll appreciate this as a psychologist, we're the Piaget of senior dating.

We're using our own kids.

Piaget studied his own kids. We're studying our own life.

Yeah. Right.

Which is a normal development process. Sure. Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's great. So Gloria, um, tell us about the Open to Hope Foundation. What's that?

Um, 40 years ago my son was killed in an automobile accident, and, uh, I—

he was 16, he was 17, 17, he was killed with my nephew.

And, uh, with, um, the advent of the internet, I had private practice, I decided that I could help more people by doing an online profile. So We started with online, uh, radio 20 years ago. My daughter and I were on, uh, Voice America, and now we have, uh, 3 million downloads a year. Our mission is, uh, giving, helping people find hope after loss and giving a voice to grief and recovery. So we go to conferences, we have, uh, 400 people that write for our site, like the Huffington Post, free, and we have thousands of articles online. We have, um, over 500 podcasts And, uh, we just have a lot of material going on there. Do a TV show in New York City.

Good for you.

Good for you. Gold stars. I was on Voice America for about a year and, uh, I didn't have quite that following that you do, but, uh, good for you.

Yeah, I know.

That's great.

Who knows with AI what we're gonna do next.

Oh my God.

Oh my goodness.

We are talking about unlimited, right? Unlimited. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Any final takeaways for our audience? We covered some good tips— the dating buddy, avoid giving money, meet the person, and, you know, meet, meet someone face to face. Um, other fun—

I'll just say get out there. It's worth it.

Yeah, it takes courage. Yes, it's fun. It'll energize you. You'll find mission purpose. And remember, you're only looking for one person.

Only if I could Yeah, that brings to mind the saying, done is better than perfect, right?

I mean, yes, absolutely.

Just get out there and do something.

That's right. Exactly. Get off the couch.

Yeah. Well, it looks like we're out of time, but, um, before we wrap up, I just wanna remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club, sign up for my email list and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. And if you're affiliated with senior living setting, be sure to look for my new training manual and activity guide, Better, Longer, and Happier. Well, Gloria and Frank, thanks so much for being a guest on my show. For those who might want to contact you, do you have website or how can they reach you?

The Golden Dating Doctors.

The Golden Dating Doctors. Okay. Dot com.

Lots of material on there for you. And I would say we've got a chapter that we didn't talk about. But I think it's one of the most important chapters of our book, which is called Through the Bedroom Door.

It's all about later life sexuality.

And that's—

yeah.

Do you want to say a few words about that?

I think that they may want to read it because it's so different. And I think that's one of the things everyone's like, oh, your book could be for everybody. But that's an important chapter because of sexuality.

It is different.

As you get older with prostate cancer, with all sorts of health issues, you can still have intimacy.

70% of men over 70, uh, you know, have problems with erections.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so a whole different world.

Yeah.

So, but it's just as loving and, and in some ways, and in some ways more, some ways more.

I, I've had people with prostate cancer tell me that their sexuality is better now. Uh, even if they can't, uh, have an erection.

I remember years ago the saying, um, older adults make love less often but mean it more. Yes.

Yeah. I like that.

That's some truth. I think that's good.

Yeah. And your book is available on Amazon. Amazon or most available on online. And then goldendatingdoctors.com is the website.

Yep.

Yep. Exactly. So, and Open to Hope. .com. Awesome. All sorts of losses and recovery.

Well, thanks for writing a new book called Open to Life, and that is after you find the one, how do you keep the one? How do you keep a healthy—

how do you sell your house? How do you move in together? You do your stuff.

Do you get married or not? Yes.

Yes. Oh boy.

Yeah, we're living it.

Yeah, it's a living book.

We're just getting ready to move into the senior living as Libby.

Yeah.

And we're excited about it.

Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. How to add more richness to that relationship. I'm looking forward to that too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you both.

Thank you both.

And, uh, thank you.

Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.