Attract Love Later in Life with “Age-Defying Dating”

I can't find love at any age. How many times have we heard that over the years, Gary, where people really are focused on this one number? The one number, oh, I am 35, I'm 45, I'm 85. I can't find love because of this number. And I get it. That might be how you feel. But after this podcast today, we're going to be discussing how to attract love later in life and a few shifts that you can make to start opening your heart and getting some real success. And how do you call it, Gary? Age defying dating. I love this concept. It's a great one. Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else. Backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of love strategy, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy.

Because this is the thing is, like, age, does it really actually matter? It's just a number. And we are so captivated by numbers that are easy to seemingly easy to understand that we give them way too much credit. It's meaningless. It's the number of trips you've taken around the sun. And I always like to put it in that context because, like, really? Oh, it's. You almost want to push back against that idea. Like, is it really Tripstrong? That is, that's really all it is. It's just this artificial conceptualization that humans have come up with to quantify life. And of all the numbers, what a terrible way to try to quantify life. Because, I don't know, you see in our clients all the time. Like, I'll be on Masterminds talking to groups of clients, and you'll have a woman say, you know, I'm just too old. And, you know, I'll look across the zoom and look and like, I don't know, you look. You look 52. Like, I'm 67. And I'm like, what? Like, what do you mean you're. You don't act 67. So why are you letting this 6 and 7 gang up on you and get in your head about how you are? Because you come across as very, very different. You know, our clients get all the time and they'll even say, like, people Tell me all the time. I don't look my. Yeah, so don't worry about your age. And that's generally what we're aiming for in today's podcast.

Well, it's funny that we're talking about this today because when I first started coaching women, I switched from men to women about now, I don't know, 13 years ago. But I had a young client, she was like 28. She's my very first client. And everything went really well with her. She ended up being in a great relationship. I was really excited. And then my next client was in her late 50s, and I was like, ooh, I don't know. I haven't worked with a woman in this age group. I worked with a lot of men. But the thing is, she had an internal number of like 22 on the youthfulness scale. She was the type of person who came in and was like, I'm gonna just seize the world. I'm so excited. I'm at a phase of my life where I'm just like, I'm curious. I wanna meet new people. I wanna just get out there and I just wanna live my life to the fullest.

And.

And she found love even faster with the process. And then after that, not to make the story too long after this, I worked with a woman who was in her early 30s and she had an internal number of like a 94 year old.

Okay.

She was just like, ugh, I'm too old. Men don't want to date men my age. You just have no idea. And guess what? That was one of the hardest clients I've ever had to work with. So the point of this whole story. And then, you know, now we've had over 44,000 clients over the past 13 years. And what I've found is that the age itself is not what's important. It's much more about the internal age on how you're feeling. And guess what? That is the one thing you can control. You can't control how many trips you made around the sun, baby. You can't do it. But you can control your energy and your youthfulness, which is a mindset when it comes to dating.

Which is why we're calling this age defying dating. Because it's. We're going to defy your age. It has nothing to do with your age. It's a mentality. And so here's a. Here's a little bit of tough. So many times when clients cite their age, they're really using it as a crutch or an excuse. The Thing is, as you mentioned, we, I've heard this just in the last couple weeks from someone who is 35, someone who is 55 and someone who was 75, all saying essentially the same thing. My age is the problem. And in every single case, it's not the numerical age, it's the mentality. Because this idea that men aren't interested in women my age just isn't true because there's always other clients the exact same age who are meeting all kinds of guys. And so it's not the six, the five, the two, the three, it doesn't matter. It's all in your mind. And so that's what we're going to do today is talk about this idea of age defining dating to help you with five specific mindset shifts you can make that you know are age defying and start shifting you towards a youthful mentality.

Yeah, and it's a tricky one because like, you can tell, you know, we run these mastermind sessions with our clients and you can tell pretty quickly the ones who truly are not going to use that excuse and are like, yeah, my age is just a number. I can't do anything about it, so I'm not going to worry about it. And those are the ones who very quickly progress through the little love steps. And they're like, oh my God, this is amazing. I have so many options. This is incredible. Like, I'm loving dating. It's so fun. And then the women who have the belief system that it is their age, they struggle and they struggle because they have this belief. So it's like you gotta break through the belief first in order to start getting the results. And that is the goal of today, is to start breaking through the belief first so that we can then start getting the results and being able to reinforce this new belief, which is that age is truly just a number and you can find love at any age. So, Gary, why don't you walk us through the first one?

Yeah. So I think this all starts with a shift in sophistication. And it's sophistication in the way you think about the world. Because bottom line, age and how you think about that numerical age, it's a stereotype. And we all know better than the stereotype. We don't like it when people stereotype us based on superficial qualities and age, your numerical age is a superficial quality. And so the more sophisticated way to think about it is realizing like, yes, we start on this idea that age matters because in your twenties, age did matter. A five year difference meant something. In your twenties, it doesn't. When you're older, it really, it makes no difference. And so this age thing, and it's kind of, it's a carryover from a previous stage of life that just doesn't work anymore. And so the sophistication is realizing, wait, I'm not going to be fooled by finding out that someone's 57 and then start jumping to conclusions and telling myself what that means about that person because that person deserves a fair chance without me making these stereotypical assumptions. I should be more curious instead of making assumptions and focus on a deeper understanding of that person as an individual and not pigeonhole them based on their age.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's so helpful to actually think of some people in any age group that you're in and think about how many actual different types of energies there are of your peers. Like, you have some friends who are so old. Like I have some friends, yeah, I'm Basically, I'm almost 40 at this point. I have some friends, dude, I'm telling you, they're 65 year olds. Like they are just so ridiculously like numeric, like energy wise, just in a different ball game. And I have some friends who are like 30 year olds. And it's just like if you can do a quick inventory of your life in your peer group and your energy group, you can already realize that there's different age energies. I don't know, maybe I'm terming, I'm creating a new term here, but there is a different type of energy here. And if you can shift away from just looking at this one superficial thing, which is the actual number, and start thinking about it as types of energies, then suddenly I think it can help you really start breaking free of this.

Yeah. Which brings us really nicely to this next one is it's just a shift in focus. It's away from numbers and more towards psychological qualities that matter. Because when you find out someone's 57 or 72, it doesn't tell you anything about their intelligence, their maturity, their curiosity level, their desire for growth. It just doesn't. And guess what? Everything I just listed, that stuff is important for long term quality relationships, for getting along with somebody, for wanting to hang out with somebody, for wanting to share your life with somebody, intelligence, maturity, curiosity, all that stuff really, really matters. Now you want to shift away from focusing on age and more toward some of the things we've been mentioning like youthfulness, like do they have like a vital youthful energy? We like hanging out with people who are Vital, who are like, let's go, let's go do things. Let's like, seek out new experiences. We like people who are similar to us some. You know, one of my best friends in early in my academic career was this guy. He's 20 years older than me. 20 years. Like, he's in a completely different stage of life, but him and I, same sense of humor, same worldview. Him and I got along amazingly. But you would look at the two of us and like, who's like, we've hung out, like, is this your dad? And like, no, not my dad. He's just a cool dude. And he never seemed like what his age was. Right. And so focusing on those, there's similarities. There's also desirable differences. Like, we sometimes go overboard focusing on differences like, oh, that person's this age, I'm only 55, they're 62. That's way different. Well, maybe it's different in a good way, right? Maybe there are some things that they've experienced. Maybe there's some emotional intelligence or maturity that they have that you get to learn from. And that's an important thing too.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Are you getting tired of the guys who don't want to commit and are you ready to attract that long lasting relationship? Well, for podcast listeners, we have a very special training that is available at he commits. When you go over there, you can go ahead and reserve a seat. We are going to walk you through the five secret strategies that make men commit. I want you to discover your power and make guys beg for your affection. Go to he commits.com and you can dive deep into that content. All right, back to the pod. Now, the third thing I think is really important is the shift in confidence and shifting away from focusing on what you do, don't have at any age or can't do and shifting this mentality towards emphasizing how amazing you really are. Like, focus on the qualities that you have that are absolutely incredible on the dating scene and very unique. You know how you take care of yourself, Your skin, your hair, your youth, your vitality. Are you bubbly? Are you exciting? When you talk to a new person, guess what? All these things are things that you can work on. Do you have that radiating radiant personality? Do you just radiate and have this incredible positive, optimistic vibe about yourself? Are you kind and curious? Do you communicate well? Do you ask people questions instead of make assumptions about them? Do you truly listen and not just like fake listen as someone's talking to make it appear like you're like, truly listen to people and want to understand them. Do you prioritize clarity in conversation? Are you open to new experiences? Because guess what? That's what dating is. It's all just new experiences and new people. Are you growth oriented versus very stagnant and stale in your ways? All of these things can be a shift in your confidence level towards positivity in your love life. And if you can make these shifts, then suddenly, once again, age is just. It just really is a number. And it's so interesting. As we were talking about doing this podcast, I think about our coaching staff, and a lot of our coaches are much older. Like, they're. And our client success managers and directors. Like, we have an older team. But the thing is, like, I don't think about age at all with our team because their energy is so vibrant. Like, it's wild to see this. And it's just something that it is so within your control to have these types of qualities about yourself while you're dating or just in life. And if you can harness those, then suddenly, once again, you won't be thinking so much about your age.

Yeah, it's so funny you mentioned, because I was literally just having that thought that at our last live event, we all went out to dinner as a company. And I think the age range of everybody at that dinner was probably a full 35, 40 years. From the youngest person to the oldest person. Yeah. But every single person there were was the same person. Right. The same kind of energy, the same kind of like, let's try this.

I don't know.

It's just it. I remember sitting there at one point during that. That dinner and just kind of look around, like, look at all these very seemingly different people that are all at their core, so incredibly aligned and so incredibly similar. And we can hang out, have such a good time. And you wouldn't necessarily have put all those people together as a group just on superficial qualities.

Dude, you know who is the grandpa at the dinner table? It was our new marketing guy who's like 33. He was the grandpa. Not to make fun of him a little bit, but I'm going to in a wonderful way. But, like, compared to Robin, who is. I actually don't know her age. I don't want to drop it, but, like, late 50s, early 60s. She was younger than him.

She's talking about going skydiving.

Yeah, exactly.

And he's like, no, do not.

He's like, I don't eat oysters. I don't. I don't eat oysters. I Don't do this. By the way, Michael, you're great, dude. Just giving you a hard time here, but it was a fun. Now that I'm really thinking about it, like, wasn't he the grandpa of the dinner table?

Absolutely.

Totally.

Absolutely. But I think this is the thing about age, and it brings us to our fourth one, which is when you start focusing on age, you're focusing on time frames in the wrong way. And so what I want everybody to do is shift time frames, because when you're focusing on age, it purposely makes you think about the past in ways that are unimportant. Right. And so if you're dating and you are in your 30s, 40s, and beyond, like, everybody has a relationship history, and it's very easy to get too wrapped up in that. And I think this age mentality bleeds into this, right? Where it's like you're worrying about who they had dated before, their previous marriages, their. Their past mistakes. And it's like, wait a second, you're not in a relationship with the person they were five, 10, 20, 30 years ago. You're in a relationship with who they are now. And so shifting out of this age mindset where, like, all this stuff seems to matter in a way it actually doesn't, isn't fair because you need to give that person that you're dating credit for their growth. Yeah, they made a mistake 15 years ago, married the wrong person, ended up divorced. Give them credit for going through with the divorce and growing from that experience and not getting too wrapped up in the past. You also, I think when you focus about age, you also don't want to focus too much on the immediate future. Like, I think every once in a while, people start focusing too much on, you know, what I'm going to do this weekend or what my next date's going to look like, what really think the focus should be, and what I love so much about coaching in this space is everything's future oriented. It's okay. The past is the past. Like, what are we going to do from this point forward to make sure we can optimize for the future that we want? And let's be future focused, focus on our forever future. Like, who is the person we want to be in five or 50 years? What kind of relationship do we want in five or 50 years? Because that's not an age thing. That's just a how do we want to spend the next decades of our life? And that's ultimately what's more important.

Yeah. And I think when we're Thinking about our. You know, I. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Like when. When you've had a lot of relationship history and divorces, every negative experience you have in relationships just makes you mindset wise a little bit more skeptical. It's like when you're 18, the world is your oyster. People are amazing. Oh, my God, like, I can't wait to find love. You just have this aura about you of total curiosity because you haven't gone through the hard times. And there's something very naive about it. And we look back at people who are younger and we're like, oh, they're naive. But then as we get older, guess what happens? We become skeptical and brittle if we stay with that mindset. So the best combination of all of this is if you can take the wisdom you have at any age and be able to tap into a little bit of that openness that you had when you were younger again, and think of it as a new season of life again. I just have to keep talking about Robin because she's one of our executive love coaches, and she just did this so well. When she first started as a client, she was like, this is a brand new season of life for me, and I'm so excited to just explore it and just meet new people. It's finally time for me again. And she was talking almost like a teenager was. And she took the best parts of that mindset. Not all the naive stuff where you don't, like, you know, you don't understand how the world works. Like she understands how the world works, but she's also excited about exploring it again. And so if you can think of it like that, take, you know, it doesn't mean erasing all of your negative relationship history, but don't let it turn. Turn you into a total brittle person who is skeptical about every human being in every relationship.

Yeah. And I think that really is the last mindset shift in this age defying dating, which is just the shift towards acceptance. Right. You have to move away from this mentality that you're going to meet the perfect cookie cutter exactly as I drew up. Perfect partner. It's not that has never existed. And to your point earlier, I mean, that's just something that wanting that perfect partner and thinking and demanding the perfect partner. It's a luxury of being young and naive because it seems possible. But when you're older, you realize everyone's got messiness, Everyone, yourself included. Whether it's past relationships, you have annoying habits, there's some weirdness. And not only do you have some of these quirks and idiosyncrasies, but you've had decades to really ingrain some of those habits. And so the person you're going to date, when you're a little bit older, more mature, they're going to have some things that just are imperfect. And that's okay. That's what makes people interesting. And I think it's the shift towards acceptance and this realization that no one is perfect, including yourself. And it's not about perfection when it comes to successful dating. When it comes to age defined dating, it's about prioritization. What knowing. Like, use your maturity to know what truly matters in relationships. Seek that out so that you know it when you find it.

Now I want to send a message to all of those beautiful women who've listened to all of this and they say, yeah, Adam, Gary, I get all this stuff, but age still very much so matters. It still matters a lot. And I want to tell you, I hear you and I understand it can be very challenging to get out there when you haven't done it in a while or it's just a very different dating landscape. But here's my response to you. So what? You can't change it. So stop focusing on the things that you can't change, which is your age. You can't change it. So why would you focus so much energy on it? Like those I think are the most, the types of people who go through really challenging times in their life and then they overcome that particular challenge because they're like, I can't control what has happened to me. All I can do is control the controllables. Those are the people we admire most. And I think for those of you who are constantly focusing on your age, you're just giving yourself a disability when it comes to dating. And so if you can just say, look, yeah, my age is my age. There's some challenges with it. So what? I'm going to embrace it and control the things I can control, which is the energy I put into it with kindness, excitement, curiosity, youthfulness, energy wise. Suddenly you can have an amazing time and amazing experience. So give it a try, put it aside for a bit. Don't focus so much energy on it. Don't ruminate in that one thing because I'll guarantee whatever you believe to be true will be true.

Yeah. And one last thing. You're, you are not a finished product. You're not done. You're not done living. You're not done dating. We have put out a hundred or more podcasts Dating is a skill. Relationships are a skill. Everything that you want to do, to cultivate, to learn to become a better dater, you can find it in these podcasts. And, you know, it's just a matter of getting started. You're not a finished product. Go out there, get started. You can do it.

Go have a little bit of fun while you're at it. Thanks, Gary. That was great, man. So now you've reached the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And because you have proven that you are serious about attracting love, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't feel that way. What I'd love for you to do is go to loveapply.com where you can apply for a complimentary love strategy session where a professional love strategist on my team is going to speak with you directly and be able to see whether or not our executive love coaching programs can be transformational for you and your love life. There's absolutely no fee whatsoever. All you gotta do is head on over to loveapply.com schedule that session, and you could be speaking with someone on my team over the next couple days. All right, thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Bye.