Sick of Wasting Time? 7 Ways to Find Love Fast in Your 50’s

So if you're like our clients who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s trying to get out there dating, you've probably said this a few times, which is, I am so sick of wasting time on dating. Like, it literally feels like a full time job. So in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about seven ways to find love fast in your 50s and stop wasting time and emotional energy throughout the process. 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 strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies Coach. Please share with a friend and enjoy. And just because it's about wasting time, we're going to make sure we get through this one pretty quick, aren't we, Gary?

We are. Because, you know, you hear clients say, I don't want this to be a job. I'm sick of spending all this time on the apps dealing with these guys who are terrible texters and managing all these meetups. And so there is this impulse of like, I want to have this figured out yesterday, let's go. And so the that's get, I get it perfectly fine impulse. I get that you're feeling that way, but we have to control it because you want to not rush this, but you do want to be efficient. And I think that's a really important distinction. And we talk about strategy all the time. And so I think this is the strategic mindset to deal with this time pressure is instead of thinking about going quick, let's think about being efficient. And so I don't know about you, but I think about this just like I think about spending money. And so I don't mind spending money on things that are worth spending money on, like a nice trip, a nice meal, I don't mind spending money, but. And my wife will tell you this, she hates this about me. I lose my mind when it comes to wasting money, Right? So if we buy food and it expires when I have to throw it out, I like it just, it irks me so bad. And so I think it's a similar type of thing with time. And dating is like, we all know it's tough. We all know that it's going to take some time. It's going to take some effort.

But the thing that I'm just laughing at you, like, opening the fridge to some, like, rotten oranges. And you look at your daughter and your wife like, why didn't you eat this orange? You're like the sweetest man ever.

I. I'm not a perfect person. And I am a work in progress. And this is one of my works in progress.

I totally agree with you, by the way. It's just really funny to imagine you doing that.

I'm like, why do we have six bags of spinach that all expired a week ago?

The spinach goes back, oh, it goes bad in like three days. What are we doing?

And I'm always like, and it's like I hear my father in my voice saying, like, I might as well just be ripping up a five dollar bill. It's the same damn thing. I'm like, I don't know, now that I'm older, I'm like, he makes a good point. He makes a valid point.

All right, I digress. So it's in you, Gary.

But I just, you know, I. We want to spend time. We know we're gonna have to spend time. But what we don't want to do is waste time on the wrong guys with the wrong strategies, doing the wrong things. Because we want to be efficient and dating efficiency is spending your time in the right way on the right things with the right guy. And it's about finding the best way possible to do this. Minimizing the unnecessary wasting of time, energy, and effort, getting your priorities straight. Like, like I say to clients all the time, date smarter, not harder. And recognizing whole process is about quality, not about quickness. And it's one of the things I love about our approach is I'll say to clients all the time, our goal is not to find you any old partner or to find you the a partner as quick as possible, because I could get you all a partner tonight. Right? Like, that's not hard. But what we are really after is finding the long term quality, fulfilling relationships. And we want to take the time to do that. Right? And we want to be efficient as we do it.

Yeah, we want to be efficient, but just recognizing it still takes time, you know? So for those who are listening to this and they're thinking to themselves, okay, I'm going to find a boyfriend in the next 20 minutes if I just do these next few things. It doesn't work like that. It's about again, using our time intentionally so and efficiently. So let's get into the first one. I think this is probably the biggest one when it comes to not only saving time, but saving also emotional energy throughout the process. Because frankly, when people say they're sick of wasting time, usually they're saying actually I'm sick of wasting my emotional energy energy on the wrong people. That's typically how I translate that. So the first one is just really knowing your non negotiables, like identifying your absolute core values and your deal breakers before dating. This is why we have our clients when they go through a very step by step process with us, we call them the seven little low steps. The, the second step in this process is where they create what we call a love vision. And the goal of this is to start screening out those disqualifying traits early and really understanding what is your ideal profile for a guy and what is it that we're willing to accept. It's not about having a checklist. We don't have a checklist of 500 things of every single thing we want in a guy. Instead, it's more about understanding your non negotiables so that you don't invest time in people who violate your non negotiables. This actually just happened the other day with a client who was, I was talking to, she came to one of our events and she's like, God, I feel like I've been wasting a lot of time the past couple weeks with the wrong guys. And I continue to ask questions about her love vision. She, she created her love vision which was fantastic. And there's one part of her love vision, I'm not going to speak to it specifically because I, I just, I, I, she might be listening right now. And I also don't think that's, it's fair to share, but it's very, very specific. And so I recognized that she was going out, she wasn't abiding by that one very specific part of her love vision which is reasonable, but that's the one constraint, like that's the key focus. And so she was going out with some of these guys who just didn't have that because it was like a very sliver of the population who'd have this, this one thing. And so recently she's been getting just laser focused on that one thing, that one non negotiable. I mean she has multiple but like that's her area of focus. And suddenly now she's getting way better, way better opportunities and way better guys who she's going out with. It's thus again saving her time and saving her energy. And so since I mentioned little love steps, if you do want to understand little love steps, just I would head on over to the love steps.com we give the entire strategy step by step, for free. If you enjoy that training, we'd be happy to jump on a call with you and see if we can help.

So, Adam, you know what I love? I love that you call this non negotiables because so many other people call this deal breakers. And most people's deal breakers aren't really deal breakers. There's actually research out there that shows it takes people four deal breakers in a relationship to actually cut it off, right? And it's like, oh, it's a deal breaker if he likes to go fishing, right? That's not really a deal breaker. It's actually really not a non negotiable. Right? Non negotiables are so much more standard. They're so much more core to who you are as a person. And thinking about those types of things is a much smarter way to go about it. Because the fact is most people treat their deal breakers in a bendy kind of way. That research paper actually calls them deal benders, right? It's like, because people aren't actually using them in the right way. And so we want to have true non negotiables. Now. It's not going to be, you know, the kind of car he drives or his hobbies or any of that stuff. It's like non negotiables are things like, is he kind? Is he respectful? Can you be yourself around him? Is he trustworthy? Like these, these are non negotiables. Because can you imagine yourself in a long term fulfilling relationship with somebody who doesn't have those qualities? Hint, the answer should be no, right? Like, it's like, that's what makes it a non negotiable. And so dating efficiently is about sticking to your standards. It might take a little longer, but it's more efficient in the long run because you start cutting corners on a man being kind, respectful and trustworthy. Oh, gosh. Like, it might be okay for a little while, but it's not going to be okay for a long while. And that's going to lead to a lot of wasted time.

Gary, it's so true about deal breakers. It's so ridiculous. I'll hear like, I was actually speaking to a client relatively recently. I think I talked about on a previous podcast where she's just really making fun of motorcycles necklace and talking about how, you know, it's deal breaker Yada, yada, yada. And one thing I'll always say in those types of scenarios is if you met a guy out at night and he's six five, handsome, charming, really interested in you, and you're really attracted to him and wanting to get to know him, if he happens to ride a motorcycle, would you go out with him? If the answer is yes, it's not a deal break. It's, it's not a non negotiable. Or it might be your fake deal breaker, but it's not. So like, let's get to the core of what really matters here. And so again, it ensures that we're not wasting time throughout the process. And then once we have those non negotiables, get laser focused, laser focused on those things because those are the things that matter. All right, Gary, Movies is number two.

Yeah. The second one is about staying focused and it's about recognizing that done is done. Most people you meet are not going to be your person. That's okay. Once you realize somebody is not your person and how do you realize it? It's not about a preference, it's not about their motorcycle or love of fishing. It's they break non negotiables, you move on, you next them, you don't waste your time and energy or theirs pursuing this any further. Don't keep people around. Don't keep guys in your orbit, out of guilt, politeness, need for attention. Avoid the emotional fuzziness of like, I don't, I kind of like him, sorta. And remember, you're not here to collect friends, right? You'll hear every once in a while like, oh yeah, I don't really like him, but he'd be a nice friend. We're not here for that. Right. If he doesn't have relation intent, if he doesn't have the ability to make this relationship a priority. And you know this because he's not interested in pursuing and he's not, you know, setting up dates. And he's not next, just next. And then once, you know a guy's not for you, be decisive and be conclusive. Block him, delete him, unmatch him, unfollow him. Once he's. Once, you know, like you were talking about that client, she has this one thing. If he doesn't have that one thing, he's out of the running. So let's really remove him from the running so that we don't get a random text 11 days from now that's like, hey, what's up? You want to meet for lunch and then it's like, well, do I, do I? I don't know. And it's just like, it's such a waste of emotional energy on someone we already know doesn't qualify. And so something I say to clients all the time that's really, really important is don't lower your standards, increase your patience. Right. I'm gonna say that again. Don't lower your standards, increase your patience. And that actually will make you more efficient.

Yeah. Amen. All right, moving on to number three, which is all about when you're reaching out to guys, which we do recommend online dating. If you're getting out there and sending messages, we call it the rule of thirds. We want you to be proactive online dating. It's very much so worth your time. 30 minutes, an hour online dating, sending messages, swiping, interacting. If you do that every other day, it's going to make a massive, massive impact in your love life. But if we're only reaching out to the very, very tippity top 5% of all guys who are getting, by the way, 90% of the interest online dating, because a lot of the data shows that women in particular all tend to go for the top 5 to 10% of male profiles, then guess what? A lot of those messages are going to go unread, unmet, and many of them could even be scammers. So we recommend following the rule of thirds when starting conversations. Start with one person who you think you don't have a chance with. Go for it. Send that message to that guy with the perfect profile, chiseled chin, perfect pictures. Oh, my God, he's so funny. He's got so many interests. Oh, whatever. Yada, yada, yada. Send a message. Then send someone who is kind of like, right, you would perceive just kind of like right at your level. Right. And again, these are kind of like loose terms, but you get the feel for it where you're like, okay, this, this feels like kind of a layup or someone just on my level. And then one person who's just like a 100 sure thing. This would be someone who you would not consider to be your type necessarily, who you might just look past. Maybe he's got those baggy jeans. Not like the cool baggy jeans, but like the really. You know, he's lost a lot of weight recently. He's got baggy jeans. Send that message as well. And that allows us to broaden our horizon when it comes to online dating. Because here's the thing. Just because a guy has a really good online dating profile doesn't mean he's actually a top tier guy. Same thing with the opposite. Just because a guy's got a really bad online dating profile doesn't mean he's a bad match. In fact, it's. I find it to be anti corollary. But many of our clients who broaden their horizon and expand it to the types of guys that perhaps a lot of women might overlook when they meet the guy in real life. He shows up his. He's way more handsome than he looked in his profile. He's hilarious. And then he'll lightly touch them on the arms and give you tingles in ways that you've never experienced before. You're like, oh my God, I'm so glad I went out with this guy. And so that's what we recommend. The rule of thirds. One person who you think you don't have a chance with, one person who's right at your level, and one person who's a sure thing. And that's going to really optimize your time when it comes to online dating.

Yeah, I know when we share this that people think, oh, the one that's a sure thing, oh, I don't want to waste my time. But it's exactly what you just said is like, so often people go out with that guy who is like, oh, I don't know about him. And that's the guy because he's not great at this dating thing. He's not great at his profile, he's not great with his profile pictures. But you know what? He's great at being in relationship. He's a relationship guy. So when you meet him in person, all of a sudden it's like, wow, oh my gosh. The other thing that this helps is rule thirds is like just kind of assessing your level realistically. And it's like, if you're always just shooting your shot at the top guys, you'll hear people say, I send out a lot of messages, but I don't get anybody responding back. And it's like, okay, well, it's about calibration, it's about adjusting. And so you want to base what you're doing on real life feedback. And if you're just doing this in like a haphazard, casual, chaotic kind of way, you don't ever have a real sense of like, who's in your level. And like, are you wasting your time? You spending your time most efficiently or not? And the one other piece of this is if you're looking at this, say like, well, you know, at my level. But there's certain guys that I want to date that, you know, I'm not here. It comes down to something very simple. If you want to raise the level of the people you want to date, you just work on raising your own level. Right? We. I just talked to a client yesterday who was saying she's like, gary, you know, the problem that I have is I don't have a problem attracting guys, but the guys I attract, they're always the same kind. Like, they seem like they want a relationship, but as things start working out, they get avoidant, they distance, and then they run away. And I was like, well, there's a reason for that. And it's because actually she herself is quite avoidant. So because she's avoidant, she's attracting and is attracted to guys who are avoidant.

And so too is the key word, right?

Attract. Yeah. It's like you're. If you're avoiding and you want to keep distance, like someone else who also wants to keep distance, oh, perfect. They're doing the work for me. And so how do you break the pattern is you start raising your game, you start becoming more secure. All of a sudden you're going to start being attracted to and attract to you other people who are more secure. The simpler way to say that is be the type of person you want to attract.

Definitely. All right. The next time saving tip, which is very important and doesn't sound like it's actually a time saving tip, but it really is. And that is get better data and make better decisions by meeting people in real life as soon as possible. Like texting, even phone conversations, even video conversations. It doesn't give you the right amount of information about a person. And the easiest way to waste time is to continue texting a guy for three, four months, just all day long before you've met in real life. Whereas just going on a meetup in real life gives you so much information about that person. So we are huge proponents of meeting a person within five to seven days of initial contact, if not sooner, honestly. Because that is the part where, like, we teach our clients a lot about. We call pacing and moving slow throughout the process. But the only caveat is when it comes to online dating, meet as soon as possible. Get the meetup because it allows you to really prioritize compatibility. Whereas if it's just text messaging, he might get fallen into this trap of thinking he's someone different than he really is. And we have so much chemistry and oh my God, it's so perfect. And then you meet him in real Life. And he's just got dragon breath. Like, just the worst breath ever. And you're like, what did I waste all my energy on that for? No. Easiest way to save time. Just move it offline as soon as possible.

Yeah. What I find funny about that is it goes the other way a lot as well. Whereas people will say, you know, I'm texting with this guy and he's just like, so dull and boring over text. And it's like, I don't even want to meet him. Like, no, no, you absolutely do. Because a lot of those guys who are terrible textures and a lot of guys are, they're quite normal in person. They're just not accustomed to texting. And so this is why you have to meet in person. So that's actually number five tip for. For dating more efficiently is master the meetup. And so a meetup is it's not a first date. It's kind of a quicker vibe check to see if there's potential. And so something I say to clients all the time, they kind of joke about, which is, when in doubt, go out. So as long as a guy has at least three of the key traits from your love vision and he has zero, he doesn't violate any of your non negotiables. Right. Go out. It's worth 45 minutes to an hour. And that's the thing. You want to keep it short. You want to keep it low pressure, something quick, something where you can talk, though, like a coffee, a quick drink, a light meal, a short walk. One of our clients takes guys on dog walks. She's like, I got to walk my dog anyway, so I might as well walk around the park with my dog talking to a man. And it's like, this is perfect because you don't want to invest too much time, because if this goes horribly, horribly wrong and he's terrible, you've only wasted 45 minutes. The other thing is, if it goes amazingly well at 45 minutes to an hour, you have to cut it off. It's a cliffhanger. We want to get back to the show.

Right.

And so now you're creating this, you know, anticipation of what's next. What's next? What's next? Perfect. Let's create a little bit of that tension.

Definitely. And also, like, there's some meetups you might go on if you're not following this process. And you spend three, four, five hours with the guy and then you never hear from him again. Again. Talk about a waste of time and emotional energy. And the problem is it's kind of like Gary with the rotten oranges. Like, if it happens too often, that Gary's just going to stop buying oranges. And if you're dating, you're just gonna stop dating.

That's right.

Gary's like, I'm not buying any more spinach for you guys. It's not happening. Spinach is out. Like, even if his family starts gaining weight because they're not eating the right type of healthy vegetables, he's like, I don't care. No more of this waste. And I don't want that for all of you. No one can.

I feel so seen. I'm. I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

They're like frail and just like heing like packaged goods because they're like, no more of this waste.

Only things with immense amounts of preservatives that will never go bad.

Okay, we promised to save her in time, so I'm digressing again. I just find this, this scene to be too funny. All right, the sixth one is that look at the end of the day experience really is the best teacher. Like, you gotta date many to find the one. And I know that sounds like, hey, wait, that sounds like more time, not less. Yeah, it's a little bit more time upfront for saving a lot of time on the back end. Right? You wanna waste time when it comes to dating and in your 50s, 60s and 70s, jump into a relationship quickly with the first guy you meet and go out with and waste 10 years of your life in the worst relationship hell of your life. That's the ultimate wasting time. So how do we date around here? When we follow the little love steps, we talk to several people once and we really kind of like. It allows us to increase the perspective of these different people and it helps you also be realistic about what's out there. So one thing we are really keen on is just normalizing this idea of exploring multiple options. It's not like we are in a relationship with multiple people at the same time. No, we're just talking to multiple people at the same time. And so again, that's a huge part of our process. That's what we call little love. Step five. And again, I feel like every. Gary, every time I talk about this, I feel like I just want to give everyone the resource that they can use. Just head on over to the lovesteps.com we have a step by step training that'll walk you through that whole process so that you can again, kind of be able to follow this, be able to track the love you truly deserve. Gary, you want to close us off with the final one?

I do. So this last one is kind of a wrap up in the sense that I. I'm a firm believer in every experience in life is there to teach us a lesson. Every experience is a learning experience. And so the last thing to make yourself more efficient in dating is make sure you're being intentional in your reflection. So after each interaction, you have ask yourself, what did I learn from that? So every meetup, what did I learn? You might have learned that you care about certain traits more than you thought. Like a guy's sense of humor is more important. You might realize that certain traits don't matter as much. Oh, he was, he was 5, 10. That's okay. Turns out I didn't notice the difference between 5, 10 and 6 foot. They're all, they're both tall. Right. You just start realizing there's certain things that matter more and matter less. That's informative. There's certain things also, you realize in terms of skills like, huh, that conversation kind of got stuck. I need to be a little bit more prepared with better conversation starters, connection builders. I need some captivating questions. All these things, by the way, we've talked about on previous podcasts, but it's like, it's also an opportunity to see, like, did I go into that with the right mindset? Did I go in expecting this to be bad? Was that why it didn't go so well? What would be different if I went into the next time I was on a meetup with a more optimistic and positive attitude, like, oh, okay, like, we want to be thoughtful and intentional about how we date. And some of that is just being strategic in the sense of, what did I learn from that? What can I gain from that? How can I get better? And we will often say to our clients, like, even if it doesn't turn out to be a love match, if he's not the one you've practiced. Right. And we can only get better at things that we do. And so if you're not going out, you're not learning, you're never going to get better at this. And we, we want to get as good at this as we can so that when we do meet our guy, our one, we're bringing our best to that interaction. Right. And so the more you learn about dating, the more efficient you can become.

Definitely. I recognize that sometimes reflecting can lead to analysis, paralysis. Sometimes we need able to bounce ideas off of other people. And so if you really want some help in this area of your life. We have people on our team. They're known as love strategists. And what you can do is apply for a complimentary love strategy session. This is a great area to reflect, a great area to understand your patterns. Where have you struggled in your love life, where it is that you want to go? And ultimately, we'll see whether or not we can help you get there with our advanced coaching. And so what I'd recommend you do, if that sounds like something you want to be interested in and give it a shot again, it's free. But it's really for those who are serious about changing their lives and wanting to have that path forward to attract the person that they really deserve and to save time every step of the way. So if that sounds good to you, you can click the link in the description on the pod or anywhere where you're watching this or head on over to loveapply.com and these people are incredible human beings who can really help you out and see if whether or not you're fit for working with us. So, Gary, that was fantastic. I really appreciate it. And be a little bit kinder to your family when it comes to raw vegetables.

I will still buy oranges.

It's fine. Okay, sounds good. Thanks, buddy. That was great.