The Only Dating Advice That Matters After 50

Hi, this is Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. I want to give a massive shout out to OhMyBod, pioneers of pleasure and innovative sex tech, female-founded creators of the original music vibrator. They have been sponsoring this show almost since the very first episode, and I am incredibly grateful for their support. And I back them 100% because I use and completely endorse their very well-made, high-quality toys for females, couples, and anybody who just enjoys pleasure. Do check them out. Oh my bod, they're a wonderful, wonderful business. Have you ever wondered what it might be like to go into a group of older people and ask them about their dating and sex lives. Well, the guest that I have today did just that and found out some pretty shocking things. So I'd like to welcome Dr. Gilda. She's been on loads of telly, loads of radio. She's been all over the place, actually. Her, her resume is so long. And she's a coach. She's an educator. She's worked with business executives, and she's worked with couples and people just you know, just out there. So the whole gamut. But welcome to Sex Advice for Seniors, Dr. Gilda.

Thank you. What a great topic this is. You know, people think that you get old and that's it, you're dead. But boy, do we have some surprises for our audience today.

So you told me that you used to work for Match.com, which must have been a hoot in itself, like And they sent you off to some AARP meeting or something.

Yeah. Well, I wrote for Match for about 8 years and I had a column called Ask Dr. Gilda, and I did other specialty columns having to do with specific needs of our audience. And I was also their spokesperson. So they sent me out to various groups. To talk to them. One of the groups was AARP. Now in my head, and I wasn't an AARP member at that point, I am now, but, but I wasn't. And I imagined that we're going to see old people in wheelchairs, on crutches, and then, and they're disabled And they're walking around. I said, what am I even doing here at this event? I traveled to Washington, DC from New York to do this particular meetup with these people. I had no idea what to expect. It was, it was shocking. I walked into an audience with standing room only. It was a gigantic auditorium. It was standing room only that I had never imagined. I thought, well, these people are going to be so over the hill. I'm going to make my presentation and 5 minutes later I'll be out of the door. But that was not the case at all. I found the most vital, the most intriguing, and the most energetic group of people that I had ever seen. And this was not to be believed. So I started talking, telling them what AA— what, what Match was all about. And they were all on Match. So they were very intrigued to be in my audience again. I had no idea that seniors were so interested in Match.com to find love. So they started asking me questions, one question after another question after another question. These were vital people. These were not people who had one foot in the grave. They were vital. And boy, did they want sex. So here are these people and here's me. I was shocked at some of the questions. The women mostly wanted to ask, wanted to know the answer to one question. How do I find a guy who drives at night? That was riotous. I said, uh, okay. So I said to the audience, Where are the guys out here? Raise your hand if you drive at night. Ladies, look around, check out any of these hunks and see if you're interested and pass along your phone number and your vital statistics if you are. Well, there was a mob scene. They were mobbing each other. I couldn't believe this. So I was in a state of shock. The men asked a different question mostly. Why does Match insist on keeping my age on this platform? So I said, you know, good question. Because some people can be 30 and they could be acting like 90. And some 90-year-olds are pretty damn feisty. Especially judging from this audience. So I said, that's a really good question. At the end of the presentation, and this went on and on, I mean, there are so many questions. I couldn't get out of there. And they're standing, they're standing. Some of them were on walkers and they're standing anyway. They were not missing this for a moment. So at the end, This little guy walks up to me. He was pretty short. He had no hair on his head and he was a little bent over, but he opened his mouth and I couldn't believe what came out. He said, listen, they have to take the ages off this platform. I'm 92 and I like to date younger women.

I said, ooh, how young are you talking about?

He said, in their 60s. And if they see that I'm 90, they might not even want to go near me. But I've got what it takes. So I thought, this is abs— he's absolutely right. I went back to Match and I said, listen, we have to do something about this because these guys don't want to miss opportunities because they are being selected out. Match was not interested. They said, we have to keep our audience according to the age range. And that was it. And I lost that battle with the company. But I heard the people loud and clear. This guy wasn't the only one because he wanted to date younger women in his 60s.

I'm in Thailand, right? I'm a single-ish woman. I go on a dating app. I say on the dating apps that I'm 60 when I'm actually 64, right? Because I would say that I'm 59 because 60 is like, it's like no man's land. As soon as you get over 60, it's like on so many of these dating sites, you just become completely invisible. And, and for these guys, I completely side with them because I think that people are ageist. They think that, and also let's face it, when lots of older, especially men, you know, start to decline because they might not look after their health, a lot of women of a similar age do not want to become their nurse. And so they end up, they end up with looking for younger men because they want, there's a saying, you know, I don't want it to be a nurse or a purse, right? And, and so vibrant guys have a problem. I suspect they do have a problem because they just become invisible amongst the masses of other people.

But so do vibrant women.

Totally.

Who are of a certain age and they want to go out with men who are vital. More, more than the age thing. They want to go out with men who are vital, who are not crawling around. And, you know, you can't help if you have, you have mental and physical disabilities. I mean, things happen when we get older. But, um, I mean, I, I look at, uh, Jane Seymour, for example, you know her as an example, 74 years old. She is gorgeous. She has had 4 husbands and she divorced all of them. And now she's in a relationship with somebody. She said, this is the best relation. I had to go through 4 husbands until I learned how to get it right. And this husband and this guy and I, I don't think I'm married. And this guy and I have had better sex than I have ever, ever enjoyed in my life. We are free. We don't have interference. There is no judgment. We accept each other. I think he's in his 70s also. How fortunate that she found a guy of her age group and she's able to live happily ever after. How wonderful is that as a, as a role model for all of us. So we cannot say, well, this person's this and that person's that. Now we do know that the guy's in their 60s, some some guys in their 60s want women who are 20s, in their 20s, so they can have the arm candy. But I'll tell you truthfully, there's nobody in his 50s— because somebody wanted to fix me up with somebody in his 60s, and he had, he had just broken up with his girlfriend in her 20s. I said, there is no way that I'm interested in a man who is interested in a woman who is that young. So he was interested in that. I am— this is not the kind of guy that I want. I don't want a guy who's going to be interested in me because of my age, because of my history, because of money, because of, uh, status. Because I don't I don't want that. I want a guy like, like Jane Seymour found, who is interested, interested in me because of my essence. And I think if we emphasize, emphasize essence more than anything, we can come up with a lot of great prospects. But we have to be open to this. And one of the things that I have learned, and that as a relationship expert, I have, I have told people, you're not finding love because you stick in your lane and you're unwilling to bend those boundaries to go elsewhere. Now, a lot of people do like what you do, Suzanne Noble Noble. They lie online. They say, well, I'm really this when I'm really that. At what point when you meet somebody do you say, okay, this is my real age and this is who I really am? At what point do you do that?

Normally on the first date, to be honest, because I need to let them know that I'm not a person who lies, but that there's a certain place and time for not being entirely truthful, in my opinion. And that's when the algorithm is fighting against you. And sometimes you have to play to the algorithm to be seen, to be considered, because the algorithm is just shutting you out. And I can't— and if the way that I overcome that is by going, I'm going to knock a few years off my age, that's what I'm going to do. And then when I meet someone, I'm going to say, look, I need to be clear with you. I'm not this, I'm that. Okay, this is what I do. And, you know, I know it's not— I wish I didn't have to, to be honest, but otherwise, like, it's tumbleweed out there. Tumbleweed.

Well, there was one guy in the AARP audience who said he had just broken up with a woman because he had found that she had lied about her age. So I said, well, what is a woman to do if she's being bypassed? You see, this is the word that we're all after. We all, we get older, but we all want to be seen. And when an algorithm, an algorithm says, because you're X, Y, or Z, we are going to obliterate you. What is the you supposed to do but take matters into her or his own hands? And tell falsehoods to see if there's even a connection there. You don't even know that. So I went out with some guy. This, this was a screen. I went out with some guy I had met online. He said he was 70. And I thought, okay, that's a good age range for me. And, uh, He said, okay, let's meet at this particular restaurant. I said, okay, fine. When we got there, I thought we were going to have lunch. He said, have lunch with him. Well, then he decided, I figured maybe he didn't like what he saw. I said, why don't we, uh, he said, why don't we have coffee? I said, oh, okay, fine. Let's have coffee. So. I got coffee. I sat down at the table. He was following me. He came over to the table and he sat down. And as he was about to sit down, on his fly was the biggest pee stain you could imagine. I— he was wearing jeans, so the yellow stain was pretty obvious. At—

Oh my God.

I couldn't help it. I was sitting down already and he was standing up about to sit down right across the table from me. And I thought, oh my God, that is awful. And then I looked him up after having met him. And wow, he was more like 90 than 70. So he likes so badly and he couldn't hide it at his age when he was unable to zip up his fly in time. So this was, and you know, we started talking. He was intelligent. He was interesting. He had an interesting background. Since I'm a writer, I use all of this for research. This is great. I've written 19 books. So I figured, okay, this is going to be a good one. But he was just so awful. He was just— I mean, we got along, we spoke, it was okay, but it was awful because I knew he was much too old for what I wanted. And mid-sentence, I got up and I walked out. I said, look, I have a phone call coming. I have to leave. And he screamed after me. And I had camouflaged my name because I wouldn't— I'm a public figure. I'm not giving anybody my name. Yeah. So I said, uh, mm, I'm good. I called myself Sparkle. So here he is in the restaurant screaming, Sparkle, Sparkle, please come back. How do I reach you? I don't even have a phone number for you. And I said, oh my God, I'm going. That's it. I just, I can't, I can't do this. That's not the only crazy blind date that many of us have had.

Like yourself, I've written books about my personal life, which have been published and to some acclaim. And so you and I share history in all of this kind of stuff, right? But there does come a point where I know a lot of women my age— I'm still out there, you know, I'm still meeting people. I have somebody that I hang out with. We have a lot of fun. But I know a lot of women my age, they're like, Suzanne, honestly, I do not know how you have the energy for this. I mean, I have been up— the energy, like, I've had enough dates with, with guys that are just lying about their age by 20 years, totally incompatible, don't look after their health. And I'm not putting guys down because I love men. I honestly do love them. But they— I find that oftentimes they don't put their best foot forward and they let themselves down and they let other people down. You know, they let women down. And so they're out there saying there's no good women. I get so many emails, as you probably do, saying, where can I meet people? How can I meet people? You worked for Match.

Everybody is searching. And nobody knows what the secret ingredient is. And I tell everybody, take care of yourself. Present well. I mean, what we're doing the best we can in how we present ourselves, maybe or maybe not. And I, I do agree with you that there is a difference between the way women take care of themselves and the way men take care of themselves. You know, a 70-year-old man with a big tummy Uh, when I have gone to the gym every day and lift weights and really work out very, very hard. I mean, why is he not putting effort into what he's doing for his body as I am for mine? And I'd like to go to the gym on dates. I like to have people with whom I am compatible and I can discuss things that are within our realm. And if I'm doing one thing and he's not, no good. There was a guy that I had known for years and years and years. He was married. I was married. We all, uh, but we knew each other and we liked each other, you know, as friends. We had dated before we got married. And now it was just a crazy time, silly time in our lives. And it wasn't, it wasn't a love match. And then he was free and I was free. And he said, finally, we could get together. Why don't we go out? I said, okay. And I was waiting for him outside this restaurant and I saw him coming a block down and he's flooding along with a big belly. He looked like death warmed over. He looked like he didn't want to be on this earth anymore. He looked so awful. And I just— he said, well, you still look the same. I said, you don't. Are you happy? And he said, well, I'd like to find a love person in my life. And so I said, so you're not happy. It's showing all over your body. Now, this guy, is a physi— was a physician. He should've known a lot better. He had hired me. I worked, uh, did consulting for his organization. So I knew him well, but he was not in good shape at all. He had then, when we sat down and spoke, he had then told me, well, he had a heart issue. And he had me on medication or whatever, but he knew what he was talking about because he was a physician and he knew the language and he knew exactly what had happened to his heart. And we just talked. And, um, he said to me, and this is when I was about to move from New York, freezing cold New York, to Arizona, a nice, heavenly, warm, with sunshine. So I said, so he said, you know, I could pick up and leave and go with you to Arizona. I said, this is a little late for that. You know, I'm real happy on my own doing this. And I try to discourage him, but he sent me gifts. He sent me everything he possibly could to win over my affections. When I just, the way he presented. Told me I don't even want to be alive anymore. I am miserable. I'm so unhappy. I don't have love and I'm just unhappy now when we were conversing— And this is the clincher. Suzanne Noble asked him all kinds of questions while we were conversing. And as you should when you're meeting new people or seeing people that you haven't seen for a long time. And I said, what do you, do you believe in keeping secrets from your love match? And he said, absolutely. Because some things are better left unsaid. And I thought, well, this is, see, now this is the essence of this. I was not interested. In seeing someone or being with someone whose whole philosophy was, I believe in keeping secrets and it's okay. What kind of relationship, open relationship, can you possibly have with somebody keeping secrets? So not only did he look like death warmed over, but he also told me that he was not going to have an open relationship.

Yeah, exactly. And I was speaking with a woman a couple of weeks ago who runs a site for widowers, widowers and widows. And one of the interesting statistics that she came up with was that after a wife dies, a man takes roughly 4 weeks to get back into a relationship. And when a husband dies, it takes a woman 2 years roughly to get back into a relationship. So clearly this kind of requirement, especially I think with older men, I don't see it so much with my children who are in their 30s and who are far more comfortable being on their own. And they're both men and they're both kind of— one of them is with somebody and the other one is getting together with somebody, but they, they've spent considerable amounts of time on their own, you know. And I look at men of my age and I can see this deep feeling within them that they so want a partner. And yet most of my girlfriends are really happy on their own. They're just really, you know, yeah, if a guy comes along, it would be awesome, right? It would be great. But we've all got great female friends. We go out, we do social things together, we hang out, you know, and lots of women I know are like, yeah, it would be nice to have a guy around. But you know what? I'm good. I'm good. Whereas most of the men I know are not good. If they don't have a partner in their life, they're not good. And if you're not good, it's not attractive.

Well, that's, that's okay. It's, it's, it's desperate. That's what this guy presented as. He, oh, each step that he took was a thud. Oh, oh, oh. And I thought, Oh, good God. What happened to this guy? He was so vital when he was younger. He was so terrific when he was younger. And we talked about our histories. He had lost his child. She died from some kind of an illness in her 30s. And that was his only child. And he had put a lot of effort into helping to raise her, even though she stayed with her mom. But he, you know, life. Life clips us and how we re— react or respond to life says everything about our, who we are and our future. And it's interesting, you, that statistic I have seen repeated again and again and again. When a woman dies, she leaves a husband and he doesn't know what to do. He can't find the toilet paper. He doesn't know where anything is kept. He is either— it was learned helplessness or it was real helplessness, but he does not know. And I knew a woman. She was not attractive. She was, I don't know, kind of very short, very heavy. She had warts on her face, but she was a PhD. She was a psychologist. And she read the obituaries to find love. She had been involved. Oh yeah. She had been involved with some guy who was married. That didn't bother her at all. She just figured, okay. But watching the obituaries and reading this these so carefully. She found somebody across the street from her whose wife had just died. They were living in the same neighborhood. I don't know if they said hello, they didn't say hello, I don't know. But his wife had just died. Well, you know, she brought over casserole after casserole. The dude married her. And he was an attractive physician who was very capable of finding a lot of women. But she worked the deal. She really worked it. And she said to me, tell all the women you counsel that if you are looking for love and you are of a certain age, read the obits. I said, Well, that's something I've never thought of, but I am going to tell my fans all about this.

Oh my God, Dr. Gilgi, you know what? No one has ever suggested that.

I never heard that before either. But it works.

Yeah, because look, the statistics don't lie, right? These, these men are looking. But, you know, the thing is, most of the women I've been— I went out with a guy who got close to me very quickly and I was like, look, this is just fun. I mean, we're just having fun here. I don't, you know, I want to travel, I want to do my own thing. I like being on my own. I'm not looking for anything. He's like, yeah, but we're having so much fun. And I went, yeah, yeah, we are. I agree, we are having a lot of fun, but I'm not looking for, I'm not looking for a man to move in. I don't want to cook for a guy. I don't want to do all this sort of stuff. And I said, and I can see that you do. I can see that you do. And if that's what you want, then that's the kind of woman that you need to go and seek, you know, but most of my girlfriends are very independent and they're looking for men that are equally independent, that want to get— that want to, as my mother said, my mother says, uh, good relationships are about sharing life's experiences, right? And I think that's a really great way of looking at them is I want somebody who, if I do go to a theater or a concert or whatever, he's going to have something to contribute to the conversation. He's going to want to talk to me about it afterwards. He's going to want to go, wasn't so sure about that, or, and just, you know, or something not like, you know, no, it's okay. You stay. I'll stay at home. You go out with your girlfriends. Because what do I want? That's not sharing life's experiences. That's just a guy sitting on the sofa.

Well, this is where the age differential really hurts these guys. They can't believe that when he reaches a certain age and she is so much younger than he, and she just wants to go out every single night and party, and he just wants to be a couch potato. That's where it shows itself. And lots of well-known names have said, what happened? I don't understand. I remember Joe Namath. Married a much younger woman, and he too complained. Uh, no, I don't understand this. She took the money and ran. And a lot of these young girls want a father figure. The guys have to be much more selective in who they choose. They want a father figure. They want somebody to take care of them like a daddy, not like lover. Not, I mean, not like somebody on the same equal plane. And that gets them into trouble and gets them hurt because they can't believe that when the money runs out or when the boredom sets in, they leave skin marks. That's it.

That's the end. I think in conclusion, what we're saying here, sadly, men, is that, like I said, I don't really like to put guys down, but I do agree that, that women of a certain age, they really do come into their own often later in life. And they become more creative, more independent, more— just more interesting, frankly, because they've got their time back after raising kids and all that stuff. And so they just become, you know, much more interesting people. And sadly, guys, when they stop working and they retire, often they don't have any hobbies. They let themselves go and it's just not attractive. It's just not attractive.

That's something that's really important for everybody to understand. I saw a statistic one day that said, uh, the men— no, people who retire only live 7 years. That's the longevity. Because we as a culture do not understand how to have recreation. We do not know how to enjoy ourselves without work. All we know is how the work, the grind, and the grind is killing us. And finally, when we end that, then suddenly we go, now what? What do I do? So very often a lot of men look on the women to be the recreation director. Okay, so what are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do? So here I am. I left one job, I retired from another. I never even used the word retire because I am vital and I'm working and I'm doing all the things that I need to do. And, um, when I was online, I haven't been online for a number of years, but when I was online, I, I always said, I am working and I am not a good match for somebody who's retired. I don't want to get up in the morning and he says, So what do you want to do today, honey? I said, I have a list of things that I have to do. And at work, work-related, write this, speak to this group, da da da da da da da da. I mean, I have been very, very active. And, you know, if a guy isn't similarly active, I don't want that. I'm going to feel as though I have a ball and chain around my neck. I don't want that. And that's going to show in the relationship that we have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that's why a lot of older women end up going for younger men. You probably know Cindy Gallop, who's made a career of it, and she's been a TED Talk speaker. She has a website called Make Love, Not Porn, and she's an ex-big advertising cheese and she's in her 60s and she goes out with men in their 40s, late 30s, 40s, you know, and she's just like, look, you know, I know that it's not going to be a long-term thing, but these people have energy. They are vital, as we said before. They think I'm great and I'm gorgeous, which she is. And they are just great to be around. You know, the fact that they may go off and get married with somebody else or have kids, whatever, she's okay with that. But what she doesn't want is that ball and chain, as you said. That's what she doesn't want. And she can't seem to find anyone age appropriate that doesn't come with a ball and chain, sadly. So, you know, if you're listening out there, guys, just get your shit together.

Well, this is very interesting because the guys, the guys are, the guys are loving older women lately. Bumble did a, you know, Bumble, the dating site, did an investigation and they found that most people are dating 10 years— women especially are dating 10 years younger than they are. And in some cases that I'm aware of, they're dating 20 years younger. So, and the guys are just loving it because suddenly they're meeting a woman who's not playing games, who's not interested in their stupid money, or their status or their country club, that is just interested in having fun with them. Because older women, we know who we are. We've already gone through the pain and the tribulations of having relationships that worked and relationships that didn't work and learning from all of those experiences. And because of that, we are ready to do something with a man where we can be transparent and happy to be who we are and be able to communicate that and say, no, I don't like this. I don't like that kind of food. I don't want to— younger women will not speak honestly. They are not transparent. They'll say, oh, anything you want. Oh, anything you want. And they are just putty in the guy's hands. And how long do you think guys want to hold on to putty? It gets boring. There's no challenge. There's no intellectual exchange. There's nothing. So, you know, before a guy goes out, he has to determine who he is, who he wants to be, how he wants to present himself, and I say project himself in a positive way before he tries to entice a woman into the bedroom. See, all those things matter to a woman before she jumps into bed. Women who are older are not walking around, oh, so horny. We're not walking around like that. And everybody that I know in my circles, everybody is on testosterone for men, estrogen for women. I mean, and we are salvaging our older years as people who are contributing. That's it. Not old people, but people who are contributing.

And I think that goes right back to where we started, which is that you made the assumption at the beginning when you went into that AARP meeting that these people were going to be past it, they were going to be over the hill, and that they were going to be just kind of not very energetic. And what you discovered instead was a room full of people who still wanted to find love and companionship, who still wanted to have sex, who still want to do all these things. So, you know, the more you can keep yourself healthy, keep yourself engaged with the world, keep yourself in, you know, present, fully present and knowing who you are, the more likely you are, I think, ultimately to find somebody with whom you're compatible. But if you let yourself go, guys or girls, frankly, then your chances become a lot slimmer. Gilda, it has been a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you. I love this.

And we have to get onto your book that you wrote in another episode about the woke men.

I'd love to talk to you about that because that thing is running wild on the bookshelves and people are fascinated by that. So anybody can look me up on Amazon and see what that is and all these other books that I've written.

Brilliant. Thanks so much for coming on Sex Advice for Seniors.

Perfect. Thank you, Suzanne Noble Noble. It was a pleasure.