We're a small population, and personally, my time is already stretched thin between work and hobbies. Because of that, reentering the dating scene feels inconvenientif it were to work, my person would need to show up clearly and say, this is what we're doinglet's go.

I agree with all of this.

JR Ewing said:

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I'm a fairly recent widower, and I belong to a widower's group that considers entering the dating scene. I haven't really wanted to find someone else, but it is very lonely to be missing your +1. Many of the opinions I've seen from the other widowers tend to lean to the dating scene people taking advantage of widows and widowers vulnerabilities. They discuss love bombjng, which I had never heard of until recently, so that they can hook up, and things where someone trying to consider meeting someone wouldn't ever want to go through. I guess it's a very protected heart that is scared to open up to just anyone because it has already been hurt more than anyone can imagine. It seems at times just easier to be alone.

I think it also makes sense the comment that many widowers and widows in the age range you mention tend to date people they've known. There is a much lesser chance of being hurt by someone you've known for a long time.

As for me, I've talked with friends from the past, and enjoyed conversations. As far as the dating apps, they are not something I would think I would ever want to join. A casual evening, like the OP mentions, without pressure, would be something I could see myself considering though, maybe without any expectations of actually meeting someone.

Also editing to add that being "out there" in the community and fearing running into someone you dated or went on a date with which may not have worked out doesn't help the internal thoughts of "it's just easier not to date".

Just my $0.02.

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Dating while older comes with a maturity, wisdom and experience (yes I admired and miss my dad) that is often lacking in younger folk. Which paradoxically should (and could) be an advantage for dating at an older age. Just a thought.

aggies4life said:

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" Our problem with the "older" age brackets, however (think 45-60 and 60+) is that we sell out of women's seats almost immediately, but then struggle very hard to fill the men's seats. We're trying to crack the secret code of what is holding the men in this age bracket back where the women in this age bracket have no problem signing up and showing up."

Hmmm try putting those men in an age bracket - 1 or 2 below theirs and see if that cracks the secret code….

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Yeah, I'm not in the 45+ group(yet!) but if we are being honest I wouldn't be thrilled about only talking to people my age or older as a guy. I'm not by any means ruling someone older out either but I'd be far less motivated if the pool of women didn't include the age bracket I've recently been dating in. The age stuff is always such a funny dynamic to me.

This is an interesting idea though.

We've had a couple people afraid of that, but then the men who actually show up to our events love the structure because we're actively preventing that kind of experience. We've made a lot of intentional decisions to create a "no rejection" environment:

• Everyone who signs up must agree to terms and conditions, which include agreeing to being respectful and courteous, and recognizing that if anyone is rude, they will be asked to leave without a refund.
• No one is allowed to ask for contact information at the event, meaning there is no potential "rejection," and if anyone attempts to get someone else's information during the event, they will be asked to leave (takes the pressure off of everyone when they know they're not allowed to exchange numbers).
• Women stay seated and the men get up and move with each timed round (five minutes each), so there's no awkwardness if things don't click for one or both parties. They just have to talk for five minutes and move on to their next date.
• Our matching process is completed post-event, so people can feel relaxed and have fun at the event itself and not worry about if the person they like, likes them. We only connect mutual matches via email afterwards, and we encourage everyone to do in-person dates for their follow-ups.

Thus far, folks have been really impressed with the overall behavior and character of all the daters, as they're usually local professionals who are friendly and engaged. A massive amount of participants are Aggies or currently work for the university, so it feels quite comfortable in that aspect as well.

Of course, we can't prevent a man from liking a woman who might not like him back, but if that guy truly wants to find a partner, he'll have better luck talking to 15 single women in one night than perpetually swiping.

If you have insights on other things we can do to help guys understand that there isn't public rejection at our events, or any other changes you'd suggest to our format to further increase that level of comfort - we'd be glad to hear it!

So in looking at Census data it's interesting because the number of single adults is nearly equal between the genders for Brazos County, but there is definitely an imbalance when it comes to widowed/divorced. For every divorced man, there are 1.87 divorced women, and for every widowed man, there are 4.41 widowed women. That could partially explain it, but even then, the disproportion is so extreme (we sold out 15 tickets for women in one event, and only sold 1 men's ticket for the same event), that stats alone don't seem to fully illuminate the issue. I'd love more data myself!

Thank you for responding as your insights are very helpful! We do have terms and conditions that all daters must agree to in order to participate in our events, including being respectful and courteous, and we also don't allow the exchange of contact information at the event itself (to discourage any public rejection).

We also do a post-event matching process where only emails are exchanged between mutual matches. We have resources on our website for dating, and I'm actually working on various materials on how to date safely and with awareness. Love-bombing is definitely a major problem in the dating world in general, but there's a lot more awareness now than there was before.

One of our goals with this is that even if you don't find a potential partner at the event, you still get to meet and talk to 10-15 different singles in your same stage of life. You get to kind of shake the dust off and gain some confidence as well as insight into yourself and where you are and what you want in a partner.

Some folks have loved getting to meet other singles of their own gender or just making friends. Even if someone walks away with no matches, they still say they had fun and felt like it was a productive use of their time to socialize with new people going through the same season.

BCS is definitely small so you're right that folks do run into people they know. My original partner in this business and I actually bonded originally because we were talking about how terrible dating was locally, and we both recounted our worst date and realized it was with the SAME local guy. We've recognized folks at our events that we've dated, and folks have said they recognize some folks they've matched with on apps but never met in real life. But honestly, in the moment itself, it's just a 5-minute conversation before both you and they move on to other dates with other people, and thus far, no one has felt like it was a bad experience because they had dated one of the 15 daters that were there.

Your insights are super helpful - and just FYI if your group has anyone in the 60+ crowd, we have an event coming up on January 29 at Hush and Whisper for the 60+ age group. We've just sold out of women's tickets today, but still have quite a few men's tickets, and we offer discounts for anyone who serves or has served (military, first responder, K-12 educator), or who refers friends to our events. You can share our event link page: tx.ag/bvsdevents. (But no pressure! We want folks to feel comfortable!).

Thanks!