Bill and Freddi Strauss, a Californian couple in their 70s, recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. They're no different to other couples their age, except that they're the original online dating success story.
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It was 1995 when they met on a newly launched site called Match.com. It was the first of its kind.
Match.com was marketed as a remedy to loneliness, to the geographic or social isolation that kept people from finding true love. Or a hook-up.
The market cracked right open, and websites like RSVP, eHarmony, and OKCupid emerged soon after.
In 2012, the quest for love went from the desk to the hand, with the arrival of swipe-based app Tinder. Bumble, the female-focused dating app, followed a few years later.
Thousands of Australians have found their partners on Tinder. I'm one of them. In 2019, it's become as routinely normal as locking eyes at the pub or being set up by a well-intentioned friend.
Despite this, some couples still lie about meeting online, whether it's due to cultural reasons, concerns for their professional reputation, fear of backlash, or just straight-up ego. Those guys who slip "Happy to lie about how we met ;)" into their Tinder profiles simply hate themselves.
But we're seeing this less. Mentioning that you met your latest squeeze online to a bunch of indoor-plant loving millennials won't cause a stir, but what happens when you make the same admission to a group who didn't grow up reflexively swiping?
Maria is a colleague and friend of mine. She's a cheeky and warm 55-year-old who's mad about pasta and her adorable grandchildren. She's also been separated from her husband for almost two years.
Maria has never dabbled in online dating but when she mentioned she'd like to give it a go, there was judgment.
"My 60-something-year-old friend, who's been happily single for years and years, said to me: 'Why would you want to do that?!' when I told her about online dating," said Maria.
"She doesn't see a need for it. I didn't before, either. I believe that if something will happen, it'll happen naturally. But I don't go out enough for it to happen naturally. Perhaps I just need to socialise more."
It's a sentiment echoed by many. Whether it's dreams of upping an exercise regime, seeing more of the world, or drinking more water - people of all ages seem to be clinging to this idea that they should be doing more, as if everyone else is thriving.
"What is being sociable, anyway? Where do you go? My own style of socialising is going somewhere where I'm comfortable, somewhere I like. Coffee and cake, for example. Or the other night when I went to the symphony at Stage 88.
"These are not places I go to meet a date, though. It's to see friends. Is that what being sociable is? So how are people meeting people romantically these days?"
Rather than giving her a conclusive answer, I lift the bedazzled curtain to reveal website and a certain swipe-based app.
The app or the website
While I've found mining for matches easier on an app, Maria prefers to do her dark bidding on the computer.
We log onto OKCupid, mainly because it's free. Other popular websites like eHarmony and RSVP cost money, and Maria isn't interested in a dollar-based approach to finding love.
As we set up her profile, there are questions about your preferred age range, your stance on non-monogamy, if you care about astrological signs, your partiality to drug-taking, life goals (“to stay alive”), and your attributes and interests (“loyal” and “puzzles”).
“No wonder people are single,” says Maria as we jump through the numerous profile-writing hoops.
During this stage, I learn that Maria is not interested in men younger than her, or much older than her. She doesn’t want to travel too far either. Goulburnians - you can forget it!
Potential matches also can’t share the same name as her ex, even though I tell her that most white Australian men have that name.
I urge her to open up the field a little, but she’s firm on the five-year range and the 30-kilometre radius. These limitations prove to be fatal to our OKCupid quest.
12 matches surface. Two take Maria’s fancy - just barely - and so we ‘like’ their profile.
Perhaps we’ll find more luck on Tinder.
When setting up her Tinder profile, we're not subjected to the same personality-test rigours of OKCupid. It’s a matter of writing an alluring blurb and picking some hot shots. Tinder knows what it’s about.
Are selfies ok?
It's not all about looks, but it helps to have a photo that stops a potential match mid-swipe or scroll.
Selfies aren't off-limits, but keep it to one and make it good. Men, for the love of internal cameras, take your selfies at eye-level. Shooting upwards at your pelican-like gullet helps no one.
Pictures communicate more than just appearance. A nice photo means you don't have to write a Dickensian spiel about yourself in your profile. Images of Maria beaming on a hike in Europe and kicking a punching bag in 80s fancy dress show that she's social, loves travel, and is one fun woman.
Take a walk on the Tinder side
OKCupid was a write-off. I’d put it down to a whittled-down selection criteria, and perhaps user preference for apps.
Within minutes of using Tinder, we found 200 matches.
Our swiping prompted questions from Maria, such as: “He’s a bisexual - what does that mean?”, “Why do they all have beards?” and “Oh my goodness. Is he ... naked?”
I would sometimes interject with a forced swipe when I felt she was being fussy, or with a “He looks like a total daddy” or a “But he’s 6 foot 4!”, forgetting what I mentioned about looks.
Something to look forward to
The dating game changes with age. The pool is smaller. However, in terms of its brutal rejections and misaligned levels of attraction, the game isn't radically different from your 20s to your 50s. It's still all about timing. The agony of "Who says what first?" is inter-generational.
Trawling through the 55+ section also taught me a thing or two about men, and what I can look forward to after my seventh divorce.
Men of all ages still use images of their dogs to lure women. You’ll see it as a 25-year-old and as a 55-year-old. Nonetheless, it’s still tempting.
Some blokes like to flex their creative muscles when it comes to customising their profile names. There was a man who named himself “Shugs”, and a hockey fan who listed his name as “Hockey” and set his profile picture to one of him playing hockey.
The men who poured their hearts out about romance were the same men with profile pictures of literal gazebos, roses and even car engines. All sans the male in question. Maria asked why this was so common, and I didn't have the heart to tell her these men were just shady married men not wanting to be identified.
Most curious of all was the bonanza of men who were visibly 70 years of age, yet insisted they were 56.
In the end, online dating was not for Maria. At least for now.
She had four conversations going on Tinder. One match showed promise - he liked Cointreau, rainy weekends, and Maria's incredible smile - but a recent dating app assault story made her think twice about meeting up with anyone.
She's still a firm believer in meeting someone in her own way. Naturally.
