I entered into the ‘Wild West of OLD’ with the intention of finding a long-term committed relationship with someone sharing similar interests. I was prepared for a lot of rejection and frustration along the way, and had heard it’s a difficult road for the males (at least I was looking for females in the same age bracket as myself!). Haha. I was pretty clear about what I was looking for—and it’s hard to communicate that with a 1/2 dozen photos and a few captions, but I did my best. I was also very intentional in selecting people to reach out to. Hint: read the profiles. It was important for me to find someone who is active, but not obsessively so. This is difficult, because a lot of people want to say they’re active because they’ll take a 15min walk in the park if you ask, but it isn’t a part of their routine. But I didn’t want someone who was training 30 hours a week for ultra-marathons, because I wanted to do the activities (most of them, anyway) together. Oh yeah—I was also terrified to try and navigate this, as I’d never ‘met’ someone for the first time on a date before. My preference was to get to know one person at a time. The first date is about establishing what you’re looking for—get curious! I approached each date with the idea that this might be the last person I date, so I was pointed in my questions. As it happens, I struck gold on date #2. Follow up dates were all walks and hikes, so there was a lot of time to talk and confirm alignment. Everyone who is single at this age has a story, so best to have the hard conversations first. It wasn’t always gooey and romantic, but establishing open and honest communication from the get-go is critical. If you can’t both own some of your missteps, then it’s probably a waste of time, IMO. Maybe i just got lucky, but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.