After being dumped by her husband of 25 years, this is what Jo did next
By Jo Peck
For most of my career as a copywriter, I’ve been flogging products to unsuspecting people who didn’t even know they needed said products until I made them irresistible.
Now I was the product. Now I was selling myself, but to whom exactly? Desperadoes, sex perverts, social misfits, blokes cheating on their wives, sociopaths, voyeurs?
Jo Peck: My mantra became “Won’t die wondering”. Credit: Darren James Photography
I was sure no self-respecting, emotionally stable, intelligent, eligible, independent, single man of a certain age would be putting himself out there on a dating site. Why would he need to? Weren’t all those guys taken or, if not, then in hot demand by women much younger than me?
What’s more, I was sailing into uncharted waters. I had no confidence in the process and no girlfriends I could call on to hear about their experiences. I didn’t know anyone over 50 who had suffered the indignity of dating this way, let alone over 60! But the alternatives were virtually non-existent and I was propelled by a far greater fear than humiliation.
When you see two parents lowered into the ground before you turn 23, you are struck by a very acute sense of the brevity and preciousness of life and, at 60, I didn’t have time to waste waiting for an uncertain future to reveal itself. I had to make my own future. My mantra became “Won’t die wondering”.
So I gathered up the tattered shreds of my self-esteem, combined them with some newly minted courage and reminded myself: I’m a writer. This is the easy bit for me. Nothing to lose. Possibly even something to gain. If not a partner, then at least an educational insight into the brave new world of online dating.
So I gathered up the tattered shreds of my self-esteem, combined them with some newly minted courage and reminded myself: I’m a writer.
JO PECK
I’d been doing my research and just about every female profile I’d read offered up a predictable list. It usually began with “I enjoy” then continued with a combination of the following: movies, eating out, walks on the beach, birthdays, spending time with my family and friends, keeping fit, music, dancing, overseas travel, curling up with my cat/dog/iguana (sorry, no iguanas but I lived in hope), laughing, cooking, the occasional glass of wine, dressing up, going out.
Feminists would be horrified. It was all about who they were, but not about what they expected and wanted in a potential partner. It seemed a bit like putting yourself on a shelf and waiting to be picked. But then, who was I kidding, did men even read profiles? Surely, they’d be more likely to base the direction of their swipe on the photos? Putting that demoralising thought aside, I mustered my experience and this is what I wrote in my “ad”:
Join me in my social experiment to rediscover life after 25 years of stultifying marriage. Craving intelligent conversation, spontaneity, laughs, new experiences. You’ll need to be independent, funny, whip smart, fun, active and evolved. Or at least 4 out of 6.
Short, but let me tell you I sweated over those 40 words more than I had over any ad I’d ever written.
I liked the idea of couching this as a “social experiment” because that’s truly what it felt like to me, and I figured if I put it in those terms instead of sounding like a dumped desperado, I might at least pique someone’s interest.
I threw in the word “stultifying” because I thought anyone who read it would at least need to know what it meant to respond. If not, they might bother to look it up. Either way it would require some nous.
Then I had to find some photos of me to put up. Let me tell you, no one thinks they look good in photographs, least of all me. (Sorry, correction: no one over 30 thinks they look good in photos, not so the Instagram generation who seem to have made an art form of it.) As my back catalogue was sadly lacking, I got my friend Eliza to snap some “candid” shots of the “current me” doing everyday stuff like walking nonchalantly down a street, sitting in a cafe and patting a dog, and add them to a few acceptable location shots of me on holiday, retouching my ex-husband Rex out where necessary.
I posted it all on Bumble and Tinder. Then started to sweat.
The photos must have been all right, but it was my list of six criteria that proved to be the real winner. It gave potentials something to “talk about”. It gave them a way in. Amazing how many men claimed to be all six. Of course, they were discounted immediately because they failed on the unwritten one: must not be a narcissist.
Quick lesson for those of you who are online dating greenhorns – like I was.
First, you choose your site. I chose Bumble because it requires that the woman makes the first move. That way you don’t get a whole lot of men automatically swiping right and wasting your time. And I chose Tinder because it’s broad, and it’s basic and, depending on your preference, it can be used for a quick hook-up or a proper partner search.
Then you post your profile, which requires you to set up some filters like age range, geographical proximity, where you stand on smoking, religion, relationship status and sexual preference. You can list favourite songs, films etc, but keep in mind this golden rule of advertising: don’t give everything away. Keep something in reserve, so you leave them wanting to know more.
One thing you are required to divulge in your profile is your age.
Suddenly, I am faced with a dilemma. I have made a pact with myself for my future – no lies. But seriously, who in this cyber environment is going to type into their criteria “seeking women 60 plus”?
I decide my birth year will serve as my age. It’s only three years out and somehow 57 sounds a whole lot more “datable” than 60.
JO PECK
IRL – in real life – women already deal with the social stigma of becoming invisible, unviable, unattractive and definitely unf---able once they reach a certain age (unless they happen to be Helen Mirren or Lauren Hutton).
So, in the name of getting the experiment off the ground and giving it a flimsy chance of success, I decide my birth year will serve as my age. It’s only three years out and somehow 57 sounds a whole lot more “datable” than 60.
Before we even meet, Alex sends me a link to an Amy Schumer video called The Museum of Boyfriend Wardrobe Atrocities. Google it and you’ll see why I was so excited to meet him.
On top of that, he chooses Leonard’s House of Love as our meeting place – just for the irony. Ohhh, this is looking good. We joke that it might turn out to be Leonard’s House of Long Silences, Leonard’s House of Awkward First Dates or Leonard’s House of Thank God There’s Alcohol. In reality, it turns out to be Leonard’s House of the Vapid, Vain and Vacuous who don’t want us there ruining their Instagram shots. And, as we don’t want to be there feeling like dinosaurs, after one drink – which was long enough to establish that we both loved dumplings – we go off in search of some.
Whether he’s nervous or just out of touch, Alex simply can’t or won’t make eye contact. I feel my bubble deflating before the second plate of dumplings arrives. So much anticipation, sapped by a simple failing. I let him tell me all about himself while he’s looking somewhere off into the middle distance over my left shoulder.
I am conflicted about Alex. He’d make a great friend, but I know that’s not what he’s looking for, and me neither. To buy time to think about how I feel, I short-circuit our goodbye, claiming I’m tired and suggesting he head straight to the station which is just up the road. Then I stand there like a stiff budgie while he embraces me and kisses me goodnight.
Next morning, I let him know in the nicest possible way that I’m just not feeling it, that for me there was no chemistry. He ghosts me immediately and all our wonderful text banter is instantly wiped. That makes me sad, but not yet defeated.
Two weeks later I struggle up the steep wooden stairs at the Neighbourhood Wine Room, cursing the platform slides I have chosen to make my legs look longer, and glance across to the bar where a man is sitting. He is the only single man there, so it has to be him. Edwin, my next potential partner. I stop to take him in, and in those few seconds before we are revealed to each other, my confidence dissolves. It’s replaced by a churn that I know will blank my personality because I sense it already – this one might matter.
Edited extract from Suddenly Single at Sixty (Text Publishing) by Jo Peck, out April 28.
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