- "The Golden Bachelor" — in which a 71-year-old romances women between 60 and 75 — just premiered.
- The groundbreaking series is making dating for older people "sexy."
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Judy Wagner. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When my now-husband, Evans, first reached out to me via a dating app for "silver" singles, I rolled my eyes. He sent a smile emoji. I thought, "Here we go again."
It was once bitten, twice shy. The last couple of people who sent smile emojis had been scammers. They'd chat for a while, say that they wanted to go on a private line, and, after a week or two, hit me up for money.
"I'll do this one more time," I thought. "If it's another scammer, I'm just going to delete the whole thing."
So I smiled back at Evans. Then we started messaging through the app. We arranged to have lunch in my town, a 90-minute drive from his home in Pennsylvania.
I already felt very comfortable with Evans with messaging, but I guess I was still wary. I'd once accepted a lunch date from a scammer who canceled at the last minute.
"I can't make it because I've got to fly to Minneapolis for a business meeting," he'd said. Then he said that something had happened to his business and that he needed $3,000 to get it "back on track."
Evans was the real deal and brought me 3 roses
Evans was the real deal. He showed up at Applebee's with three roses. It was so cute. We talked and talked during our lunch. We talked about every aspect of our lives, including our families. Between us, we had six children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
We also talked about what happened to our spouses. Evans's wife died in 2013 after 40 years of marriage. My husband of 30 years died in 2019.
In the end, after we'd finished eating, I wasn't ready to stop talking. But I didn't say that. I didn't want to be embarrassed. But we'd clicked.
We continued texting and chatting on the phone. We would watch TV together on the same channel over the phone. We liked watching forensic-detective shows and football games. Love blossomed. I couldn't believe how lucky we were to have found each other.
It was a far cry from where I'd been before. My husband had lung cancer. He and my father died the same year. I had my hands full with the rest of the family — I'm the caregiver for my mom — and thought I'd be OK being on my own. As time went by, I began to think, "You're in your late 60s, and that's too young to be alone."
My daughter bought me a dating course
After I went through several scam attempts, my youngest daughter bought me an online-dating course. At first, I said I wouldn't do it.
"You've got to be kidding," I told her. She said, "Yes, you are, Mom. You've been scammed, and you need to do this."
She was right. The coach, Angela Nicole Holton, said the course was directed at women looking for love from "the inside out." I needed to build my self-worth before looking for a relationship. It took awhile for me to be convinced.
"Oh, my God, the rest of the girls on this call are all young," I thought during the first session. "And I'm an old person. This is ridiculous."
I felt so out of place.
I told Angela that I was dropping out. "No, you're not," she said. "You stick it out." And I did. The course wasn't just about dating. It was about prioritizing and learning about yourself — what you really want from life. After a while, like a lot of the women in the course, I thought: "Why would you not want to meet somebody else?"
Our wedding was magical
Evans and I went out a couple of times after our lunch at Applebee's. He started coming over on weekends. We both had doubts.
"Why would you want to be with me?" Evans asked me once. "We've already lived a whole lifetime with our spouses who died."
But it was nice to have shared interests and companionship. It felt right.
We started going out in July 2020, and Evans proposed five months later on Christmas Day. He put the engagement-ring box inside several other boxes. I thought it was going to be something like slippers, judging by the size of the box. But then I kept unwrapping and figured it was a ring. I said yes straight away.
It made sense for Angela to officiate our wedding — after all, she'd bought Evans and me together — in May 2021. We had a small ceremony at home in front of family, friends, and neighbors. We had a two-tier cake made of vanilla cream. The whole thing was magical.
Since then, we haven't looked back. We went on a honeymoon to Bermuda, where I was born and raised. We went to Disney World with my daughter's family last year and recently returned from a cruise in Alaska. We enjoy being on our own or with our families. Everybody gets along. If you give it a chance, your life can go on when you're older. Why not live more at any age?
I just watched "The Golden Bachelor." The bachelor, Gerry Turner, is 71, and the female contestants are between the ages of 60 and 75. I looked at Evans and thought, "We're not on reality TV, but it's a bit like our story."
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