Dating in the silver years

"Must look cute every time you step out the door,:" is the first rule of snagging a man in the silver dating years.

I am back in the dating pool after the death of my husband, last year. Things have changed since just showing up and looking cute was all I had to do. A woman in born in the boomer years needs all the edge she can get, as because the competition is so tough.

Statistics back up what we silver women can identify within an hour of going on the market. For one thing, the majority of them are married. According the U.S. Census 70 percent of men 55 and older are hitched, leaving a scant 30 percent single. This compares to the number of single women in the same age bracket. Statistic show that 61 percent of women,  age 55 to 64, are married, leaving 39 percent single. So there are equal numbers per sex percentage wise.  However, the rate for married women drops to 41 percent, increasing the roles of single women 65 to nearly 60 percent of women. This means there are two single women for every single man, so the competition is tight.

It gets even tighter when you start getting picky. That means out of 36.3 billion senior men, only 14 billion are single. Then subtract all the men who are gay, alcoholics, drug addicts, narcissists, sociopaths, whiners or who are on their deathbed it is statistically challenging to get a date. Well, how choosy do I need to be, really? I have better odds of being hit by lightening than to a chance encounter with Mr. Right, much less with Mr.. Right Now.

The dating pool is also shrunk by the number of men who want to date younger women. If you want to confirm that, check out their online profiles where men are leaving the door open all the way down to age 18. And you also have to compete with scammers. They are the ones who are in your age bracket, but whose profile pictures are too incredibly beautiful, sexy and wonderful to be real.

So ladies, we must be our best, just to get an interview.

Must look cute. Must look slimmer than you really are. Must be ready to dazzle on a moment's notice, especially at the hardware store because you never know what kind of hardware you may see while you're buying air filters.

Check. Check and check. Let's see how this goes.

1. Join a club

That's what they say. A basic way to meet people is to join a group that interests you . You look at your life and pick out the most fun part of it and join a club.

So, I found a nerd club.

It's the perfect hangout for engineers and science geeks, a male dominated field. I'm spiking my odds in meeting Mr. Silver Single.

It's a Science Café  that that meets once a month and presents lectures about varied topics such as archeology, prehistoric animals and internet speed...

...and Quantum Mechanics,  the study of how atoms and molecules work.

Oh, yes.  Socially inept engineers and science geeks were as my dream date. Flirting will be a breeze! And if we do have a conversation, living 26 years with an engineer with have paid off, because I can speak the lingo.

And I was right . Lots of boomer aged men, were there, eager, to learn the mechanics of particles.

Now came the visual sorting for disqualifiers. Wife. Wife. Wife. Wife. Wife. Wedding band,  wedding ring, wedding ring.

Gasp! And there he was, like a vision in the desert. Man, with wrinkles... and no wedding band. And he was even good looking in the thin, long haired professor way.  I hit the lottery.

So,  I sat in the row in front of him. I adjusted my seat and looked back. He was working a crossword puzzle. Oh dear. I adjusted my seat, touched my hair, and crossed my legs enough to be identified as someone with un-medicated ADD. Finally, we made eye contact. I widened my eyes and smiled. He looked back down at the crossword.

Then the lecture started.

Now, I knew a little bit about Quantum Mechanics before I got there, so  I thought I could keep up with the big boys. But trying to make sense of what the lecturer was saying about  the atom engines fried my dendrites in my poor little brain.

I kept pushing forward, hanging onto my seat so I could ask my pickup line, "So what's new in wave particle duality?" But my brain kept sizzling from all the quantums and mechanics that it had to process from droning lecturer. By the time it was over, my brain was blank white space. Drool was coming out my mouth. I came to when people started getting up to leave.

OMG! There he was, talking to the lecturer. I pulled myself together and found a tissue and wiped my mouth. I was going to stay and strike up a conversation, by golly!

But, he wouldn't stop talking to the lecturer. Something about Quantum Conditional entropy. Just hearing those words nearly pushed me back to the blank side. My poor little brain hurt too bad, so I left beaten but not defeated.

Not everyday will deliver a homerun. Shoot most days  I won't even get an at bat but I'm in the game.