Dating Later in Life Means Different Rules

A 37-year-old male friend of mine told me over drinks that he was casually dating a woman his age. They were having conversations about marriage and children. He asked me if this was normal. I said, “At our age, yes.”

Dating past 30 is a game changer. You’re established and working; you might own a home and be investing in retirement. Because of this you look at your dates in a completely different way. Instead of just having fun you’re thinking more along the lines of, “Can this person fit into my existing life and become a true partner in love and even finance?”

The Captain and I revealed early on how much we each had in our 401(k)s. We joked and talked about children, marriage and money. “If we have kids I hope they have your skin tone and not mine,” he’d say. We’d laugh, but whether or not we wanted children was something we needed to find out about each other. And for the first time, I wasn’t scared. I entered into the Facebook Dating Project looking for a partner, not just a hook-up. I asked the over-30s on The Panel to weigh in:

• Topics that were scary for 20s guys are definitely not as scary for 30s guys. I was looking for someone who I thought would make a good husband and father. My husband and I met online and about three weeks into our relationship, we had this conversation:

"Do you want to get married and have kids eventually? I'm not asking if you want to do this with me, but is this something you want in general?"

"Yes."

I don't remember who started the conversation, but it was satisfactory to both of us, didn't scare anybody, and allowed us to move forward. Had either of us said "no," the relationship would have ended. – Sharon, 38, Married

• Dating online in my 30s was a blessing because I could weed out the riff raff. If a man said he was "undecided" or didn’t want a kid, that was an automatic delete. I wasn’t interested and did not have time for a guy to decide in his 30s or 40s IF he wanted kids. I knew my husband wanted to have kids from his profile. I verified this when we bonded and fell in love after three to five months of dating. – Cheryl, 41, Married