Video Transcription
Hello and welcome to Senior Living Live. I'm Janae Sherman and I wanna thank you for joining me for today's webinar, Online Dating Tips and How to Spot a Scam. Today, our special guest is Doctor Janie Steckenreiter, professor at Loyola Maramotte University. Doctor Steckenreiter, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2
Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1
Oh, definitely. We're gonna demystify the world of online dating seniors today with straightforward advice and how to protect yourself from scams. But before I turn this webinar over to you, I just want to remind everyone that this is a perfect time for you to get your questions answered by an expert. So make sure you click the q and a button below to submit your questions throughout the presentation. When she's finished presenting, we'll get your questions answered live and I'll also jump back on to give you more information at the end on how to get a replay of this webinar.
So with all of that, let's get started.
Speaker 2
Well, thank you for having me and welcome everyone to Online Dating Tips and How to Spot a Scam. As Janae said, I am Janae Steckenreiter. I'm a gerontologist and a professor at Loyola Marymount University, and my expertise is sex and aging. I'm also known as Dr.Janae. And if you'd like to know more about me and read some of my blogs, you can go to my website at sexandaging.com.
Well, you're starting to think about dipping your toe back in the dating waters, but maybe feel a little rusty or maybe a little overwhelmed about the idea about how to swipe or how to upload things? Well, we're gonna take you through this step by step to give you some really good hints and tips. So let's get started.
So today, I'm gonna focus on three different aspects. I'm gonna start off and talk a little bit about the best websites for seniors and creating a dynamite profile.
Second, how to be safe dating online, and I'll give you some common red flags of scams and tips to avoid them.
And then we'll wrap up with some do's and don'ts for that first meeting.
My goal today is to give you some practical, usable advice and tips for online dating so that you can be safe and successful.
I have always looked at online dating as dating with training wheels. The websites will take you step by step through this. They'll give you pointers on how to go about doing this. And, you know, you may feel a little rusty, and your first interaction with a match or your first ten interactions with a match may totally bomb.
That's okay.
You can move on to the next one. You're practicing. You're developing your dating skills just like you learned how to ride that bike with your training wheels.
So the first thing you need to do is to pick the right website or app. And I'm gonna use those two words interchangeably. Website and app. I mean the same thing. Well, there's hundreds of dating websites out there, and they're not all created equal.
The five recommended by the National Council on Aging for seniors are these five right here.
Our time, Match, Senior Match, eHarmony, and Silver Singles. Now these five, websites, they go about approaching, how they do their matches, their profiles a little differently. They, have different approaches to this. Some of them, you fill out extended questionnaires at the beginning, and then they will match you. Other of these, you will search for the profiles yourself. So they take different approaches to this. So you should do some research as to what you think best matches, what your style and how you would like to go about online dating.
The cost is ranges from thirteen dollars and higher. Some go even up to seventy five dollars a month. I would not recommend that. And the longer you sign up, the less expensive it is per month. And the different prices are how many features you want.
So they as I said, they start at thirteen dollars a month.
I recommend these three with the little happy faces with the hearts, Senior Match, eHarmony, and Silver Singles because I think they are the safest ones for seniors.
They have verification protocols that they run every single day to make sure that the people on their websites are real people, and, they really cuts down on fraud. So those would be the three that I would recommend that you use.
So the first thing is your profile, and that's two parts, your bio and your photos.
But before you start working on your bio and going through your photos, my suggestion is that you sit back and give some thought to the characteristics that you're looking for in another person. What's important to you for a match? Do you want somebody who shares your hobbies? Maybe you play a lot of pickleball and you're looking for a pickleball player.
Or do you want someone to travel with?
Maybe you want someone of the same faith as you.
And maybe there's a physical attribute you're looking for. Maybe you're tall and you're wanting someone who's tall, or maybe you're short and that's what you're looking for. I'm gonna tell a lot of stories today.
And when I was dating online, I'm only five two, so I'm short. I used to get so many short men who would contact me because that was important to them. So stop and think about what it is you're looking for. Maybe even list make a list of those characteristics and qualities.
And give some thought to what you're looking for. Is it a long term relationship?
Just a casual friendship?
Do you want a match who you can have an occasional dinner companion?
Are you looking for a travel buddy? Are you looking for something else? I'll leave that to your imagination.
Okay. Your bio. That's the first thing you need to focus on. It should be short, sweet, sassy, and clever.
It needs to be short. No one's gonna read a long narrative. So keep it short.
And you need to be clever. You need to be sassy. The goal is to stand out in a good way.
This is your elevator pitch.
This is for you to describe why you're unique. Why what your experiences are. You need to be honest and authentic as you describe yourself.
But put yourself best self out there in your description.
And don't just list what you like to do. Don't just list your characteristics. But give it some context.
Instead of saying, I like to hike, say something like, I climbed Machu Picchu and slept under the stars. Isn't that more interesting?
And instead of saying, I like to spend my evenings playing Yahtzee, say, I'll crush you in board games, but share the popcorn. So give give your bio some context to your interests.
Make it interesting for the reader. You want to engage the reader. You want the reader to want to meet you.
And no cliches.
No. I'm looking for someone to walk along the beach at sunset and hold hands. No. No cliches.
They're there everywhere. So don't use those. And don't say things like, I love to laugh. Make it far more punchy and interesting.
Be bold.
Embrace your quirky.
You're not gonna appeal to everyone, and you don't want to. So put your true self out there.
It goes without saying that good grammar and spelling are important.
My suggestion is that you write your bio in a Word document and then let it sit overnight.
And also, send it to a friend, and let your friend read it and give you suggestions and tell you whether it really captures who you are. And then when you have your bio the way you want it, then you can post it up on the dating site.
I would like to say that people are going to go into your profile, read your bio, and then decide if they want to reach out to you because they think you're compatible.
I'd be lying.
Your photos are the most important part of your profile.
And you only have a very few minutes to engage the person and interest them into your profile before they swipe. So you want photos that are really going to represent you.
So here's some do's about your your photos. You need about five or six photos. And I'm talking about photos that are just taken with your phone.
You don't need to go have professional photos. Just have photos taken with your phone. Have your friend take photos of you.
You should have a close-up of your face with an engaging smile.
This redheaded woman over here, that's a terrific photo of her face. It draws you in. Something like that. You need one of those.
You also need a full body photo.
Did I hear some gasp about that?
You don't need to have an athletic tone body.
You just need to present your most attractive self. I mean, like this man over here with the blue hoodie and gold socks, that's a full body profile. But doesn't he look interesting? Don't you want to know, God, he's he looks interesting. He's kind of quirky.
You should also have photos of yourself being active. What are your passions? What are your interests? Show photos of you doing that. For example, as I said, if you like pickleball, have a photo of you playing pickleball. If you like to fish, have a photo of you holding a fish that you caught.
We've got this woman walking along the beach. That's a perfect photo. We get to know that she's interested in the beach and probably likes to listen to music, so she's got the headphones on.
And we have this man over here, with the surfboard on his head.
That photo's great because it's twofold. It shows that he's active and he likes to surf, but it's also a good close-up of his face and he's smiling and engaging. So that's good too. That's a great combination of this. You can mix it up with some casual photos, dressy photos, photos in nature. So put yourself out there, your best self out there in your photos.
Some photo don'ts.
And I shouldn't have to say this and give this list, but you're going to see a lot of these kinds of photos out there on people's websites, people's profiles.
Don't put them on yours.
First, no selfies in the mirror.
This woman here in the blue is taking a photo of herself in the mirror. That's really confusing. So just get a friend to take your photos. Don't take them yourself in the mirror.
No group shots. We have these three women over here, in a group. So which one is the profile about? It's hard to know. You gotta pick out which one you're kind of interested in.
And what if you have a more attractive friend? Do you really want to compete with somebody that you're putting up as your photos? So just photos of yourself.
And a lot of people don't really want their photos on a dating website unless they are doing it themselves. And so you need to respect their privacy.
No sunglasses. We've got this woman driving. You can't see her face. So no sunglasses or hats that are pulled down low over your face to obstruct your face.
I shouldn't have to say this, but only current photos.
No old photos.
People do this all the time.
Be honest.
So this man over here in the corner, where we have the two photos is a really good example of what people do.
The photo on the bottom is what the man looks like today.
But he's not really confident in how he looks today. And he loved what he looked like about twenty years ago. So he posts the top photo of himself on his profile instead of his current photo.
Don't do that. Only only current photos. Let me tell you another story.
When I was dating online, I was interacting with a very attractive man. He was probably about two hundred pounds, and we had great banter.
And so, we met.
And he was at least four hundred and fifty pounds.
I mean, what did he think? That he was gonna be able to hide it when we met?
And it it wasn't that his weight was the problem.
Because in fact, I went out with him a couple of times because I found him charming. But it was the fact that he had been dishonest. And so there's nothing worse than you see somebody's photos online, and you think they look a certain way, and you're interacting with them. And then you have your first meeting, and somebody walks in that looks nothing like their photos. So only current photos.
No messy backgrounds.
The photo of the man with the striped shirt, do you really wanna meet him? Look at that messy background. I know that's an exaggeration, but I wanted to make my point.
Pay attention to what's behind you in your photos.
Another story.
My friend Susan, dates online. And so I'm actively involved in her online dating.
She sends me photos, she sends me the profiles.
And last week, she sent me a photo of a man she was interacting with, and he was standing in front of a bookshelf.
You would think that's a great photo. Right?
So what was the first thing that she and I did? We enlarged the photo, and we read every single title of the books on his bookshelf. I don't think that's what he intended, but that's what we were able to do.
So you don't wanna put out personal information in the background, and you don't want to convey an image by what's in your background, so pay attention to what is there.
Okay. So you've got your bio.
You've got your photos. You've got it posted up on the dating website. And so now you're ready to get going. But you want to be safe. So let's talk a little bit about online dating scams and how to be safe.
But first, I want to say that most people on the dating websites are real people.
They've got good intentions, and they're looking for a relationship or a friend.
They're not scammers. I'm not saying that they may not turn out to be a jerk. They might.
But they're not scammers.
And I also want to share some good news in that the last couple of years, the dating websites have really focused on fraud detection and, verification protocols. So the number of scams on dating websites have really decreased. That's good news.
I first want to warn you, don't think this is not going to happen to you.
Don't think you would never send money to somebody online.
Let me tell you another story.
My friend Adele was had was recently widowed, and she was scammed out of over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from somebody on a dating website.
She had all the earmarks that scammers look for. She was in her seventies, recently widowed. She was lonely, one of the biggest factors.
She her friends and family were not close by. And she started interacting with a man, and I use my air quotes for a man. We don't know if it was a man because she never met him.
She never talked to him. She never video chatted with him.
But she sent him money after money because of the sad stories that he told her. Now I wanna share a piece of irony with you.
Adele had been married to a policeman, and Adele herself had worked for the police department for decades. So if anybody should be suspicious of a scammer's story, it should have been someone like Adele.
But scammers are experts. They know how to identify your weak spots and just pull you in. So I want to give you some red flags so you know what to look for. Here's a couple of them over here. These are the most common, certainly not all of them, but these are just some of the red flags you should look for.
The first is love bombing.
What that is is when the person, the match that you're interacting with comes on really strong, really fast, they wanna talk with you multiple times a day.
The conversations go from being casual to very intense and very romantic and personal very fast.
They will say I love you early on when you're interacting, and you haven't even talked on the phone.
And you're you're excited and kind of confused, but they prey on that. They know that you may not have had a whole lot of attention lately, and so they love bomb you. And so watch out for that if someone comes on too strong, too fast. That is a red flag of a scam.
Another red flag is that they pressure you to take your chat off the website.
Usually it's to WhatsApp. That's a free app so they don't have to pay.
And they also want to move you off the website and monopulize your time so somebody else doesn't get to you.
So, so you are their victim, not someone else's. So if someone's pressuring you to communicate offline, don't do it. Keep all your communications on the dating website.
Another red flag is the details on their profile don't match with what they're telling you about themselves.
You think from a profile you're interacting with someone who is an engineer living in Montana.
But when you're interacting with this person, they're telling you they live in Florida, and they've got a fishing business.
And if you mention that to them, oh, they'll give you a good story.
But that's a telltale sign. Their profile profile details don't match what they're telling you. Another part of that is even though they say English is their, their language, their grammar and their spelling is awful. Watch for that. That's usually a telltale sign that English really is not their language.
One of the biggest signs of a scam, and this is exactly what Adele fell into, they're not willing to talk on the phone.
They can't they won't meet, or they won't even video chat with you.
And they'll give you all these reasons why not.
They'll say, you know, I think people spend too much time on their phones, so I refuse to even have a phone. And you're thinking, oh, okay. That makes sense. And you believe it because you're emotionally involved with this match.
They will tell you that the camera on their phone is broken so they can't video chat with you.
And you say, oh, god. I'm really sorry. I totally understand. Well, when you get your phone fixed, then we can chat.
Those are two telltale signs. Those are red flags. And obviously, the biggest red flag of a scam and why it's pulsating there is they ask for money.
And they will have the saddest, heartbreaking stories that they'll tell you that they've invested all their money in a in a deal, and they just need a little bit more money to close the deal, and the bank won't loan them any more money, and they don't know what to do.
And you don't wanna see them suffer. You love this person.
And so they say, well, maybe you could help me. And you say, okay. I'll send you some money.
Or they say their mother or a relative is in the hospital and needs an operation, and they're afraid they're gonna die, and they don't have money, and the hospital won't do the operation until the insurance pays and you're afraid they're gonna die first.
Don't. Or they'll say, I'd really love to come visit you, but my credit card got stolen, so I can't buy a plane ticket.
Maybe you could just loan me the money for a plane ticket, and I'll pay you back.
You're not gonna see them or their money. So the sign of a scam is they ask for money, and you're emotionally involved. You don't want to see them suffer, so you send them money.
And then they ask again for money, And they will ask repeatedly for money, and people will repeatedly send it because they're emotionally involved. Because, like Adele, they think they have a romantic partner, someone they've never talked to, they've never met, and they haven't even video chatted with.
So I can sum this all up with liar, liar, pants on fire.
So if you are interacting with someone online and you see any of these red flags, hear my voice in your head. Liar. Liar. Pants on fire.
So what can you do to be safe?
Set up a separate phone number on Google Voice.
If you don't know how to do that, go to ask your ask your grandchildren. They will help you set it up. And this separate phone number, it's free. There's no cost.
This phone number is the one that you give out when you are first, interacting with a match. You don't give out your real number.
Another story, Susan, when she's interacting with someone and she gets their phone number, she sends it to me, and it takes me about an hour. I know that person's name.
I know their address. I've gone to Google Maps, and I've looked at the front of their house. I know their children.
You can find out so much information if you have somebody's phone number. So use the Google Voice phone number.
Also, check out their photo with reverse search on Google Image.
You take a copy of their photo on their profile, you put it into Google Image, and you can see maybe it was an AI generated photo. It's not even a real person.
Or maybe that photo is out there multiple places with multiple names, indication of a scam. Be safe.
Google, Google, Google. Search, search, search.
If you don't use Google, put the details that you know about this match in your search bar and type in the word scam and see what comes up just to be on the safe side.
Also, don't give out personal details.
Don't give your last name. Don't give, your street. Don't give your street address.
And some of these questions may be really innocuous and innocent. They may say, oh, do you own your own home? What they really want to know is how financially comfortable are you with, or, oh, do you have a pension?
So they're very innocent questions. Or do you live alone?
Another, innocent question. But that's the kind of information that scammers are looking for.
Also, it could be something like, I'm a Virgo. When's your birthday? And so you tell them what your birth date is.
And what they're really wanting to know is what your birth date is, so possibly you use those numbers and your passwords for your bank accounts. So just don't give out any personal details in this early stage of you dating online.
Trust your instinct.
If it doesn't feel right, talk to somebody. Get their opinion.
And you can always contact the customer service on the dating website.
And don't give money no matter how sad the reason. I can't tell you how many times I can say that. You're not gonna walk up to somebody in the grocery store to a stranger and say, here's a thousand dollars.
So why would you do that to somebody online? Never give money.
And your biggest safety tip is to tell a friend or a family member what you're doing. Share your excitement that you've met somebody online and you're interacting with them, and your friend or family member may listen and they're not emotionally involved. And they may say, Oh, this doesn't sound right. Maybe it's a scam.
Don't isolate yourself. That's exactly what scammers want people to do is to isolate themselves. And they'll even say, don't tell anybody that we're we're romantic partners, that we're interacting. We'll wait until we're engaged.
No. They just don't want you to tell anyone who's gonna say you're involved with a scammer. So your biggest safety tip, talk about it. Share your excitement.
Okay.
You're now interacting with some matches who you find interesting. And so let me give you some tips for your first meeting.
You should do this sooner rather than later. There is no reason to chat online for weeks or months.
Some people are, like, just eternal in terms of wanting to chat forever and never get around to the meeting stage. Move on. You should meet somebody that you're interacting with within just a couple of weeks.
Always meet in a public place. A coffee date is perfect. You're going to a public place. There are people around you. You can plan on about forty five minutes. That's perfect.
It's a perfect amount of time for you to chat, to laugh, to flirt, get to know somebody. And then after about forty five minutes, you can say, oh, it was great meeting you. I've got to go meet a friend. So coffee dates are perfect.
Another tip, don't let them pick you up at your home. You always meet them in a public place.
And don't invite them to your home.
Don't tell somebody on a coffee date that you just met, you know, we're getting along so well.
Do you wanna come to my house, and I'll make you lunch? No.
That's down the road, not at this first meeting.
Another tip is to always tell a friend or a family member what you're doing, where you're going, and any details you have about the person you're meeting.
So they are on notice what you're doing. Susan does this whenever she's gonna meet somebody.
She tells me who she's gonna meet. She sends me their photos. She sends me any details.
And then, you know, I know that she's meeting somebody, and I look at my phone and I haven't heard from her. She's a real chatter, so she goes over the forty five minutes. So I look at my phone and I haven't heard from her. So I text her to see how she's doing and if everything is fine. So always let somebody know what you're doing.
And related to that, it's a good idea to use share your location on your phone.
If you don't know how to do that, ask your grandchildren. Very easy to set up.
And so if you use share your location, let's say you share it with your daughter, and so your daughter can say, oh, look. Mom just left the coffee shop. Oh, I see she's driving down Main Street. Oh, mom just pulled into her driveway. She's safe. That's what share your location allows. Use that great safety tip.
And if you have had this coffee date and there's no spark, move on. That's fine.
You just practice your dating skills.
And a suggestion that I have is when you first start interacting with matches online, have two or three coffee dates in these first couple of weeks. Don't wait. Jump in. Dive in head first. Get going.
And know that the first match you meet may not work out. The first ten match you meet may not work out. You might be rusty.
You may have been really awkward.
You didn't know what to talk about, but you practiced your dating skills. You got yourself dressed. You met somebody who was a stranger.
You sat and talked with them. You flirted. You worked on your flirty banter.
You, you practiced this. You smiled.
You're ready for the next time you do this. It's just like practicing a piano. It's just like new and new sport. Remember, this is like dating with training wheels. You're learning something about how to improve your dating skills with each person you meet. So do it. Jump in.
So let me wrap this up.
Online dating should be fun.
It's like learning a new dance step. Excuse me. There's gotta be a misstep or two. But with a sense of humor, an open heart, a sense of adventure, you're gonna get some really good stories. Maybe you'll meet some new friends, and maybe you'll meet someone to share your next chapter of life with.
You've got this. You can do this. So I will adhere and turn it back over to Janae.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Doctor Janie. This was so interesting and very helpful. I could listen to your stories all day. Those were so great. I wanna meet Susan, to be honest.
Speaker 2
Yes you do. Trust me.
Speaker 1
You do wanna That sounds amazing. That that was such great information. I actually have some questions, but we actually have a question here that I wanted to get to you so that you could answer this one live. If anybody else has questions, this is the time. We're gonna try to go up as close to the top of the hour as you have questions and we'll keep answering.
If you have any, please go down to the q and a button and type your question in so that we can get it answered by the expert live here on our call. So the first question, you gave us some great apps that you suggest you would recommend using.
So this person asked, are there any sites or apps that I should actively avoid?
Speaker 2
Well, I highly recommend, the ones that are recommended by the National Council on Aging, those fives, and then specifically the three.
But what jumps top of mind is Tinder is one, that is be to be blunt, Tinder is more for people that just want quick hookups by and large. So there are that would be one that you would probably want to avoid.
So I would recommend staying with, those three because they are the, the safest. But I also will point out that, as I said, there's hundred of websites out there.
And there's websites by various interests. There's websites just for people of certain hobbies. There's websites that cater to people of certain faiths.
There's there's even a website for farmers if you're interested in that. But those five that I mentioned, are geared specifically to seniors. So those would be, my suggestions.
Speaker 1
Okay. Great. Thank you. That was good. If anybody else has more, make sure you throw them in there.
So what's one thing that you see over and over in dating profiles that people should stop doing? I know you gave us the ones that we shouldn't do in our for the pictures. What's something that you see is, like, the most common thing that we need to clean up?
Speaker 2
I think that being unrealistic in your, your profile and your bio that you're not being honest and you're kind of boring in what you write. I think people need to be more clever and to really stop and think, how can you engage somebody reading your profile? Be sassy. You know, don't be afraid. You should not try to appeal to everyone. And so I think, the one mistake that people have is trying to do that, is trying to be more universal in their appeal and thinking, well, I might offend someone. If, you know, if you're not looking for a particular, kind of person or a person with a particular quality, I don't think you should mention that that you shouldn't give a list as, like, I'm not looking for this, this, and that.
But you should not say things that kind of tip that that person might be interested in your profile. So be honest and authentic, and get your quirky out there. And so that you're appealing to someone who's really gonna be interested in you and what you're about. Don't be boring.
Speaker 1
That's great advice. Thank you.
What from your experience would you say surprises people the most once they actually try online dating and they actually get out there and start on these apps?
Speaker 2
I would say well, for men, we'll break this down by gender. Men are surprised at how many people contact them. They men tend to be overwhelmed with people reaching out and contacting them. And if you see somebody that you're interested in, don't wait to be, contacted.
Jump in yourself. Send send two or three lines. Be funny. Be clever. Pull something out of the profile, and, and go ahead and be the first to contact.
That's fine. So I think men are surprised by that.
For for women in general, it's not quite they don't get that many in the same numbers, a huge number. I think women are surprised by the variation of, people that do contact them. And, and it is also somewhat overwhelming on the websites that you can put in the filters yourself and search for people.
I mean, like, you may put in, okay. I'm looking for somebody with these four characteristics, and you can filter out the profiles by those by those filters. And then that gives you a hundred matches. And so that's a little overwhelming to keep looking through and looking through to see somebody that might interest you.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you.
So I have a question about for people who are listening to you and they're thinking, okay. My profile, I need to fix it. Would you recommend that there's one specific thing they should do first, or do you think it's time, like, jump in and change everything, or should we be implementing these one at a time? What what do you think?
Speaker 2
So if you're, already on, an online dating site And it's the right site. You know? And and it's a good site, and it's one, that has a lot of, people who would be potential matches for you. And and that's why the the the five I mentioned, they're catering to seniors. That's good. So you're you're you don't get all these other people that are on it. So this the those five websites cater to senior, and that's gonna be more in your dating pool, shall I say.
So if you're on it already and you're not getting a lot of matches, I would first say, look at your photos.
And maybe it's time to change up your photos.
And and you should you know, you might wanna do that periodically anyway. Maybe you need to have more fun in your photos.
Besides a close-up, you might wanna reexamine what the close-up of your face is. Are you looking are you smiling and engaging? Looking engaging.
Look at you know, show it to a friend and say, would you wanna meet this person?
And, look at your other photos. Are you doing something fun? Are you being active? You know, if you like to bowl, show a picture of you bowling. I would say that should be the first thing you change up are your photos, and put new ones out there.
Speaker 1
Okay. Good. So we we're gonna have good photos, clever banter.
We actually got another question in from one of our listeners. So should you have the same profile across multiple sites or should you try different profiles for different sites?
Speaker 2
My inclination is that you might wanna try to mix it up a little bit.
You know, you're casting your net wider. It's not and and I don't mean that you're going to have a totally different person on the on these websites. It's just that you may use some different photos, or it may be that on one, you emphasize about all your pickleball activities. And on another website, you might be emphasizing that you really like to go to the opera and you really like movies. You might emphasize different kinds of things. So, and you might put some different photos. But on any website that you are on, you need to be honest and authentic and your true self.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Definitely. It sounds like you could do some good research with that with that way also.
Okay. Another question there. Keep keep them coming, guys. How do I tell my children that I'm online dating if they are uncomfortable with the idea?
That's a good one.
Speaker 2
Yes. That is, often a difficulty.
I will say that on my website at sexandaging.com, there is an article of the US News and World reports that I'm quoted in, and it's exactly about that. So you might wanna go to my website and read that article. It's linked there, about children. So about your children who may not feel comfortable.
A lot of times, it's really hard for children to see their parent in a romantic manner, and that may make their children uncomfortable to think of about a parent that way.
And especially if a parent has recently passed or past a few years. That's you know, it's hard for a child and even an adult child, it's hard for an adult child to really see their parent with somebody else. That's tough.
So that's the first, thing that makes it difficult. And I think that it's important for the parent and the child to sit down and for the parent to say, you know, I'm young. I really would like to have a companion. I still have a lot of life left in me.
And you may not want to bring up the word sex, because it that may make them uncomfortable. But you might want to just say, I'd like to have someone to go to the movies with. I'd like to have someone to go to dinner with. I would like to have a companion.
And so I think to express to the children that you when you're looking for someone to spend some quality time with and express to the child that you're a little lonely and want that. And if that your children still oppose this, frankly, it's your choice.
You can and it's your choice to go ahead and do that.
I would again, honesty with your children that you're going to do this, I wouldn't hide it.
I think it would be up front with your children, and try to get them to see your point of view. But in the end, if they still oppose it, then it's your choice.
Speaker 1
Very wise. Thank you. It looks like we're gonna have more reading after this. So you're gonna have to head over to our website.
So we're nearing the end here. So let's just end unless another question comes in. I just wanna end with one last question. If you could give, like, that final piece of advice for any senior thinking about online dating or just here's your your summation of what you wanna want people to hear.
What is that piece of advice?
Speaker 2
My piece of advice is do it.
Do it safely, but jump in and do it. Keep trying and stay with it. Most people give up after two weeks.
Don't. It's gonna be rocky. It's gonna be rocky here and there, and you're rusty, and you're gonna go out, and you're gonna bomb. You may embarrass yourself.
That's okay. Give it time. Keep practicing. Stay with it. And, you know, you may meet some just good friends.
It may not end up being a romantic relationship, but you may end up with some really good friends out of this. So stay with it and keep interacting with people. Be social. If nothing else, one of the best things you can do just as you get older for every facet of your life and for your health is to be social.
So this is a great way to do that.
Speaker 1
Well, that was great. Let's end on a high note with hope. I love that advice.
I say this was such a fun webinar. I really enjoyed hearing everything that you had to say. I love these stories that you had to tell us about. So definitely, if you want more information from Doctor Janie, make sure you visit her website.
For all of you watching, this webinar will be sent to the the email that you registered with so that you can get all of this again and and watch it again. Also, we have many videos and webinar just like this one on all topics of senior living at seniorlivinglive.com. All of that content is available for you free. You can go download every topic you're looking for. It's there for you. So make sure you check that out as well.
And I just wanna thank you for being a part of our conversation today. Thank you so much, Doctor Janey, for all of this. This was awesome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2
And thank you for having me.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you everyone. And with that, have a great day.