Dating Apps After 40? Midlife Women Are Swiping Right on Love and Lust
Dating apps aren’t just for twenty-somethings swiping their way through bad dates and worse bios. More midlife women are logging on in search of everything from lasting love to a little lust. According to the Pew Research Center, roughly one in four Americans 50 and older has used a dating app or site — and women in midlife aren’t holding back. They’re swiping, matching and making the most of it.
In fact, dating apps have become ground zero for a new sexual revolution of sorts. After ending a 24-year-marriage, one 45-year-old entrepreneur, who spoke with Flow Space on the condition of anonymity, joined Feeld — the app for “open-minded individuals”— to probe her unexplored kinks. She says she wants to make up for lost time by having sex that “makes me feel alive.”
She’s been busy — and adventurous.
She had an encounter with a man with a micropenis who made her orgasm without touching her. She also had sex with a bisexual man “who has the biggest dick I’ve been with.” Another date resulted in “hot and sweaty sex” with someone who likes his wife to watch his sexual escapades. She also bedded her best friend and her husband after discovering them on the app, too.
With each new experience, she’s learned a lot about herself.
“When I first left my husband, I was worried that I wouldn’t be desired by another man,” she reflects, adding that joining the app restored the confidence and self-love she lost during her marriage. “I’ve learned to not be ashamed of my body, sexuality, desires and fantasies — you get hotter when you love yourself.”
She isn’t the only woman looking to unlock her sexuality in the second half of life. According to Feeld’s data team, women 40 and up are the fastest growing segment of the app’s female users.
“For many women, midlife can bring greater self-assurance, less concern with external expectations, and a clearer sense of what they actually want,” Dina Mohammad-Laity, Feeld’s vice president of data, tells Flow Space.
These exploits require some due diligence — especially with STI rates on the rise among people 55 and up. “I have deep respect for those who can show up as responsible adults,” the entrepreneur states, before mentioning that protection against STIs and pregnancy are always discussed before her dates. Otherwise, she says, “I don’t play.”
Just like their younger counterparts, midlife women are also dealing with fellow singles who don’t want to commit. The “roster style” of dating — juggling several people at the same time — can feel discouraging.
This can be especially tricky when it comes to navigating the next step in dating: intimacy.
Sharing a body that has changed over the years — stretch marks, cellulite, Cesarean scars and more — with someone new requires a level of vulnerability that can be nerve wracking. That, compounded by plummeting hormones that cause vaginal dryness and painful intercourse, makes this moment for many midlife women a test in bravery.
But that’s not stopping them. In fact, a lot of them are going hard, getting off and feeling great doing it. A recent survey from telehealth giant Hers found that 55% of women 50 and up gave themselves top scores in the bedroom. And they’re owning it — they rated themselves a 4 out 5 or 5 out of 5.
While there are many women seeking casual adventures, most turn to the apps for true companionship. In the aforementioned Pew survey, about half of daters over 50 said they were on the apps to find a long-term partner or spouse.
Jenny Forwark, a 39-year-old information librarian, has been looking for Mr. Right. Since her divorce 4 ½ years ago, she’s been swiping on Hinge, Bumble and Facebook Dating.
“All my friends who are also divorced and single have been on the apps at some point,” she says, adding that she’s reluctant to date at work and is looking for a fellow divorcee who also has a child like her. “If you want a long-lasting relationship or a boyfriend or a girlfriend, this is how you do it now unfortunately, for better or worse.”
Dating and relationship coach Cassandra Fleming, 45, says her midlife women clients often find the apps frustrating. Navigating the pitfalls of online communication — crafting the perfect message, sifting through the endless stack of profiles — can compound the feeling.
“I believe what is true is that a majority of people out there want companionship and the majority of people out there think the opposite sex doesn’t want it and that’s not true,” she says. “Men want it, women want it and what’s happened with the apps is our patience has dropped to zero and our frustration has gone through the roof — that combination causes people to give up too quickly.”
Not Forwark — she goes on about one date per week and has met all sorts of people near where she lives in Texas. She calls the thrill of receiving new messages a “dopamine hit.”
There are obvious pitfalls of finding love on the internet: non-stop texting that goes nowhere, ghosting, even catfishing. But there are success stories. The idea of finding true love, a soul mate, even a twin flame, is what keeps women swiping.
Fleming met her now-husband on Hinge. Forwark is holding out for hers — especially after watching her best friend, who’d been on dating apps since 2012, meet the love of her life on Hinge this year at 40.
“In the Hallmark movies, it takes the actress a long time to find somebody,” she reflects. “It’s just a numbers game and it only takes one.”
