Dorothy Heller

About the Blog

L.I.L.—Love, Illusion, and Longing

The Mature & Single Experience

Separated, then divorced, in mid-life (to phrase it diplomatically), children grown I realized one day that I had spent almost six years of my life on line.  I had had numerous encounters—educational, entertaining, disconcerting–multiple coffee dates, several relationships, but had not found a partner.  (Although there had been a few memorable near misses and false alarms).

It seemed statistically improbable.

Nonplussed by the realization, I decided to stop searching and start writing.

L.I.L. is one woman’s dispatches from the front line and her commentaries on the journey towards that ultimate goal—a L.L.P.—Loving Life Partnership.

It’s me, reflecting, questioning, sometimes laughing, about the experience of being alone at mid-life.

And it’s going to run the gamut from funny, serious, silly scary, sad, or simply off-the wall—like the experience itself.

Welcome to L.I.L.  Enjoy the journey.  After all, what are the options?

Here we are, 40 million of the 54 million single people in the United States (StatisticBrain.com-Online Dating Statistics), lost in a thicket of social media–hacking our way through the underbrush to find a simple handclasp, arms to hold us, a companion to share morning coffee, errands, the daily vicissitudes of life.  Sex, of course—(a three-letter word almost never used in dating profiles).

And there are millions of us over fifty-single, aging Baby Boomers, never married, widowed, or divorced.  In fact, the Center for Marriage and Family Research are talking about “the Gray Divorce Revolution,” because of the rate at which Boomers are uncoupling.

There are more of us every day.  According to Anthony Cirillo, “someone turns 50 every 8 seconds.  Each year more than 3.5 million Boomers turn 55…America’s 50 and older population will reach 100 million.”  (Anthony Cirillo, About.com Guide to “Assisted Living.”)

We support an online dating industry of $1,049 billion, on which we each spend an average of $239 a year.

We’re on laptops, IPhones, IPads, Ipods, smart phones, Skyping, texting, Googling, emailing, IM’ing, swiping—continual connection 24/7.  How can we be so connected–yet not connect?

Why is this the LI.L. Blog?

Love—Popular culture assigns love and romance to the young, except for a few “Golden Years” romances, such as “Brighton Beach.”  Aren’t those seniors cute?  Awwwwww.  Like wrinkly puppies.

Mature singles have lived long enough to have witnessed and experienced many kinds of love—first love, married love, love that fails, dies, implodes, or fades away. Love for children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, friends, our work, our avocations.

Despite our age, our achievements, our other attachments in life, we still want to love, be loved, be in love—as spiritual and sexual individual human beings. But how? OWML (On Which More Later).

Illusions:  We are of a generation that has spent millions of hours and dollars on self-realization and self-actualization with ourselves as our own research subjects, trying to crack the code of who we are, what makes us tick, who will make us happy.  We hold beliefs about ourselves that both define and confine us. We carry with us the accumulated debris of unfulfilled fantasies, fixed beliefs, self-imposed limitations–our grudges, our excuses, our reasons why. We’ve spent years developing the stories that we tell ourselves.  We have a way of thinking that sustains us—and may also restrain us from reaching our relationship goals. ONWML

Longing:

As much as baby boomers are dedicated to rewriting the Book of Age –stretching the boundaries of aging, if not denying them—we share a gut-level feeling of the finiteness of life. We’ve had intimations of mortality—we’re seeing our parents age and die—even spouses, lovers, friends.  We are nearing the front lines, with no generation standing between us and the finish line. As mature singles, we know we’re facing the possibility of spending the rest of our lives alone, with its surprising pluses and benefits and its obvious downside. Yet, the longing to love and be loved becomes more acute with the years.  We still have burning desires-you can find Swingers in their seventies, still promoting the Sexual Revolution.  It’s September—there’s a sense of urgency.  If not now, when?  Such is the yearning the longing, for intimate, individual romantic love, at any age. OWML.

What L.I.L. Is NOT—

–L.I.L. will offer you no relationship snake oil.  You’ve already got lots of “experts” giving you advice. I don’t have the answers.  But I am asking questions. Stay tuned.

–No tell-all confessional or reality show.  I am sharing my own experiences and the experiences of LI.L. correspondents.  Misery may love company, but we’re getting together here to laugh, think, and figure this thing out.