Nadine Dorries wrote in her column on Tuesday about the men who suddenly proposed to her at the age of 66. Four men in six weeks, one of whom whispered how sexy he found her during lunch!
They sense that she is recovering from the grief that struck after the death of her beloved husband Paul in 2019, she concludes, and that she is radiating a new kind of openness and optimism.
Well, good for her.
But also a word of warning. Far be it from me to rain on Nadine’s parade, but she’s not the only one to get a few proposals later in life. And they’re not always a cause for outright celebration.
To my constant surprise, at the age of 79, I also regularly and often very daring proposals from older men. Why not, you might ask? I am single and unattached (I divorced my husband 35 years ago) and am in good health and reasonable fitness from exercising every day. But while they may be after me because of my looks and personality, I believe the truth is more of a mercenary thing.
‘To my continued surprise, at the age of 79, I also regularly and often very daring proposals from older men,’ says Liz Hodgkinson
I am convinced that what they want from me, at least in part, is not my sparkling company, but my money.
I don’t mean that they are real scammers, the kind that lure women in online with lies about who they are.
No, these are real men, our age or older, who see a wealthy woman not only as a ticket to fun, but also to a very comfortable old age with their feet under our well-loaded tables.
I have often written about the beautiful house where I lived for fourteen years, with its three bathrooms, and about my long career as a writer, and I firmly believe that part of the male population sees me as a trap because of It.
It’s not just me and Nadine. My best friend, a busy interior designer in her late seventies, always gets a proposal too. Another friend, 84, who recently published her first book to great acclaim, says she has an admirer who wants to marry her.
“And he doesn’t take no for an answer,” she told me, even though she repeats it often enough.
Therein lies the problem, of course. They see us as a catch, but also as women of a certain age who will fall at their feet once they’ve shown any attention – hence their trust (and, as Nadine has discovered, some of these men can be very outspoken indeed).
Yet we rarely see them in the same light.
For example, a few years ago a complete stranger messaged me on social media. He said he had graduated from Oxford, worked in international finance and now ran a publishing house. He wondered if I could collaborate with him on a book on an interesting subject, so I arranged to meet him for a drink in a London wine bar.
The moment he walked in, it became clear that while I had taken care of myself and my money, he had not.
Dressed in old jeans and a ratty jacket, about 70 years old, he asked within minutes of our meeting if I would ever consider getting married again. The ‘date’, if that’s what it was, didn’t last much longer. I later discovered that this international financier and publisher lived in a student room on the coast. After two divorces, he barely had any money left.
Others have been just as brutal. There was a guy in his seventies who asked me out to dinner after following me on Facebook, but when we spoke on the phone he told me he hadn’t worked since he was fifty.
We didn’t hit it off and we didn’t meet, but that didn’t stop him messaging afterwards about being ‘lonely’ and drinking a bottle of wine by himself. Another man tried to pick me up on the bus like I was a teenager! Since Christmas there have been two more approaches from probably real men, as opposed to fake catfish, asking me for dates.
Nadine Dorries wrote in her column on Tuesday about the men who suddenly introduced her at the age of 66
It used to be thought that older men targeted younger women, but it appears – perhaps thanks to the cost of living – that those days are over.
Karen Mooney, who has run Sara Eden Introductions since 1988, says: ‘The objectives have completely changed. When I started the agency I was 30 and 60 seemed old. Now I am in my sixties and have many older male clients who are looking for a partner of the same age. Women take much better care of themselves; they have had a career, led their own lives, have their own homes, are completely independent and can get by without men.
“While unattached older men may be looking for a partner their own age without an ulterior motive, it is also true that many hope to find a wealthy widow.
“If you’re rich, you’re going to be targeted, regardless of your age,” Karen adds. ‘Every time a man sees the word ‘widow’ on an online dating site, he thinks she’s going to be loaded. Of course, men can be vulnerable too, and widowers will often attract gold diggers as well. Overall, we have seen a huge increase in the number of customers aged 60, 70 and 80 since the pandemic.”
Sometimes the women get really burned by this imbalance in financial power.
A friend who had been single all her life and had recently retired as a private school principal began a whirlwind romance with a guy she had known briefly as a student and soon they were married. The union was a disaster.
After three years she filed for divorce. During the marriage she had transferred her assets into joint names and the result of the very expensive, bitterly fought divorce was that the husband of several years was allowed to buy her out and get her house.
With her finances severely depleted, she had no choice but to move to a retirement home. It wasn’t a classic scam, but he sure did a really good job with her.
That’s not as unusual as it sounds. Another friend married a younger man in the belief that she had finally found true love after two divorces, but when that marriage also failed, he got her house too, this time purely for financial reasons. I fear that some older women will always be prey to smooth men who convince them that they are in love.
Despite everything, I hope I haven’t deterred Nadine from returning to dating. There’s nothing to lose when you turn over “a brave and bold” new leaf, as she puts it, and dive into the world awakening in spring.
But she has to be sure that there are wolves too. The good news is that they probably won’t bother disguising themselves because they truly believe it isn’t necessary – oh, for a mediocre man’s self-confidence, as the saying goes – but they should still be careful.
So would I ever consider an intimate relationship again? Yes, but very firmly on my terms. First, they would have to match me financially, and second, I would have to be attracted to them. None of these things seem like very much to ask, right? Good luck there Nadine!