News

DATING AT ANY AGE CAN BE STRESSFUL, EXHAUSTING, EVEN HAZARDOUS TO ONE’S SELF-ESTEEM. Now imagine wading into the dating pool when you’re past retirement age.

Indeed, fireworks are rare for those who date during their so-called golden years, especially for women, who significantly outnumber their male counterparts. To help right this imbalance, some seniors are borrowing a strategy from younger generations and trying speed dating in hopes of once again feeling that spark of attraction.

“It’s hard meeting a man who’s single,” said Sandy Camero, 69, who attended a recent event at the Igo Public Library designed for seniors who wanted to meet new people. “They’re either too old and don’t ever want to do anything or, if they’re my age, they’re looking for someone younger.”   Continue Reading

THE AGE OF LOVE, A DOCUMENTARY PRODUCED BY DIRECTOR STEVEN LORING, will screen at the Terrace Theater this Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The film follows 30 Rochester, NY senior citizens who sign up for a speed dating event, tracking their journey before, during, and after the event.

“It’s very much a personal journey,” says Loring of making the film. “It’s about launching an investigation into something that’s important to you.” Loring first started to think about senior citizens and love when he watched his mother struggle with her identity after his father died.

“You still feel so young inside,” he says. So when he heard about a speed dating event for seniors ages 70-90, he knew he had to explore the possibilities of older people falling in love. “There’s an assumption by society that falling in love [when you’re older] is cute. But it’s real,” he says.   Continue Reading

IT’S APRIL FOOLS’ DAY AND I FEEL A TAD FOOLISH, but I’ve signed up, so I’m going. I leave the house early to assure myself a good parking space near the entrance. When I get to the town parking lot in front of the movie theater, I’m lucky to find any space at all. Of course, I should have known, seniors are usually early. I’m happy for the senior center’s director, Linda Hayes, who organized this event. Perhaps there’ll be a fairly decent turnout, maybe even 30 or 40 people.

When I enter the theater, I’m floored. I do a rough count of those already seated as people keep pouring in. One hundred twenty I estimate. Maybe more. Most of those gray- and white-haired heads belong to women. Where are the men? Are they afraid to show up knowing they’re outnumbered? Or have they moved to apartments in Boston after losing their mates to divorce or death?

We’ve come to see “The Age of Love.” The movie shows non-actor seniors in their 70s and even 80s unafraid to reveal that no matter what their age, they desire companionship and relationships as much as do those many years younger. And these brave souls are up for taking part in an unrehearsed senior speed-dating event and doing it in front of cameras.   Continue Reading

IN STEVEN LORING’S DOCUMENTARY, “THE AGE OF LOVE,” YOU WATCH AS MEN AND WOMEN in their 70s and 80s worry about what to wear, fret about body parts they don’t particularly like, consider what they will say and wonder who they will meet. They are getting ready for a speed dating event in Rochester, N.Y., that is specifically for people 70 and older.

Loring, who was a screenwriter, began this documentary as his master’s thesis in film. He had heard about speed dating events for seniors and found one in Rochester, where he grew up. He got permission from all 30 participants to film their stories before the event as well at the event and the results after.

He worried that no one would want to participate in telling their stories of their search for love. What he found was a generation hungry to have someone listen.    Continue Reading

IF DATING AFTER 35 SEEMS DAUNTING, imagine dating after 70. That’s the subject of the documentary “The Age of Love,” which follows a group of 30 seniors in Rochester, NY, who sign up for a speed-dating event for those aged 70 to 90.

In the film, which will be screened for the public Thursday by Audicus at 447 Broadway in Manhattan, the seniors have to deal with the same anxieties about dating we all do — and some age-specific concerns, such as whether they can put aside their portable oxygen tanks to tango.

Director Steven Loring was inspired to make the film by his uncle’s new romance at the age 78. Filming “The Age of Love” was, he writes on the documentary’s Web site, “a unique chance to discover how age affects our desire to start over, to be held once again in someone’s arms, to seek new companionship and affection.”

It was also a chance to see which dating behaviors work in later life and which don’t. We checked in with Loring and got some of his best tips for seniors re-entering the dating scene. Here’s what he had to say:    Continue Reading

MOVE ASIDE MILLENNIALS—THERE ARE SOME NEW SPEED DATERS IN TOWN, and they are senior citizens. Some of the town’s older residents are participating in the nationwide dating trend that is coming to the Enfield Senior Center on Thursday, April 9, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Speed dating is a way of meeting a potential date through one-on-one conversations of just a few minutes. After each date, participants indicate on a slip of paper whether they would like to meet up with that person again. At the end of the event, everyone is told of their matches.

Susan Lather, director of the senior center, was inspired to organize a speed-dating event after 150 Enfield residents attended the center’s March 5 screening of “The Age of Love.”    Continue Reading

THE IDEA OF SPEED DATING FOR PEOPLE OVER 70 can evoke laughs from anyone who’s younger, along with reactions from “how cute” to “how silly” to “how gross.” And while the documentary The Age of Love does have plenty of ha-ha moments, most of the time its subjects are reflecting on a need for intimacy that never seems to die.

“I want that guy that — when I’m doing dishes — will come up behind me and nuzzle my neck and give me a hug,” says Donna Capuano, one of the women featured in the film. “I want that guy that will pick up the phone and call me during the day just because he’s thinking of me. That’s who I am.”

So why not try speed dating? At an Italian restaurant near Rochester, N.Y., 15 women and 15 men ages 70 to 90 met to judge and be judged, for five minutes at a time.    Continue Reading

AS OF 2012, ONLY 57 PERCENT OF PEOPLE 65 AND OLDER IN AMERICA were married. So how is the other 43 percent finding love if they haven’t already? Perhaps though speed-dating, if they’re lucky enough to have an event in their city.

This is a concept filmmaker Steven Loring, 52, is hoping to promote with his new documentary “The Age of Love.” Loring had heard about special speed-dating events for people between the ages of 70 and 90 in Colorado and Florida before inquiring around his hometown of Rochester, NY, to see if a senior center there could get one going. As soon as one was planned, Loring began documenting the stories of the 30 singles who signed up.

The narratives that unfold in his film are full of vulnerability and frankness from a demographic whose experiences usually go untold. These daters are dynamic, hopeful and just as nervous as anyone at any age brave enough to put themselves out there — yes, romantic rejection stings just as much at 75 as it did at 25.    Continue Reading

THE AGE OF LOVE‘S OSTENSIBLE CENTERPIECE IS A SPEED-DATING EVENT for participants between the ages of 70 and 90.

Director Steven Loring takes advantage of the occasion as an opportunity to connect with its single-senior participants—widows, divorcées, people who simply never married—but his documentary ends up being less about speed dating and more of a candid exploration of people who are often assumed to no longer want romantic lives.

Film subjects typically appeal to their peers, but I submit that young people should watch (and make) more films that deal with the later stages of life. It’s a function of youth obsession that The Age of Love seems so offbeat,     Continue Reading