A Sex and Dating Advice Column for the 55+ Crowd
By Sexy Sage
Part 3: Now that you know what you want, what is next?
Based on Part 1, my assumption is that you are looking for a casual hook-up to start. Even if you ultimately want a love relationship, this is a great way to re-emerge as a sexual being and to learn the online scene.
Part 2 gave you a scenario for Madame Horny. Your review of it as you prepare to shape, design, create what you want.
The skills you attain in this session will come in handy if and when you want to move on to more serious online dating later on, so learn all you can in this low-risk, casual, friends with benefits and no strings attached environment.
When you sign up for a website, consider the type of experience you want. I suggest that you want to a) ensure you will have positive experiences so attracting mensches and avoiding creeps is paramount, b) feel sexually desired and desirable, and c)let this foray be extremely fun and amusing, with a sense of openness, complete permission, no guilt and lots of affirming, healing, confidence-building space.
Ready? Let us enter the online environment with ease.
For FWB NSA, I recommend www.olderhookups.com despite its silly appearance of serving men only. You just have to overlook that for now and trust me that this is a good starting place. For those who do not like rude or crude, this site gets points for the least gross, or at least it’s easy to avoid the gross parts of it. (If you prefer, go to www.adultfriendfinder.com and let me know what you think. BTW, Adult Friend Finder owns olderhookups.com and many other similar sites, so it’s all interconnected. I am recommending the least offensive site.)
Another option is the site www.OkCupid.com (I know, I know, all you grammarians are twinging at the spelling! I am just the messenger.) which allows you to look for a casual date, a serious mate, or a hookup. Check all of them out and go with one.
For our purposes here, we will go with www.olderhookups.com. Go ahead and bite that proverbial bullet, and sign up for your free week-long (typically) membership and after a week, unless you have extreme and uncomfortable anxiety, forge on and go for the paid membership. You can decide if you want to go for a month at a time, 3 months, 6 months or a year.
The longer the membership, the better price. Just remember that there are no refunds, so don’t commit too far out. Also, dating sites always will default to auto-renewal, so uncheck that option under ‘manage your subscription’, before you do anything else. Hot Tip: Your account will link to your email account. Be sure to not use your public email address. Go for a Gmail or discreet account that you only use for this online dating world.
When you first set up your account, you will need to decide on a screen name. This is important! You may be tempted to use a random name or your own name. Don’t do it! You can’t change this ever again, so make it one that makes you happy as it will be attached to your profile and stay with you for at least as long as you are on this site.
Bottom line: Absolutely, positively DO NOT use your real name. Not your first name or your last name. You can use a fake or assumed name if you want, like Jane or Sammy or Gladys. Better yet, use a short descriptor like hornywidow or shycougar or zaftighippie, or lovestrees or tallsmartalive or seniorsizzle or hotgramma or whatever tickles your fancy. (You may find it interesting to note that statistically, about 73% of men use the word ‘fun’ in their online dating screen name, revealing their desire for, well, fun. Or their lack of imagination. If you are a male I suggest you get original and leave out the word ‘fun’.)
This will make sense to you when you see the site’s internal messaging system, where you will receive and send messages with your screen name. Tip: Many people opt to use their real first name once they begin corresponding with someone privately. Since at that point, you still don’t know if they are a creeper or not, I would suggest that you wait until you feel that you know them enough or until you meet them in person (or on Zoom or the phone).
Hot Tip: Do not give them enough information that they can find you on FB or Google or Li or Twitter! Giving yourself more options and more anonymity is a strong way to start and keeps you safe.
Whew! You now know what you want and what your deal breakers are, you have gotten a taste for the website and selected a screen name. Let’s move on to creating your profile next in Step 4.
