USA: Single Seniors' Social Lives Not Snag-Free

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina (The Sun News), October 30, 2005: Is anybody out there? One issue that single older women face is availability. There are more women than men older than 65, which is one reason the remarriage rate for older men is eight times higher than that for women, said Billy Hills, 52, gerontology specialist and associate professor of psychology at Coastal Carolina University. "At age 24, there's about the same number of women to men. By the time they reach 80, they're only about 40 to 42 males to every 100 females," Hills said. About 75 percent of men older than 65 have partners, but less than 50 percent of women do, Hills said. The main explanation is a seven-year life expectancy difference. Life expectancy for women is 81 years, Hills said, and 74 for men. Another factor is that women tend to marry men three to five years older, Hills said, so the husbands are dying before their mates. How to meet new people? Along the Grand Strand, there are plenty of groups to join: singles groups; travel groups; bridge, mah jong and Scrabble groups; bereavement and newcomers groups; not to mention volunteer work, golf, dancing, continuing-education classes and church. "It's important to keep active and stay involved in something they enjoy," said psychiatrist Clyde Flanagan, 66, who teaches at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. "Sometimes the harder you look, the more it elusive it seems, like chasing a butterfly. If you just sit down and give up, it'll come. ... If you give yourself opportunities, you'll meet people you're drawn to. If they're too needy, it can push you away." How long to mourn? Insufficient mourning after the end of a long-term relationship can impair one's ability to healthily enter another relationship, two area doctors said, and the process is different for coping with divorce and death. "In divorce, there's always one person who suffers more, usually the person who did not initiate it," Hills said. "They're going to respond differently to getting involved. The other person is going to rebound quicker. [In the case of] death ... they have the idea that they're old so they must be accustomed to [loss]. The data don't show that. They've still got to go through the grieving process. It's not unexpected, but it still hurts and it's still a grieving process." The number of divorces among older adults is about 5 percent, Hills said, so most older single people up to now lost partners through death. But that number is going to jump up as baby boomers reach retirement age, Hills said, because older adults are getting divorced at an increasingly higher rate. "The grieving needs to go, that's one thing: If that person has not dealt with the end of that relationship, if they've still got baggage coming in, if you have not adequately grieved over it ... it causes a lot of problems," Flanagan said. "They've still got a lot of ghosts in their closet." What about the children? Adult children of a suddenly-single-again parent sometimes worry when Mom or Dad starts seeing someone new. They might wonder whether the new person is trying to take advantage of their parent or gain access to his or her resources. Children also might simply be uncomfortable with the idea of a new romance for their parent. "We don't want to think about Mom dating, and we may want to be very clear on inheritance," Hills said. "But if Mom wants to date, people are going, 'Well, I guess she's an adult.' ... It's become more socially accepted." Jenafor Braley, a member of the Grand Strand Senior Center's 21st Avenue Singles group, who divorced after almost 20 years of marriage, said her social life was none of her adult children's business. "I just jumped right into it. I didn't ask. I said, 'I'm getting divorced, and I'm going to have fun,'" Braley said. "It was my life, and if they weren't OK with it, it was really their problem." And what about sex? "The interest [in sex] is very high," said Hills, the gerontology specialist. "Just a few decades ago, older adults were interested but didn't think they were supposed to be thinking about 'such things.' If older adult men were interested, they were perverts. Now attitudes are different, and it's OK. People gather around the cocktail hour and say 'Yeah, I'm still interested in it.'" Although interest might be high, ability can be hampered by several factors. The No. 1 reason women stop having sex is lack of a partner or lack of an able partner, Hills said, and for men it's health: drinking, back trouble, diminished range of motion, etc. In spite of challenges, studies on sexual activity reported this year by the medical journal Geriatrics showed that 81.5 percent of subjects older than 50 were involved in one or more sexual relationships, including unprotected sex with prostitutes. Although AIDS and HIV have changed the sexual landscape in the past two decades, older people are less likely to take precautions. In a study of Americans older than 50, 92 percent never used condoms, and 95 percent were never tested for HIV, Geriatrics reported. And with the use of medications for erectile dysfunction, sexual activity in the older population has increased, which has facilitated the spread of HIV, Geriatrics reported. By Sarah P. Kennedy GRAY STRAND © 2005 The Sun News http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com