Gray Love

NAN BAUER-MAGLINis Professor Emerita at the City University of New York. She has published eight collections (six with coeditors) on topics such as step-families, retirement, feminism, death, dying and choice, and older parenting. Her latest book is Widows’ Words: Women Write on the Experience of Grief, The First Year, The Long Haul, and Everything In Between.  DANIEL E. HOOD is a retired professor of sociology. He taught at several New York Metro area schools for four decades. His latest book is Redemption and Recovery: Parallels of Religion and Science in Addiction Treatment.  His memoir essay, “Better Late Than Never,” was recently published in Tick Tock: Essays on Becoming a Parent After 40.

"Everything you wanted to know about late-life dating and mating...and then some, from wide-ranging personal accounts." - Susan Gubar (author of Late-Life Love: A Memoir) "These are fresh, new voices that give dignity, pathos, humor, and warmth to the search for love, or finding love, in the third or fourth quartile of life. This is a book that people of a certain age should read--but also people who will, I hope, reach a certain age--because they should know that love and passion can exist way beyond reproductive years." - Pepper Schwartz (author of 50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality, andon air-relationship expert, Married at First Sight) "Cupid’s got a lousy sense of humor. We just keep longing for romance and companionship-even in our nineties. Love’s a drive--like thirst and hunger. And this book shows the yearning (and resignation) among older folks with touching delicacy and exquisite sophistication. It’s a treasure." - Dr. Helen Fisher (Chief Science Advisor to Match.com, author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray) "An inspiring collection of personal stories from individuals seeking emotional and physical relationships in their later years. Their honest, insightful, and poignant narratives are a worthwhile addition to age studies." - Ellyn Lem (author of Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life) "Stories are written from the perspective of 32 women and 13 men [and] contributors range in age from 59 to their 90s. This is not a how-to-date volume but one exploring different viewpoints for consideration...[C]ompanionship never wanes, even with age." (Library Journal, starred review) "These are fresh, new voices that give dignity, pathos, humor, and warmth to the search for love, or finding love, in the third or fourth quartile of life. This is a book that people of a certain age should read--but also people who will, I hope, reach a certain age--because they should know that love and passion can exist way beyond reproductive years." - Pepper Schwartz (author of 50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality, andon air-relationship expert, Married at First Sight) "Cupid’s got a lousy sense of humor. We just keep longing for romance and companionship-even in our nineties. Love’s a drive--like thirst and hunger. And this book shows the yearning (and resignation) among older folks with touching delicacy and exquisite sophistication. It’s a treasure." - Dr. Helen Fisher (Chief Science Advisor to Match.com, author of Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage) "Everything you wanted to know about late-life dating and mating...and then some, from wide-ranging personal accounts." - Susan Gubar (author of Late-Life Love: A Memoir) "An inspiring collection of personal stories from individuals seeking emotional and physical relationships in their later years. Their honest, insightful, and poignant narratives are a worthwhile addition to age studies." - Ellyn Lem (author of Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life)

• IntroductionPreludeLooking at Sixty by Cynthia McVayPart I. To Be or Not To Be In A Relationship: Tales of Humor, Disappointment, Rewards, and Personal Insight1. Not Jane Eyre’s Story by Susan Ostrov Weisser2. Discovery through Online Dating Sites: A Woman’s Perspective by Phyllis Carito3. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind by Nan Bauer-Maglin4. Confessions of an Online Dater by Neil Stein5. Advertisement for Myself by Jonathan Ned Katz6. What Would I Wear? by Laura Broadwell7. Something from Everyone by Stephanie M. Brown8. A (Mostly) Amusing Exercise in Futility by Elizabeth Locke9. Rick Redux by Candida B. Korman10. You Say Potato by Amy Rogers11. Three Dates by Margie Kaplan12. Dreams and Matches in an Unsure Virtual World by Alice F. Freed13. In Transition, Not Seeking for Now by Hedva Lewittes 14. “Do You Get It Yet?” by Rett Zabriskie15. On the Road by Irvin Peckham16. Dark Clouds and Silver Linings by William Wiesner17. An Octogenarian’s Adventures in Online Dating by Natasha Josefowitz18. Coping with COVID-19 by Phyllis Bogen 19. It’s Valentine’s Day. So What! by Erica Manfred 20. What’s Sex Got To Do With It? by Judith Ugelow Blak21. Gray Love en Noir: African American Women Flying Solo by Choice and by Chance by Linda Wright Moore22. Passion and Prejudice by Jean Y. LeungPart II. The Complications and Pleasures of Elder Relationships23. Checking a Different Box by Jan Jacobson24. Weume by Stephanie Speer and David Levy25. Begin Again? by Sandi Goldie and Jim Bronson26. The Wizard of Algo by Vincent Valenti27. Date, Marry, Repeat by Stacey Parkins Millett28. Late in the Dating Game: Walked, Homered, Fouled Out by Eugene Roth  29. Matchmaker, Matchmaker! by Isabel Hill30. A Cozy, Crowded Bed by Nan Bauer-Maglin31. Our Bench and Other Late Life Wonders by Doris Friedensohn and Paul Lauter 32. Love after Seventy and Eighty by Susan O’Malley33. Where Is This Going? by Barbara Abercrombie34. Pleasures and Complications: Living Apart Together by Susan Bickley35. Parallel Matches by Anonymous36. Reflections on “Old Love” by Sarah Dunn   37. A Vine of Roses by Mimi Schwartz       38. From Texas to Ohio by Bonnie Fails 39. Till Illness Do Us Part? by Angela Page            40. What Remains Has Just Begun by Tierl Thompson and Idris Walters  41. At Once by Dustin Beall SmithAcknowledgementsNotes on Contributors