Dating at age 60 is not like dating at 25! Today I talk with Dating Coach Deb Dutcher about how to start the dating process, what dating apps to try, how to find the right partner for you, and how to make it fun. While she focuses on the boomer generation, what she has to say applies to anyone who is over 45, maybe has been divorced or widowed, and for anyone who has been out of the dating pool for a while.  

Deb Dutcher is a former VP of high-tech and a Certified Health Coach, with a best-selling book to her name. Twice divorced and 70+, She found online dating works if you take it on with a system.  She calls her system the Finding Mr. Adorable Journey and built a course called the Boomer Gal's Guide to Winning at Online Dating.  Now she has helped hundreds use her system to become online dating rockstars! She was named one of the Top Ten Senior Dating Experts of 2024 by DatingAdvice.com.  She has made it her mission to help other lonely, single Boomer Gals find their Mr. Adorable.  She runs a free Meetup where she hosts weekly calls, and offers her private coaching and online courses to help folks date online safely, have fun and meet their Mr. Adorable.

 

Learn more about Deb:

Website: https://findingmradorable.com/

TikTok: @debrccoach

 

Learn more about Karin:

Website: https://drcalde.com

Instagram (relationships): https://www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach/

Instagram (psilocybin facilitation):

https://www.instagram.com/wildwoodfacilitation/

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love Is Us.

 

Episode:

Karin: Hello, everybody, and welcome. Today we are again talking about dating. And every time I record a dating episode, I just get really excited and start thinking about doing dating coaching. And I've done a little bit of it, but it is so much fun. And I have this whole course that I've been creating in my head for this last few months or so, so I don't know, maybe that's to come. But today I'm going to be talking with a dating coach, and she calls herself a boomer dating coach. But what she talks about really does apply to anyone who's maybe recently divorced or widowed or they've broken up with a long term partner and they're entering the dating world for the first time in a while. But it's also applicable to anyone who's maybe a little bit older and they've been dating, but dating isn't working for them and they need a little bit more support. And Deb has dating courses and a book, and she's been doing this for a while. And she does have a course that's coming up, I believe, September 3 or fourth or something. So if you go to our website and if that sounds interesting to you, you can check it out. So anyway, I hope you enjoy this conversation. There's lots of helpful information for daters in this one. So again, thanks for being here. And here we go.

 

Karin: Welcome, Deb.

[02:22 ] Deb: Thank you, Karin.

[02:24 ] Karin: It's nice to see you again.

[02:25 ] Deb: Great to be here.

[02:26 ] Karin: So tell us where you are in the world.

[02:31 ] Deb: I'm here in Rancho Cordova, California, which is currently a very calm and not boiling 90 plus day, 95 to be exact. And I'm near rivers and lakes, and I just have a blast.

[02:45 ] Karin: Oh, that's wonderful. That sounds very Oregon like. We're having similar weather. And yeah, we've got lots of rivers around here, too, so. Sounds very nice.

[02:56 ] Deb: It is very nice. Mister adorable lives here very good reason to be there.

[03:01 ] Karin: Is that what drew you there?

[03:02 ] Deb: Oh, no, I didn't know him. I moved here three years ago, and I met him 19 months ago.

[03:08 ] Karin: Ah, okay. So what drew you there?

[03:11 ] Deb: Getting out of the bay area, being able to buy a house by myself as a divorced woman late in life, and wanting something really different.

[03:21 ] Karin: Tell us what you do for work.

[03:24 ] Deb: Currently. For work, I do two things. I'm still a corporate wellness consultant, and I make little forays into corporate culture and give them feedback on how to stay healthy while they're doing all the crazy stuff I used to do in high tech. But I also took on online dating coaching for boomer gals or anyone over 50, because it can be so daunting, and I wanted to give them hope and show them the best ways.

[03:48 ] Karin: Wonderful. So how did you start doing that work?

[03:54 ] Deb: I was up here alone after my divorce at 68, going, what the heck is going on in this world? And I decided, oh, these TikToks look really fun. I think I'll just make a TikTok and tell everybody how I'm feeling, and maybe 50 people will care. And so I made a TikTok, and it was called dating online. At 69, at a time of COVID and I had 110,000 views, and I garnered a bunch of followers really fast. And then it was just constant feedback. I would just pop up a video about my dating experiences and what it was like on the dating sites and what the guys were like when I met them in person. And people were loving it, and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And I ended up getting people. People asking me to coach them and teach them what I was doing. And why could I get five dates a week when they couldn't get one a month?

[04:49 ] Karin: So people could really relate or wanted to be able to relate to what you were going through?

[04:54 ] Deb: Yes.

[04:56 ] Karin: Yeah. Wonderful. And I was thinking about this interview, and I was specifically thinking about people who are over 45 or 50 who might be or might have been in a long term committed relationship for 2030 or more years. And at some point, they decide they want to find a new relationship. But, yeah, it can be really daunting for them. So where does a woman start?

[05:27 ] Deb: Well, the first thing I want people to think about is, don't do what I did at 51 after my first divorce, after 30 years of marriage and not knowing how to date since I was 19. And I thought, oh, there's this thing called online dating. Let me try that. And I paid a matchmaker a fortune, and he didn't find me anybody, or that company didn't find me anybody. So I thought, well, let me just see what it's like out there on these little dating app. But they camouflaged it. It wasn't a dating app. It came in as our us scientific Einstein. Take this quiz and find out. And I took this, what was supposedly a personality quiz and ended up giving me my iq and then a list of guys that matched my iq range in my area. And I went, what? So that was my first experience with online dating.

[06:17 ] Karin: And I gotta interrupt, though. So did you end up dating any of those guys?

[06:22 ] Deb: Oh, yes. I ended up with a rebound guy, which is someone I ended up becoming intimate with. After 30 years with one man, I ended up with a rebound guy. He was a teacher, he was divorced, he lived close by. We got along, hung out for six months, and then I realized he wasn't meeting my needs. But I also had been dating multiple other people before I chose him. And so I dated about first dates for about 42. And then I went, if you went on a second date, I got you down to about 17. The top 17. If you made it to a third date, I was down to the top ten. If you made it to a fourth date, I was down to the top five. And I teach this in the course because you don't know what you want. So the first thing about having to come out after a long relationship, a one person, monogamous relationship, is you don't know who you are anymore. You don't know what you want. I pretended I was 19 and I just went out with anybody that asked me. We don't do that anymore. Young ladies, please do not do that because it will get you into