I'm a long-married person, which I attribute to luck as much as anything else. But a lot of my friends and clients, old and new, are single and getting older. Some are widowed; some are divorced. Some are eagerly seeking new relationships; some can't imagine replacing their partner.
A lot of them ask me, what is the healthy thing to do?
I'm not The Buddha (yet), but I do study about these things, since my vocation and avocation are to help people, and here's what I think:
A major finding of positive psychology is that vital, satisfying relationships are the underpinnings of human well-being throughout our lives. That is even more true as we age.
The good news is that the relationships don't have to be romantic ones or even ones with the opposite sex. The worst thing to do, it seems to me, is to pine for a romantic relationship and miss out on the chance to form new friendships of all sorts, treating them as if they were second-best.
There's a certain freedom in not having the focus on attracting someone else sexually as your primary goal. On the other hand, wanting to attract others as friends does require keeping your brain in gear and your social skills up to date.
However wonderful it is to have loving old friends around, it also seems important to deliberately cultivate new ones too, if only to keep in practice. Besides, new people bring new ideas and new experiences into our lives and stimulate new brain cells in us. Gene Cohen talks about this in his book "The Mature Mind," which I'm sure I'll refer to frequently in these pages.
One more point: new friends can be our age, or younger, or older. Variety is good--that's my mantra.
And if, in the course of expanding your life, you happen upon a joy-producing romantic relationship (and it's something you want), the more power to you, I say. This is not an either/or proposition.
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