Dating at 45 or 55 is a completely different animal than dating at 25, for a variety of reasons. Mostly, though, the time for meeting someone and the availability of dating options diminish as people get older.

At 25, a person is one of many in a dating pool rich in singles all looking for other singles. There are parties and nights out on the town, and plenty of other opportunities.

At 45, a person is one of a few in a far smaller pool. Take away the bars and parties and add in a couple of children, and it’s much harder to find the time to even look for a partner in middle age.

Enter online dating.

One Portland woman, a widow with two children who wished to remain anonymous, said she started using an online dating service because it was hard to find time to meet people.

“I tried online dating because meeting men when you’re in your 40s and have children becomes a more daunting task,” she said. “I was hoping it would be an easier way to meet someone who wanted to find someone special and just did not have the extra time to.”

According to Maida Goodman, spokeswoman for Match.com, one of the nation’s largest online dating services, the baby boomer generation represents the largest growing segment of single people on Match.com. The service has 1.7 million members between the ages of 45 and 59 – or roughly 11 percent of the company’s total membership – and the segment has grown 350 percent since 2000.

Of those members, Goodman said most are divorced or widowed and are looking for love a second time around, like the woman from Portland. Goodman said her two most popular male and female members are a 47-year-old Texas man who is divorced with a young son and a 50-year-old Arizona woman.

According to the woman from Portland, who used Match.com, online dating offers a way to meet and talk with people online before actually taking time out of a busy schedule to date them. She said it’s too hard to find a babysitter and date people who may or may not be a good investment of her time. Besides, for her the online experience was less about dating and more about finding that someone special.

Goodman said she had a client from Ohio who told her she’d spent six years as a single again before she met someone online. Within three months of meeting, the couple, both in their 50s, were married. Goodman said the woman told her she was surprised to find love again at that point in her life.

According to Goodman, as seasoned veterans of the love game in most cases, baby boomers are more practical about finding a partner and are more likely to rely on a service like online dating to facilitate the process.

“Baby boomers are the least likely to believe that their romantic lives are controlled by destiny and are also the least likely to believe that they have only one soul mate,” said Goodman.

Also, in middle age people’s tastes have changed and they are less likely to want to spend time in bars or at parties trying to find someone, even if they have the time. After having already lived a quiet, married life, boomers are less likely to want to regress 20 or 30 years.

“Baby boomers love the finer things in life,” said Goodman. “Thirty-nine percent enjoy dining out; 34 percent love to travel; 24 percent go to museums; 20 percent attend performing arts events; and 19 percent attend wine tastings.”

The Portland woman said as an example that she went on a date to Westbrook Together Days, a summer festival in the Portland suburb. Instead of going to a bar, she and her Match.com date decided to go to a festival. Unfortunately, once there, they met up with some of her other single friends and she found out that her date was planning to meet one of her friends through Match.com as well.

“A little uncomfortable for him,” she said. “Small world here in Portland, Maine.”

In the end, the Portland woman said she gave up on online dating after six months, saying she knew many of the men on the service already. Also, she said it was difficult to find time to meet the men she was interested in.

“Too many people to screen and not enough time to meet,” she said.

However, she recommends it as a good way to date after becoming single again later in life. It provides a way to meet a number of people and get out there for some fun. And with any luck, someone special might be waiting.

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