Getting back in the dating game as a woman in your 50s can be quite the eye opener – with casual misogyny and sexualised comments now the norm on many dating apps.

Following a constitutional amendment to simplify the divorce process in 2019, the number of people leaving their spouse has shot up. 

For some of these people, it is the first time they have been single in decades and have not given up on romance. 

52-year-old Orla told Lunchtime Live her own experience of dating has been “definitely topsy-turvy”. 

“In my life, I was lucky enough to have been loved - although it didn’t work out,” she said. 

“I suppose when you come through that process, you’re going, ‘Hmmm, I might like to have that feeling again.’” 

Orla downloaded a number of apps and quickly realised that dating in her 50s was different to her 20s.

“I’m still 22 in my head but I am 52 and you bring a different perspective with you, so you have different values I suppose,” she said. 

“You also maybe have kids, so it’s a little bit more complicated than if you were just a single person on your own.” 

'Not what I’m looking for'

Another problem, Orla soon found, was that while many of the men she encountered on dating apps were nice enough - even if she felt no romantic connection to them - others were misogynists or sexual predators. 

“Definitely, I found that it went to that place quite quickly,” she said. 

“So, if you’re on the apps, it’s quite hard to get your point across without it going sexual very quickly - which is not what… I’m looking for in a relationship.

“You have to kind of weed out an awful lot of people who are just there for that.” 

One thing Orla recommends to people on the lookout for love, is to simply delete the apps when you feel it is all getting too much.

“Sometimes you have to take a break from them, come off it and then go back at it again,” she said. 

“There is, I suppose, a lot of places you could go - maybe join your triathlon club - but at this stage of your life, you're socialising differently, you’re not going to the pub that often, you’re working differently - where are you going to meet people?” 

According to Tinder - the world's most popular free dating app - their app has been downloaded 630 million times since its launch in 2012. 

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Main image: Dating apps on a phone. Picture by: Alamy.com