I found love online – and you can too
Robyn and Mick Thwaite, 61 and 65 respectively, are a true online dating success story. Despite living in neighbouring suburbs, it took an online dating site to bring them together. Nine years later, they’re happier than ever. Here, Robyn shares her incredible story and her advice for others looking for love.
My friends at work put me up on RSVP one night after work and didn’t tell me. I went in to work the next morning to find this email from RSVP saying, “You have two kisses”. So I’m thinking, “what’s going on here?” I clicked on the link and there was my profile, written by my girlfriends. It was a bit of a shock at first, but I didn’t really mind. They did it for good reason – they knew it was time I got off my bum and did something.
I had used RSVP off and on for a couple of years before I met my husband. He was what he calls “fresh meat,” having only been on the site for six weeks. It turned out we had both saved each other to our “favourites”, and I kept going back and looking at him, thinking I really liked the fact that he smiled all the way up to his eyes. It’s rare – a lot of men have really plastic photos, and they say all the nice things about holding hands, walking along a deserted beach and all that crap. But what Mick wrote really struck a chord with me.
I had some friends from America staying with me at the time and had decided to give RSVP a miss for a while, because I was just three months out of a six-month relationship and felt like I needed a bit of a break. But then, my girlfriend from America said, “Go on, send him a kiss!” And I thought, “Oh well, what the hell.” And it turns out that at the same time, he was looking at my profile and within the same hour he sent me a kiss.
It was one of those things that was meant to happen, I think. It turns out we actually lived five minutes apart – he was in the next suburb! We chatted online and on the mobile for about four or five days, and then we organised to meet up. We first met on October 18, 2006, and we probably talked for about two or three hours about everything and anything. We ended up going out for dinner that night, too. He rang me the next day and said he’d like to go out again, and we just sort of really clicked. It was quite amazing.
Five months later, we began living together. Then in in November 2007, we decided to buy a house together because we agreed the relationship was committed and long-term. He’d come out of a divorce and had to sell his house and I had been living in rental accommodation.
We’d talked about marriage, because Mick is something of a traditionalist, and even though he’d been married twice before, he didn’t have a problem with marriage. So, in February 2008 (a leap year), I asked him! I thought, “it’s the 29th of February, I’m just gonna do it.” For about a split second he looked like a rabbit in the headlights, but then he said yes. We got married in August that year, so it’s been nearly nine years now!
I’d had probably one other serious relationship in the two years that I was on RSVP, but as much as we were really happy together, his lifestyle was so different to mine – we just weren’t compatible in that way. We actually had two goes at it – we were together for two months, split up for a couple of months then got back together again for about three months and then I just said, “I can’t do this. It’s just too different to the way I want to live.”
I’ve met some really nice guys, one of which turned out to be the photographer at our wedding, and we still see him quite regularly. We dated a couple of times but there was no real chemistry.
I met another really nice guy who has MS and was in a scooter because he could no longer walk. He was just looking for female companionship, and we’re still friends to this day. He came to our wedding and he’s the loveliest guy. He and I would have a whale of a time together – we’d go to the movies, we go out to dinner… in between my dates, he would be my date.
It’s an interesting thing to do. I think, particularly for older women, it’s a safer way to date. But, you have to be careful about what you do. I had a girlfriend the same age as me, so obviously we were looking in the same group of men, you might say. We made a deal that when we went out on a first date, after about an hour we would ring each other. When I was on a date, she’d ring me and if I sort of said something like, “oh, okay, no worries, I’ll come straight home,” she would know that the date wasn’t working out and that I needed an out, and I would do the same for her. On the other hand, if I said, “Can I call you back later?” she’d know everything was fine. It was just a bit of a safeguard. I also made sure that I usually met during daylight hours and always in a coffee shop or somewhere open to the street. I just found that was the easiest and safest way to go about it. Usually within the first 10 or 15 minutes, you know if it’s right or not.
I’ve said to other friends of mine in my age group or older, give it a try. You just have to be honest in your profile, open-minded and you need to have a degree of self-confidence – one, to be able to say “yes” to things you aren’t sure about, and two, to be able to say “no” to things you are sure about. You’ve got to be able to accept rejection without getting hurt. It’s very hard at first, and I actually found that my expectations and what I wanted changed over the two years as I met different men.
Going into it, you have this preconceived notion. The constant comment is, “I don’t want anyone with baggage,” and I’m thinking, “If you’re in your 50s, no matter what’s happened in your life, you’ve got baggage.” It’s about how you deal with it – and their baggage – when you go into a relationship.
I would recommend it. It’s an interesting experience and I’m glad I did it. It solidifies what’s really important in life.
Did you find love online? Share your experience in the comments below.