In Search of My Last First Date

Reviewed By: Anne Holmes

Astoundingly, half of the 78 million Baby Boomers in the US are single and searching cyberspace for a mate.

Why online? Well one reason is that it offers a searchable gathering place that has no offline equivalent. Take FaceBook, for example: when you set up your profile, you indicate your marital status as well as your reasons for joining the site: ie: friendship, dating, a relationship, or networking.

What a wonderful opportunity to declare your availability and network efficiently. No wonder FaceBook claims that in the first half of 2009 alone, their 50+ demographic grew by an astonishing 195%!

But few Boomers know how to use FaceBook or online dating services like Match.com or EHarmony to their best advantage. Enter Linda Miller and her wonderfully comprehensive playbook, which is based on her own trials and triumphs in the online dating world.

Amazingly, she’s had over 400 first dates, and in the process, has learned first hand what works, what doesn’t, what to do and what not to do. The result is her in-depth book, which is targeted specifically at Boomers, and chock full of unique tips, techniques and ground rules for finding love online. And it’s no lightweight effort. There are over 300 pages of tips, techniques and ground rules.

What Chapter 5 contains alone is worth the price of the book as it gives her seven, simple and basic ground rules to guide your search. Miller explains that the ground rules are, “an attempt to control as much of this human, non-scientific process as possible, to establish some order in an otherwise un-orderly, messy task.”

The goal of the rules, she explains, is to allow you to “predict, to anticipate. To learn from other’s mistakes and misadventures. To put you in the driver’s seat. To provide a map, a direction, so that this lonely, bumpy drive does not end in a quagmire, prematurely aborted because of something that could have been avoided. To eliminate wasted efforts and hopefully side step a crushed heart. To make the process as efficient as human undertakings can be. To land in each other’s arms ASAP.”

Each of the seven GRs (ground rules) is fully discussed and illustrated, with the goal of helping you hit the ground running, stay on your feet, and cross the finish line relatively unscathed. Miller further explains that each GR is distilled from hundreds of thousands of Boomer Internet bonding experiences, and that if you should ignore them, you must anticipate consequences, penalties and costs.

Ground Rule #1? The 90/90 rule: 90 Percent of all Relationships Don’t Last 90-Days. Or as Miller puts it: “Don’t buy your wedding dress or the ring before the first 90 days.” According to her, even thinking about “the future” before then is emotionally hazardous.

Miller shares actual correspondence between herself and her savvy male Internet buddies, giving you a behind-the-scenes reality of what happens when mature Singles get online to get hooked up. The appendix also includes her personal Internet profile.

In short, this book is the equivalent of having your big sis show you the dating ropes… Great stuff!