The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday May 30 2008
Anna Grant, the byline on the article below, was a pseudonym used to conceal the writer's identity. We omitted to make that clear in a footnote, which has now been added.
In January, my son-in-law David said plainly: "Now is a good time to start something new." By which he meant meet men. This was during one of our discussions on the fate of my partner of 16 years, who developed dementia six months ago and is now living in a flat of his own. His illness has left him believing that life is normal except that he is not at home with me, but his relatives and I know he can no longer manage his affairs, which are now in the hands of his son. The speed of his deterioration astonishes me, and I am not really keeping up - I am grieving for the man he stopped being some time ago, barely accepting that my relationship with him and his family has come to an end. I have not yet lifted my eyes towards any kind of future. The past was easy: I married at 22, had three children, and eventually two grandchildren. My husband and I divorced after 30 years. I was alone for a few months after the divorce and before meeting my partner. Now I am on my own again for only the second time in my life - and I don't feel good.
Am I ready for a new life? A couple of years ago I had glanced at Soulmates, the Guardian's dating service, and seen a description of someone I immediately wanted to contact. Now I wish I had, though if he sounded so lovable to me, surely he is safely in another woman's arms. I looked again at Soulmates and dared to make a profile of myself, especially as it is free: I'm still worrying about my changed financial circumstances. Trust the Guardian to have funny choices to tick: Are you a mortgage slave? Which is better, carrot or stick? Against sport, I tick: "Bores me to death." I don't like having to type in my age - 67 - and I find from a commercial matchmaker, or introduction agent as they prefer to be known, that each man has three women to choose from. Or all three, I suppose.
Then I write a little essay about myself and about my desired man - keeping as sage and moderate about him as I am discreetly flattering about myself. How discerning are these Guardian souls? Won't they see through my tactics at once? I notice the men reveal almost nothing about their professions and careers; I wonder whether they are avoiding gold-diggers? I notice how many cliches recur in both my language and attitude, and decide I am still living 50 years in the past. This must stop.
A page full of "matches" turns up; I repeatedly score a 90% match for each man in question, and on looking him up, discover he has answered "Any" to many questions. Will any hag do, or are these men paragons of empathetic tolerance? A few days later, one of my favourites adds me to his list. Someone likes me. The Guardian discreetly suggests that now is the time to pay up and contact him. Well, it will have said the same to him, so let him take the first step. Another cliche. I wait.
A day later and another message - someone writes to me, even though the Guardian thinks us unspectacularly matched. It again urges me to join or I shan't be able to reply. I join for three days, and answer. While I'm at it, I upload the only digital photo I have, and add a voice message. And I write to about six of my favourites. Twenty-first century, here I am! We arrange to meet at Charing Cross station later in the week: 20th-century brief encounters are not yet abandoned.
The next day an email tells me I have a voice message. He sounds all right, too - but is he a doctor or a lab technician (he made a vague medical reference)? How snooty am I? We arrange to meet in my home town. Two dates in as many days - I daren't tell my daughter, or anyone for that matter except my lawyer (whom I like), who advises a toyboy as easier to control, and better for sex. That's something - my lawyer doesn't see me as an old woman. Things are looking up.
Later that week, I sit in the station coffee house, appraising all the single men, and find myself hoping my date won't be one of them. So many, and so uniformly dreary. This is not fun at all. I get up to go. And there he is, and he looks like a friend straight away. How strange. We talk, I feel superbly honest, we take a little walk, he has my attention, it is time to go, and he kisses me. I like this. He does it again and that feels so right, and I find myself wishing he would kiss me on the mouth, but how ridiculous. We part, having agreed to meet again.
For the first time, I'm not crying at every opportunity. Two days later, the other assignation. Confident, happy, I turn up at the exact time and greet the wrong man. I sit down. Again, I hope he is not one of the men at the other tables. This time I have no photo and, I realise, too vague a description, while mine is very clear. After 15 minutes of feeling dispiritingly hookerish, I realise I left his number at home. I walk around, but there is nobody I like the look of - and presumably if he's here, he doesn't like the look of me. I go home and leave a message. No reply. Try his home number. Nope. The so-and-so.
The first date - let's call him Abraham - comes to my part of the world. We have agreed to take a walk and eat in a pub. He doesn't sound keen on that and puts it so modestly that I feel safe to suggest we have something simple in my house. We buy the food, he pays, and go home. Am I mad? I feel fine. We go out for a long walk in the crisp winter sun. We eat, and kiss again, and how did this happen? I haven't had sex for a dozen years. We talk about this, then we are in bed and everything is just fine. We chat like honest old friends until it is time for him to go. He won't be my partner - he has to leave the UK soon when his visa expires, as he told me on our first meeting - but he rings and emails often. We'll meet again anyway.
The encouraging experience outweighs the scurvy one but this is too slow. Abraham told me other women lie about their age. Perhaps I should? I look up several introduction agencies in the Yellow Pages and leave emails, even though they seem to be run by blonde madames who were once air hostesses. They ring the next day. They charge more than £400, plus a fee per month or introduction. One guarantees five dates in a whole year, which works out at more than £130 per date. There are various levels of subscription: it seems your choice is limited by your extravagance. No cheapie member gets to meet one from the superior price ranges. They all stress that they handpick couples, but the person doing the interview is not the one doing the picking. No personal intuition at work, then, just someone who is able to read a computer entry. I am depressed by the men on show in the brochures, and the dullness of the questions: about house ownership, make of car and salary, and nothing about what interests you may have. One offers a free interview and no commitment. I decide to try it, but without enthusiasm.
Meanwhile, two Soulmates favourites both reply politely that they live too far away. One of them replies to my reply, and he is my first - and only - mutual favourite. We enjoy an email exchange for a while, until I blow it by writing enthusiastically to a mild query of his about women and religion. Actually, I was testing his interest and, as he showed by not responding, he isn't.
I go out with Abraham again, in London. This time he brings homemade sandwiches, which are plain cheese - a bit tough, but OK - and we eat these on a park bench and gradually freeze in the thin sun. We cross the bridge to the Festival Hall and he is so kind and good that I immensely enjoy his company - but he is also, as I suspected the last time, rather mad. He shows me his portfolio, a collection of photographs and writings, covering his career as an architect and photographer, revealing his life history in curves and swirls, and nothing created for years and years. It is all in the past. He seems to have been lost for years and now just about survives, until his visa runs out. He hopes other contacts might find him temporary refuge somewhere abroad - anywhere, from Sweden to India. I don't know how he copes with the uncertainty; I would be terrified. A few days later he emails that he has found someone to take him to Paris. He will be back, a friend is for life, and so on. I hope he finds someone really kind because he is a special person.
Meanwhile, the agency sends a glamorous woman in pink flowered high heels who reminds me that my world is not that of these girls, except she must actually be close to me in age. After some boring questions, during which I manage to warm to her, she takes a couple of photos and leaves. A couple of days later I see one poor photo and one good one, and read a brief advertisement for myself that reveals the writer's ignorance of educational qualifications and emphasis on property: I am said "to love nothing more than pottering about in [my] large garden". Worse still, I am advised to subscribe to the two most expensive options, so should pay £2, 000 for this page of badly written script. A friend suggests that spending the money on a cruise would be more fun and more productive.
I try recording my advert for Soulmates phoneline, but in spite of the warm friendly voice giving instructions, forget to press three to record, so waste a lot of money on calls. Worry about this. But three men answer. Apparently I have an attractive voice (but only to these) and am outstandingly intelligent (in their opinion). I agree to meet A even though he is 10 years older than his advert and blames this on a typing error. He can't manage email (bad sign) and confuses his mobile messages (another) so thinks I am a different date (he claims 140 answers, but still wants to meet me and is anxiously apologetic), and I think this is funny.
As our lunch date approaches I find myself ridiculously excited and buy a new skirt for £5 at Oxfam, then think this can't be good enough, so buy another in a sale for £40, get it home and don't like it. My daughter approves of the Oxfam skirt - I don't tell her its price or source - and drives me to the rendezvous with earnest advice about giving him neither my home number nor my address. I feel lovely, protected, enthusiastic, sure at least that I'll enjoy a good lunch.
And I do, but he does not look "young for his age". He talks enthusiastically about the last world war and bravely holds back tears when I ask about his family. Later, he moves me to floods of tears when I consider how desperately he needs a housekeeper but is deluded into offering himself as husband, even though his ex chucked him out about six months ago (why was she so provoked?), and how I feel obliged to help him but won't because he is too like my ex, only in worse condition, except for the dementia, if you can make sense of that.
I go home after a treat of a lunch and weep loudly for the whole weekend. I stop looking for new men to meet but some announce themselves. One rings and I wonder again how it is that immediately I feel in sympathy or not: is it being accustomed to a certain accent, or timbre, or use of words, or something more? This one doesn't have "it" for no reason I can recognise but I settle down to an evening's chat, which goes well until he mentions his half-dozen children in care. I don't want to be some kind of stepmother; I want a simple life, and I'm even wondering if two adults together is too many for that. Again, I feel selfish for not wanting to further this connection, don't answer his messages and feel quite horrible.
I meet another in a National Trust property, after a happy exchange of emails, although his have a flowery background. I recognise him - how? - from afar by his swagger and judge him overconfident. Getting closer, I see he is a hippy still, in his 70s and wearing sandals with a wasp-coloured scarf against the March cold. Yet he is nervous, which curiously gives me confidence. What is there to lose? And there is everything to gain by just enjoying myself, which I do, and apparently we both feel quite at ease with each other by the end of our visit. I feel peacefully familiar with him, but he is too busy with a new business venture, he claims, to see me again for a few months, although he assures me that he would like to do this again. Truth is, that is exactly how I feel too. Cool friendships are also good.
Meanwhile I've been having an email correspondence and phone calls with someone who promises to be rather warmer, so much so that I disobey all rules and invite him home. Big mistake. It seems that one can feel happily confident and close with someone using words, when they are open about their family, illness and neuroses, and yet when you meet something else happens. I feel at once let down. He said he loved to cook, so for the first time in my life, I let a stranger use my kitchen, and he turns out an excellent, simple meal. But that is the limit of his domestic activities, and there is far too much riding on this meeting: he has already mapped a future together - I suspect because he wants to move to this area and, of course, he must have genuinely enjoyed our talks as much as I did. But help, he is planning to come again, and when should he move in? I don't know how to say no to such apparently innocent eagerness.
Second visit, and although I'd been anticipating this with increasing pleasure, somehow forgetting the pressure I felt because of his taking it for granted that we are wholly compatible, I know it is a mistake when I see him. He senses my coolness and wants to talk it over, plainly assuming some easily wiped-away reluctance on my part. I say I need more space and more time. He demands an example. I say having someone else around takes away both my space and time because I have to do more housework. That blows it. Explosion of anger. Free and lengthy psychotherapy as to why I hate men etc. Exit.
I email my disappointment but also say it is as well we find out now, and thanks for the pleasant times. He emails twice with such self-righteous vindictiveness that I am more than glad he wants no contact ever again.
If I disliked men I would not be putting myself through these hoops to meet some and find one special one. I'm trying too soon, my house is too small, and men of this age really want - and need - housekeepers, which I don't want to be. Maybe I shall have to adjust to living on my own without someone lively, intelligent and kind at my side. I shan't always like that. I miss physical contact too, and because there must be many in this overcrowded island who feel similarly, and they too will not necessarily want to be with another every hour of every day, perhaps there is hope.
It is tough, though. Dances, pubs, educational establishments, agencies - none of them really suits a pensioner. I have a part-time job that I very much enjoy and meet hundreds of people, most reasonably well-off, secure, educated, relaxed, but only for a few seconds as they, rarely alone, move past me to what they came to see.
Secretly I'm hoping that, just as when I stepped off the world after my divorce and decided I would never think about men ever again, only for one to appear almost at once, so something similar will happen now. This time I know I really do like a man's company, but as I watch the hundreds who pass me at work, I also know how exceedingly rare is the one my age, single and mutually fascinating. Still, this time I'm enjoying the search, even the atrocious parts.
· Anna Grant is not the author's real name
