An unprecedented speed dating event for 70- to 90-year-olds serves as the backdrop for The Age of Love, a real-life foray into the quest for new connections, relationships and love among older adults.
Over one summer, the film intimately follows 30 speed daters—recently widowed, long-divorced or never married—as they prepare for the big day, endure a rush of five-minute encounters, then anxiously receive their results.
Spurred to take stock of life-worn bodies yet still-hopeful hearts, all are fearlessly candid, revealing complex emotional needs and desires at an age when many ‘seniors’ find themselves stereotyped, excluded and invisible.
Then, as new couples set off on dates that result, a series of playful and bittersweet encounters reveal how worries over physical appearance, romance and rejection, loneliness, loss and new beginnings change—or don't change—from first love to the far reaches of life.
Inspiration for The Age of Love
Director Steven Loring first envisioned this documentary after his father’s sudden death left his mother without her soulmate of fifty years. He recalls helping her fill out financial and insurance forms when she suddenly drew a deep breath. “Who's ever going to touch me or hold me or hug me again in all the years I have left?” He was startled, silent. “All my life, I was part of a team,” she shook her head, “Now I'm just another old lady in the world, alone."
That same year, Loring’s 78-year-old uncle moved into a senior community. Though he had never married or even dated, within weeks he’d met 80-year-old Evelyn, and the two quickly entered into a fully-committed, emotional and physical relationship.
"The idea that, after eight decades alone, he was still capable and interested and ready to plunge in, to create a profound connection he'd never experienced before, was stunning, and wonderful,” Loring said. “I watched him start to redefine his emotional life at an age when society says ‘you’re beyond that’. And I thought, ‘other families, other elders must be facing these issues, too’.
So Loring set out to learn whether the search for love and intimate connection changes as we grow older. His goal was to tell a new story about aging in a world where people from 70 to 100 and beyond are still leading vital, forward-looking lives.
He soon found the ‘hook’—a speed dating event for 70- to 90-year-olds that not only promised insights into elders and loneliness, but told an entertaining, identifiable story for students, Baby Boomers and people of all ages, one that proclaimed our universal need to be seen and understood, to find our ‘happy-ever-after’.
Loring makes the point that the film is not about speed dating nor replacing a lost spouse or starting a wild love affair. The goal is to open a window into the hearts of today’s elders, who often feel invisible and faced with outdated, ageist stereotypes. “I wanted to give voice to older, single adults, many of whom find themselves alone and with few options. Because, even as our bodies age, the chance to reach out, to connect, to be held by another human being is key to a healthy and meaningful life.”
The Age of Love as a Teaching Tool
The film quickly found a home in university classrooms, where it provides an essential look into the search for intimacy and relationships among the world’s booming older population. Classes in Sociology and Social Work, Psychology, Human Development, Nursing, Health Sciences and other fields now utilize it as a teaching tool that can:
- launch crucial discussions and inspire student reflections on the emotional, physical and social challenges we face as we age
- defeat stereotypes by revealing elders as emotionally intricate individuals expressing inner needs and desires in their own words
- connect classrooms with community elders through a service learning project (lesson plan included), creating local speed dating/speed friendship events where students can learn from and empower the lives of elders in the wider community
Licensing options include single screenings, a classroom/library DVD or a streaming license for online learning, plus a public screening ‘add-on’ for community events and conferences. Included is a 35-page Discussion Guide illuminating the film’s key themes, plus many other online resources. You can also set up a live or virtual discussion/Q&A with director Steven Loring.
How Community Libraries Can Use The Age of Love
The Age of Love is ideal for libraries seeking unique videos for Valentine's Day, Older American’s Month, Grandparents Day, Active Aging Week and more—and is suitable for teens on up. Unlike most non-fiction material on aging, it doesn’t present elders through stories of loss, dependency or decline, but as individuals who dispel assumptions as they seek emotional growth and new beginnings.
The film’s engaging story will also draw community attention to healthy aging issues and encourage intergenerational discussion to grow understanding between young and old. As one teenager remarked after watching, “I’ll never look at my grandmother the same way again!”
Love After 70
How does love change after 70? Check out The Age of Love’s website, where they've collected heartfelt insights from all of the speed daters. One man senses that new love feels deeper and more authentic now that, rather than trying to impress, elders more openly admit vulnerabilities and fears. A woman points to the many facets of love—shared memories, camaraderie, the trusting and depending on—that we understand more fully with age. And almost all expressed the feeling that ‘Inside, I’m still twenty years old’.
As we watch these elders navigate the comedy and drama of dating, their actions and emotions combine to reveal something much deeper—how the desire to love and be loved not only connects hearts of young and old, but, more unexpectedly, remains just as thrilling, confounding and rewarding at any stage in life.
