Aging Adults about Online Dating: "I am back on the relationship market"
Aging Adults about Online Dating: "I am back on the relationship market"

Summary/Abstract: The incidence of increasing aging populations and the popularity of online dating point to the importance of examining aging adults' involvement in online dating. The study uses semi-structured in-depth interviews with 38 individuals from Slovenia aged 63 to 74. The analysis reveals than the majority of the participants claimed that they had access to a large market of potential partners by use of online dating. They used economic metaphors and related them with extremely positive expressions of recovery: we are alive again because we are back on the relationship market. Their decision to seek a partner through online dating meant that they were once again active in a socially important space, which stimulated a sense of revitalization. Even though the participants lived the majority of their lives under socialism, they have internalized the principles of the market economy and perceive their re-entry into the relationship market as their revival.

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