Personals Work!

AARP

...Carolyn Taft, 57, from Duxbury, Massachusetts, spent the first 15 years after her divorce on the dating sidelines, swept up in the day-to-day tumult of raising her children and working "humongous hours in venture capital-my social life was pretty much zip," she says.  When she finally began to go out again, she found the dating scene to be far different from her younger experiences.

You've got a lot more at risk than when you're in your 20s, when everything is about hormones," says Taft.  Now you've got kids.  And I wasn't quite sure I was ready to give up my independence."...

..."Believe me, I've met some real lunatics," says Ilene Carr, a widow from Connecticut.  "And I've been on a few dinner dates that felt as if they lasted six days!  But there are plenty of good people out there, too.  You won't like all of them, and they won't all like you.  You just have to treat  it as an adventure."  Carr's perseverance paid off; she eventually met a wonderful widower through a personal ad...