Swipe Right at 60: The Over-50s Rewriting the Rules of Romance

Barbara, 64, from Sheffield, hadn't been on a date since 1987 when her daughter sat her down and set up a dating profile on her behalf. "She said, 'Mum, you can't spend every Saturday night watching Casualty alone.' I was mortified. Now I can't stop swiping."

Barbara is part of a fast-growing wave of over-50s embracing online dating following divorce, bereavement or simply deciding, later in life, that they deserve companionship. Dating apps report some of their fastest membership growth in the 55-plus age bracket, a demographic once considered an afterthought by app developers.

"There's a real hunger for connection in this age group that the apps completely underestimated for years," says Dr Helena Voss, a psychologist specialising in later-life relationships. "People assume that once you hit your fifties or sixties, romantic ambition switches off. It doesn't. If anything, people become more decisive about what they want, because they've got less patience for wasting time."

For Graham, 58, from Newcastle, divorced for three years, the apps were initially bewildering. "I didn't know what half the abbreviations meant. My son had to explain what 'ghosting' was. I thought it was something to do with Halloween."

Graham eventually matched with Denise, 55, and the pair have now been together for eight months. "We were both terrified of getting hurt again, so we took it dead slow," Denise says. "But there's something lovely about dating at this age. You're not trying to build a life from scratch, career, kids, all that. You just want someone to enjoy the rest of it with."

Not every story ends so happily. Several women we spoke to described unsettling experiences, including men who lied significantly about their age or financial situation, and one case of a scammer who convinced a widow to transfer over £4,000 before disappearing. "I felt so stupid," says the woman, who asked not to be named. "But loneliness makes you want to believe people."

Fraud prevention expert Malcolm Reeves warns that romance scams targeting older, often widowed, adults have risen sharply. "Scammers specifically target profiles that mention bereavement, because they know that person may be emotionally vulnerable and less familiar with how these platforms typically operate."