I’m a newly separated man, 60-plus, divorce in progress after almost 15 years of marriage, returning to the city of M?laga, and looking for ways to meet mature women, but I’d prefer not to use dating agencies.

Is there anyone who’s been in my situation who can give me some tips? I’ve made my own list of ideas, and have come up with more than 30 possible ways to meet people, which I’ll be happy to share with anyone who’s interested, but maybe there’s something blindingly obvious that I haven’t thought of.

Although I first came to Spain 20 years ago, and have owned a property here since 1998, I’ve been away for five years (not in England ? I haven’t lived there since 1991). So I’ve lost touch with people in Spain, or they’ve moved away, or they were my wife’s friends.

My Spanish is fluent, I’m outgoing, and I know from two previous divorces that the most important thing when you’re separated and living alone is to go out even when you don’t feel like it, instead of sitting at home moping.

I’m not looking for long-term commitment at present, but I enjoy the company of women, and, yes, sex too, so I hope to have a sexual relationship before too long.

Also, I’d like to make male friends, both Spanish- and English-speaking, for outings together in search of women.

David

Hi David,
I think there is an intercambio/social group in the city. (Not that you need to practice your language, but more that you could perhaps meet someone there?)

I live near Fuengirola and there is a great singles group (for anyone, but aged 50/60 + I would say from the folk I have met.)
I am sorry I do not have a contact number, but it is run by an Ex Pat (Swedish/Scandi?) and they have a weekly evening meet in Fuengirola port.  They are fun, educated and relaxed. No pressure.  Although not officially a dating club, many people have paired off and found someone special.

I guess ask around and see if you can get more info if interested.

(As an Ex Singleton, I used to put ads in the personals, but got some very wierd replies. So I would suggest avoid that unless you are prepared for the deluge of spongers and strange ones.  Try and make some friends locally, and see if they can make futher introductions?) 

Good luck 😊

Hi susanspain/Expatriator,

Thanks for your reply.

There is an English-speaking group which meets in the Malagueta in a Chinese restaurant on Fridays. Is that what you mean?

My Spanish is fluent, but I still have doubts about things like the subjunctive and whether to use ser or estar with soltero, casado, separado and divorciado (very important to me at present). Spaniards don’t seem to agree on the latter, although estar sometimes seems to indicate a change of marital status.

Last year I saw an advert for an international group meeting in El Pimpi, in C/Granada. I don’t remember where I saw the ad, but I can always go and ask if the group still meets there.

A neighbour who’s been looking after my apartment while I’ve been living in the USA has told me about a group in the centre of M?laga that she used to go to, which I believe is exclusively Spanish, so I’ll give that a try, too.

Years ago I used to live in Fuengirola, in C/Palangreros (or Orange Tree Street to expats), so I know the town well. There was an advert in Sur in English for a singles group meeting I think in the Friend’s Bar, in the port. Could that be the one? If not, the simple solution is to go and ask in every bar, which might be another way of meeting people.

I don’t have a car to get to Fuengirola, but there are buses and trains, the last ones back to M?laga at 11.30 pm.

If you do find contact details for the groups that you’ve mentioned, please let me know.

David

Hi David,

Yes, I have heard of the group that meets in Bar Pimpi - I think it has been going forever! 

Not sure about the other one (I have never actually socialized in the city at night time 😉

If you are also looking for ‘other interests’ - i.e socializing etc…. The U3A (University of the third age) is very big down here.
Have you heard of it? (I am sure you will have!)..... Basically it is a learning group in all sorts of subjects. There is a Costa del Sol group and recently and inland/Alhaurin group started too.  I seem to remember their being a higher level Spanish group - although I think on your level it is more a case of keep arguing withe Spaniards for batner as even they don’t know whether an Ordenador is el or la 😉 

If you are looking in the back of The Sur in English, you will see a myriad of social groups in/around Fuengi too. (Bar Manila is a popular meeting point on the Paseo Maritimo in Los Boliches, altho personally ‘Not my cup of Tea’ (being a Brit Bar 😉 lol!

Keep us updated 😉

Best Regards,
SJ

Hi SJ,

You jogged my memory about another two bars when you said you’d never socialized in the city at night:
- El Jard?n, by the cathedral gardens, which used to be full of Spanish oldies singing along to coplas
- ZZ Pub, which has rock music from about 11.30 pm, including a British or maybe Irish singer called Switch, who also used to sing in El Elefante, in Arroyo de la Mel.

I’ll have to revisit the two, and El Elefante.

I went looking for Bar Manila (near the monument to the peseta, right?) because it used to have live jazz, but I couldn’t find it. Are you sure it’s still there?

The U3A might be interesting, although when I thought of doing a computing course there the level was very basic. On the other hand, maybe I could volunteer to give a course, perhaps on blogging, or Macs or Linux, or open-source software in general. I try not to use Windows if I can avoid it.

It’s definitely el ordenador, by the way, although in Miami, where I’ve been living, it’s la computadora.

I’ve looked at the list of groups in Sur in English, but of course a lot of them will be inactive during the summer.

David

Yes David (in reverse order 😉

Please do offer a computer course (and I will re-join). Not that I don’t like the group that already meets, but I hope I am a bit more advanced than the basics 😉  (And have a mac too 😉

You are right most groups will not reconviene/start up again till the fall. 

Bar Manila is definately there… Yes, not too far from the peseta. (I use the Yaramar hotel as a landmark.  I ‘think’ just a few hundred yards going East along the seafront.  You can’t really miss the Brits. lol!) As far as I know they still have the jazz nights too.

Thanks for info on bars in Malaga centro. The nearest you ‘might’ get me is the Teatro Cervantes.  But I have become a real ‘armchair culture vulture’ these days and rarely go out ????!

!Denada! Mehamgul….

That is what the forum is best at - letting all know the myriad of possibilites on every topic under the sun 😊

Just an add on…
Perhaps best avoid the internet dating sites, inc those ones where you put a lineage ad in a paper/feebie and set up a voice mail box.
I had the wierd and the not so wonderful in my 9yrs of being single 😉

Also…. I am going to name and shame here… The Sur in English moved my ‘Personal Ad’ (which wasn’t cheap), from the Contact section to the sex section as it was ‘Their right’.  I had put my mobile number in and immediately got all sorts of unwanted calls.  I even spoke to the marketing manager (whose decision/responsibility it was) and she would not budge. No apology, no offer of another free insertion if I changed the ‘offending word’. 
Thank goodness the sex ads are going to be a thing of the past very soon….

In retrospect, I should have made a reclamacion against them as their policy is out and out (excuse the pun) homophobic.

I was thinking of putting an ad in the Sur in English personals, so maybe I should be very careful how I word it.

How does this sound?

Intelligent, attractive, mature woman? Man, 60-plus, M?laga, recently separated, looking for friendship, perhaps more. Hablo espa?ol.

Of course I won’t include my phone numbers and I’ve already set up a new email account, because I expect to encounter a selection of weirdos and outright crazies.

David

Here’s some information about free online dating sites and the U3A computer courses (mentioned by shopping2…). If you’re not interested in computers, skip the first few paragraphs of this posting.

There is a computer workshop at U3A in Fuengirola which might be a bit more advanced than their courses, although I suspect that the focus will be on Windows, and I very rarely use Windows.

Mainly I use a Mac and sometimes Linux, and it’s the latter which I’d like to learn more about, although I’ve successfully installed the Ubuntu distribution of Linux on an old laptop, in a separate partition from Windows XP. (The secret is to install Windows first then Linux, because if you do it the other way round, Windows won’t allow you to have access to Linux, or will maybe erase it.)

In addition you might need a third partition for your files in FAT32 format, not NTFS, which is used by more recent versions of Windows, because some versions of Linux will only read NTFS files, not allowing you to modify and save them. There’s no problem saving documents created in Linux as Windows-format files using the free OpenOffice program, which is installed at the same time as Linux.

But back to the main topic of this string.

A Spanish friend, who’s separated too, has told me that there’s a singles group in the centre of M?laga, presumably Spanish-speaking, as she doesn’t speak any English. I haven’t checked it out yet, as I’m still in Miami, and won’t be back in M?laga till next week.

She also sent me a link to a free online dating site called Badoo (http://eu1.badoo.com/), which allows you to exchange messages without charging, unlike most sites which claim to be free. On some sites I’ve discovered that registration is free, but you have to pay to send or receive messages. On Badoo there are charges for some features but you can send someone your email address and phone number if you want, although I wouldn’t recommend the latter to start with. So you don’t have to communicate via the site after the initial contact.

I’ve exchanged messages with a few women already, arranged tentative dates for later this month, and even phoned one woman, chatted for half an hour, and arranged to meet her for coffee next week. (The phone company which I’m using in the USA ? Vonage ? doesn’t charge for calls to Spain or England, but anyway there’s always Skype (http://www.skype.com/).) I don’t really think I have all that much in common with this particular person, but I enjoy the company of women, and you never know. Of course I realize that even though it may seem that you have a lot of interests in common with someone, when you meet the chemistry just isn’t there, and that the reverse might be true.

At first I put my profile in Badoo in English, but most of the matches which came up were Spaniards, so I added a Spanish profile, putting it before the English one.

I’ve searched for other genuinely free, or almost free, online dating sites. If you can’t exchange messages without paying I don’t intend to use them, although some are basically free, but charge for a few extra features. The best up till now seems to be OK Cupid (http://www.okcupid.com/), and I’ve exchanged messages on this site with a couple of women, been in contact with one of them by email, and we’ll almost certainly meet when she gets back from holiday.

Although my OK Cupid contact is English-speaking, most people on the site who live in Spain don’t seem to be. There wasn’t room for a profile in both Spanish and English, so I removed my English profile and substituted one in Spanish.

I’ve also found a site which compares online dating sites, including some free ones: http://www.dating-site-advisor.com/.

Despite all my online searching, I still believe that the best way to meet a potential partner is by going to places that you like and doing things that you enjoy doing, although I’d definitely try any singles group at least once. A friend has a bar in Benalm?dena Costa, and I’m thinking of asking him if he’d be interested in starting an international singles group on one of his quiet days, maybe during the day or early evening rather than at later at night. He’s English, but like me he speaks fluent Spanish, and I can get by in a few other languages.

Having taken some positive steps, I feel a lot happier than I did last month when my wife told me she wanted a divorce.

Finally, here’s a book that I recommend: Better Than I Ever Expected (subtitled Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty) by Joan Price (http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com/), who says that she found the love of her life in her late 50s, and that he was well over 60. Although the book is written for women, it includes down-to-earth advice on dating and sex for us golden-oldies, including sex toys and the changes in women’s bodies caused by the menopause. Men should read this book just to understand the latter. She makes the point that sometimes it’s not that a woman doesn’t want a relationship which includes sex, it’s just that it hurts if there’s not enough stimulation or without using artificial lubricants, because of the menopause.

I’m thinking about starting a blog about dating and relationships for people who are 50- and 60-plus (and even 70-plus ? why not?).

David