There's a senior who has words of warning for older women looking for love and even stronger words for older men looking for love.
"There are three kinds of people to watch out for, boozers, losers and users, and the old ones are just looking for nurses or purses," said Penelope (not her real name), a woman in her mid-sixties who has lived through it.
"There's always something," said Penelope. "You've got a great job, you meet someone and they don't have a job or their employment isn't what it should be and they're looking to use you as a meal ticket. It's not right. So many women are fooled by that guy."
After leaving a cheating husband behind, and crying over him for six months because of her broken heart, she finally asked herself the tough question.
"Why are you crying over this idiot?"
Penelope threw herself into her job and became quite successful.
"Men -- I just hated them," she said. "And when a guy at work would try to help me, I rejected the help simply because it was a man trying to help me. But I finally realized they knew what they were doing and I had to think of it as professional help and not take it personally. So I did."
She avoided the whole dating scene for the next 15 years. Along the way there were a couple of interested men but boozers and losers were labels that suited.
So she moved on.
"I would watch my friends make the same mistakes over and over again," she said. "I would tell them 'he's a user, he's a boozer, he's a loser' and they wouldn't listen. People have to figure it out for themselves but it's hard to watch."
Then Penelope moved to Prince George, still focusing on anything but men and dating.
Penelope wasn't much of a flirt and didn't give off the vibe that she was in the market to find a man as she took up line dancing.
"All my friends knew I wasn't interested in any of their men so it was never a problem -- I just loved to dance," said Penelope.
And when she wasn't looking, that's when she met Joe (not his real name).
"When I met him I said 'hmmmm, I can't put him in a category'," Penelope said.
Both Penelope and Joe were cautious. Penelope was burned once, Joe twice.
Joe finally asked Penelope to dance and they did the getting-to-know-you waltz at the Legion.
The first thing they asked each other was about their careers.
"It tells you a lot about a person if they're secure in their job," said Penelope.
So it was apparent the man was solid, she added. She knew there was a good pension where he worked, he knew there was a good pension where she worked.
"I hate to say this but the second time around has to be a good financial deal as well," she explained. "We've been there and done that already. If I have a house and this guy has nothing, I am not prepared to share it with him and I wouldn't expect him too, either, if the situation was reversed. It sounds callous but it's an unspoken truth -- you're running out of time and you're better off to meet your equal."
