6 tips for romantic travel.

Last year I dated my first grandpa — a man twelve years my senior. Since I never had children and plenty of women my age are still starting families, it’s usually easier for me to think of myself as belonging to the age group that has grandparents rather than the one whose members are grandparents. But the idea that I could meet a man who could make me an instant (and remarkably young-looking!) grandma wasn’t even the weird part. The weird part was thinking, “When did grandpas get so hot?”

With that first grandpa date, I entered yet another new age of dating. Reality bites: there are more grandpas in my future. But then, if we’re at it long enough, we all go through a series of seasons in our dating lives.

Puppy love
Actually, I didn’t get to experience what is arguably the worst season of dating — the early adolescent stage at which you’re old enough to date but not old enough to drive. When your goodnight kisses are stolen in the glare of the headlights of your father’s car. When Dad’s at the wheel pretending not to watch.

My first dates, when I was 14, were with an 18-year-old — a college man, no less — who not only had a license, but also his own car. My friend, her boyfriend and I caused quite a stir as the only ones in our class to arrive at the freshman prom in “our own” car.

Experimentation spices things up
Once we reach the age of college and young adulthood, dating styles seem to diverge. Some people focus immediately on marriage, almost corporate in their intent to merge with a successful partner. Others end up in my camp, where dating are heavily experimental — political activists, struggling artists and musicians, cross-cultural connections whose names your parents never learn to pronounce. My college roommate married a newspaper publisher. I married an aspiring opera singer. We both divorced at age 30.

Getting back out there
Oh, the glories of post-marital dating in one’s 30s and 40s! After my marriage broke up and I began dating again, my first foray back into the dating scene was a disaster of such magnificent proportions that even as it unfolded I recognized what an anecdotal goldmine I’d stumbled upon. There was something incredibly liberating about reaching the stage at which I could take a bad date (and I’m talking a really bad date — you try making a couple of hours of conversation with a guy who refuses to discuss anything other than literature written in ancient Greek) in stride. After you’ve been through a marriage that didn’t work, a bad date isn’t that big a deal.

Dating in stride
By the time you’re in your 40s, you’re done being preoccupied with establishing yourself in your career. You’re not plagued by a race with the clock to have children. You’ve done at least some of what’s important to you in life, given a fair amount of definition to who you are, and you’re no longer are looking for someone to fill in (or worse, compensate for) some of those spaces.

Of course, whatever your age, the object of dating is to stop dating — to find someone who captures your full attention. No one who wants to fall in love wants to think about having to look for love again at 50, 60, 70 or older. But there’s something quite reassuring about knowing that you have created a freestanding life for yourself, and nothing quite as wonderful as finding another freestanding life that meshes with your own.