Do Older Women Really Need (Want) a Man?

The answer may surprise you.

By

Myrna Blyth

 
Published July 16, 2026
Illustrated scene of an older adult sitting alone at an outdoor café table with a cup of coffee and a book. Framed images in the background depict holding hands, warning flags, and two people embracing
Monica Garwood

Lately four friends told me they were certain they didn’t want a man anymore. Three are widows, one has been divorced twice. Two are in their 70s, one late 60s, one just a year into her 80s. They have all had a considerable number of men in their lives. One tells me she is sorry I missed the 1970s. Unfortunately, I was married by then.

I have been having this discussion with friends because I am ending a four-year relationship. I think. And it’s ending not with a bang and maybe not even a whimper. It’s my turn to call him back. And I haven’t called him back in six weeks. Oh, he did call early on to ask if I was okay and why I hadn’t called. I told him — it just came out — I had nothing to say. A totally honest response. He got huffy. Told me to call when I wanted to. I guess I haven’t wanted to. But I am still thinking.

One of my friends, the one who was sorry I missed the ’70’s, spent months planning how she was going to break up with the man she had lived with all during the pandemic. She spent a lot of time thinking and even rehearsing exactly what she was going to say. But when they met, even before she started, he said, “I want to break up with you.” “But I am breaking up with you,” she said. Too late. She missed her chance, and it was another reason for her to be furious with him.

So maybe my guy is or did break up with me. One would think he would have called again in these past weeks. But maybe at the end we were giving each other signals it was over. I know that on our next-to-last date at one of those old dark restaurants that he liked — maybe because we weren’t the oldest diners there — I didn’t want him to come home with me after we shared our lamb chops. He ate two, I ate one. I just wanted to go home, be alone, go to bed. Every date before, and we are talking about four years, part of our relationship was going home and holding on to each other in the dark.

And on our last evening together, when he brought the food for dinner, he then complained I never went to the one special market that he liked and bought food for him. Food was very important to him. It was true the market was only nine blocks away, but it was very, very expensive. I live around the corner from Zabar’s, a very famous food store. If I want to buy fancy food and be robbed, I can do it conveniently. He liked their hand-cut smoked salmon. At first I would buy that for him for breakfast. Not so much lately because I was never sure when he was staying over. And I would never eat it by myself.

My divorced friend reads a lot about dating. Recently she sent me an article from Self. Self? I didn’t even know Self still had a website. It was about how women in their seventies didn’t need men. They are happy by themselves, going out with their girlfriends, traveling. Happy to be independent. I get it. My friend who still reads books about dating also tells me about how to judge relationships. How to watch out for red flags, yellow flags. Right from the beginning I knew there were a lot of red flags in our relationship. You sometimes ignore red flags.

We met during the pandemic. For the first time in my life, I was lonely. After my husband died I had been so busy going back and forth to my job in Washington and spending New York weekends with my friends and DC weekends with my grandson. But then everything stopped. My office was closed. We worked at home online. Three of my closest friends moved, one to the Hamptons, two to Florida. Yes, I was a little lonely.

Finally I went on a dating app. I had high standards. They had to live nearby and have a graduate degree. The men I met had good stories. One had a teenage love affair with Judy Garland. He told me about it within ten minutes. Another, a geophysicist, had predicted Hurricane Sandy. Both were interesting enough, but for only one date.

He was the third man I met. It was the second year of the pandemic. We had dinner at a nearby almost empty restaurant. We sat in the back and talked for a long time. We walked together to the corner and he got a taxi. They were easy to get. He didn’t walk me home. Red flag? Yellow flag? I liked him. I invited him to dinner at my apartment. Stupid me, I didn’t know it was too soon. I hate to cook but I managed a chicken stew. He said it was tasty. Maybe it was. That night we started holding on to each other.

He was from Queens, went to Stuyvesant High School where the smartest boys went, and to Columbia Law School. I thought he was the nice Jewish lawyer from Queens my parents expected me to marry. I married a British journalist in a trench coat from Newcastle-on-Tyne. He brought me food I hadn’t eaten since my childhood. Noodle pudding, potato pancakes, and rugelach. He called me every day. He liked my apartment. I have a nice apartment. I never saw his apartment. Red flag.

I introduced him to my friends. I took him out to the Hamptons for a weekend at that good friend’s house, invited him to a couple of events where I knew a lot of people. I even introduced him to one of my sons. Some of my friends liked him. My cousin didn’t. He could always tell who didn’t like him.

We didn’t do much. Dinner, sometimes watched a movie and talked. We could always talk. About politics, history, our past, our children.. But I never met any of his friends or family. Not in all the years. Yes, I know. Red flag, red flag, red flag.

So should we just end it in silence? Or should I call and tell him what I didn’t like and how what I didn’t like kept building up? Should I hear his complaints about me and have a final argument? But I don’t want that. I always tried to avoid that. I think he could be very nasty. Should I call him, be gracious, and just wish him well? But why bother. He hasn’t called me.

I know my friends keep saying they don’t want a man. They don’t mind being alone. They have good times with their girlfriends. They wouldn’t want a man around all the time. They like to do what they want to do when they want to do it. And, yes, I can feel that way too. But I like men. I loved my father, my brother, my husband, as difficult as he sometimes could be. I love my sons. I like the men I worked with. Part of the me I am is the me I am with a man. I hate to think that is over. But, no, I’ve decided I won’t call him. Of course, it is obvious, our relationship was dwindling away. He didn’t make me feel less lonely. Sometimes he even made me feel lonelier. So, there is nothing for me to say. Not even good-bye.

Do any of you feel like the above woman? Let us know in the comments below.

Myrna Blyth is an editor and writer whose work has appeared in many publications including The New Yorker. She is also the author of a New York Times' bestseller. Check out her Substack: Editor's Journal by Myrna Blyth