Senior Dating in Sydney

Sydney is a wonderful city to grow older in and a hard one to meet people in. Friends move to the coast, the kids have their own lives, and the harbour splits everyone into north and south. A good many of our Sydney members joined because the old ways of meeting someone, through work or friends of friends, simply dried up. Silver Senior Dating gives you a quieter, more grown-up way to find company close to home.

A fair match for both women and men

Here is something you will not hear about every city: in Sydney the numbers are about even. Women and men are close to one in one, which makes for a relaxed atmosphere where nobody is swamped and nobody is overlooked. The group is also older than in Melbourne. The over-65s are the largest band among both the women and the men, followed by people in their late fifties and early sixties, so if you are a retired Sydneysider you will find yourself right in the middle of things.

That age profile shapes the conversations. People talk about grandchildren in Newcastle, a son in London, the walk they do every morning before it gets hot, the season tickets they would like to share. Fewer pen-pal games, more "shall we meet on Thursday".

North Shore, the Shire or out west: where members live

New South Wales is one of our two biggest states, and a distance search takes in the whole sprawl of greater Sydney, from the beaches to the mountains:

• Manly and the Northern Beaches
• Mosman and Neutral Bay
• Chatswood and the North Shore
• Hornsby and the Hills District
• Randwick and Coogee
• Cronulla and Sutherland
• Parramatta
• Penrith
• The Central Coast

Further up the coast there are members around Taree and Coffs Harbour too, which is handy if you have a weekender up that way or are thinking of a sea change.

First dates Sydney does beautifully

Whatever you pick, keep it short, public and in daylight the first time. Our article on first date ideas for seniors has more suggestions, and the safety page sets out the sensible habits for meeting someone new.

Getting across a city of bridges and ferries

Sydney looks compact on a map and is anything but. A trip from Penrith to the Northern Beaches can take longer than a flight to Melbourne on a bad afternoon. Trains, buses, ferries and the light rail all take the same tap-on card, and seniors pay a concession fare, so there is no need to drive into the city and hunt for a parking space. If you do drive, a suburban meeting spot with its own car park is far less stress than the CBD. Many members prefer to meet halfway: Chatswood, Strathfield or Bondi Junction all sit on train lines and suit a coffee.

Choosing a search radius that works in Sydney

When you build your profile you tell the site how far you are willing to travel, and it uses that both when you search and when it picks your daily match suggestions. In Sydney, distance in kilometres can mislead: fifteen kilometres across the harbour may take longer than thirty along a motorway. Start at around twenty-five kilometres, look at who appears, and widen it if you are happy to catch a train. On the Central Coast or up in the Blue Mountains, set it wider so the city is included.