Ep 60 - Survival guide for dating in mid life with Kerri Sackville
Kerri Sackville is an Australian author, columnist, and social commentator. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including The Sunday Times UK, SBS Life, news.com.au, mamamia .com, The Australian Women’s Weekly, and Prevention Magazine. A long-time contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age and Sunday Life magazine, Kerri’s columns are regularly amongst the most widely read across the sites. Kerri has written five works of non-fiction and contributed to three anthologies. Her latest book is The Secret Life of You: How a bit of alone time can change your life, relationships, and maybe the world (Pantera, 2023). Kerri is a regular guest on ABC radio, commercial radio, and podcasts around the country. She lives in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs with her kids and cat.
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Broadcast: March 22, 2024
Duration: 59:01
Here is a snippet of our conversation…
What inspired you to start dating after your marriage? Can I ask roughly how long it was until you sort of felt ready?
Yeah, I didn't wait till I was ready and that was a huge mistake. So that was one of the errors that I made, and I really encourage everybody to take some time out to just settle yourself, settle your kids, learn to be okay on your own first.
Managing your expectations...
One of the things that's really important is to just keep your expectations low, or at least manageable. What I started to do eventually was just focus on trying to have a good time on a date instead of find the person I was going to be with. And when you do that, it kind of takes the pressure off and reminds you just to keep things in check and to not get too invested and to not share too much with somebody who you really don't know.
Kerry shares two of her biggest tips...
Always do a reverse image search on the photos of the people you're considering meeting because it will tell you if that photo is anywhere on the internet. There are plenty of people out there unfortunately, who will take images that don't belong to them and use them to create a fake profile. Another one is to never ever commit to a three course dinner on the first date, keep a first date really short and sharp!
One mistakes women make...
I think the biggest mistake that women make is to not ask the hard questions because we're frightened of the answer. We don't want to hear the answer. So you get into a situation where you're dating someone, maybe you sleep with them, maybe you don't, but you are making assumptions about what the future is. You're hoping that this is going to lead somewhere, but you're scared to actually ask. And it's really important to be able to sit down with someone and say, what do you want? Like, are you looking for what I'm looking for? Are you seeing other people?
More:
Follow Kerri on Instagram at @kerrisackville or visit her website here.
You can purchase her book 'Out There: A Survival Guide for Dating in Midlife' on my website here
'The Secret Life of You: How a bit of alone time can change your life, relationships, and maybe the world' is available here.
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