Mature Dating Online is a UK dating site for single men and women aged 45 and over who are looking for companionship or a long-term relationship. It’s free to join, any member can verify their profile at no cost, and the whole site is designed around getting to know someone before you meet.
Who the site is for
The site is for people in midlife and later who are single again, or who have been single for a while. Some members are divorced or separated, some have lost a partner and some have never married. What they usually have in common is a stage of life: children grown up or nearly so, and a fairly clear idea of what they want from a relationship.
Most want someone to share time with. For some that means a new partner; for others it means a companion for days out and dinners. Casual hook-ups aren’t what the site is for.
Why a dating site just for over 45s
Dating in your fifties is a different thing from dating in your twenties. People bring more history with them, from long marriages and divorces to grown-up children with views of their own. They also tend to know what they don’t want, which makes for more direct conversations.
General apps put photos and speed first. Here the written profile gets more room, and nobody is pushed to meet before they’re ready. Safety features are built in from the start, because people aged 55 to 74 account for nearly half of the money lost to romance fraud in the UK, according to Report Fraud.
How members are checked
Every new account goes through age checks at sign-up, and profile text and photos are screened before other members can see them. After that, members can choose to verify their profile in one of three ways, all free:
- Photo ID. Upload a government-issued photo ID. Profiles verified this way show a blue tick.
- A live video check. A live video call with a moderator, with no documents needed.
- A manual review. A member of the moderation team looks over the profile and confirms it.
Verification is optional, but worth doing. It tells the people you talk to that you are who you say you are, and gives them one less thing to wonder about.
Behind the scenes, automated monitoring looks for the patterns typical of scammers and fake accounts, and members can report anyone who makes them uneasy. Reports and feedback from other members count towards each member’s standing on the site.
Your privacy
You choose a username when you join. Your real name and email address are never shown to other members, and your location appears as the nearest town or city rather than an exact address. You decide which photos to add and how much to say about yourself.
How your information is collected, used and stored is set out in full in the privacy policy. In short, the details you give are used to run your account, suggest matches and keep the site safe.
What’s free and what’s paid
Joining is free. On the free membership you can create a full profile, browse members, get daily match suggestions and verify your profile. Messaging has a daily limit. A paid membership removes that limit and adds extras such as more detailed search filters.
You won’t see the site described as “completely free” anywhere, because it isn’t, and saying so would be the wrong way to start.
What we ask of members
There are a few ground rules, and they’re the kind you’d expect at any decent social club:
- Be honest about who you are, including your age and relationship status.
- Use recent photos of yourself.
- Be polite, even when you’re saying no.
- Never ask another member for money, and never offer to send any.
- Report anyone who breaks these rules.
Accounts that break the rules can be suspended or removed.
If something doesn’t feel right
If a conversation starts to worry you, stop replying and report the member using the report option on the site. Members can contact the support team at any time from inside their account.
If you think you’ve been the victim of fraud, call your bank first, then report it to Report Fraud, the UK’s national reporting service for fraud and cybercrime. Victim Support offers free, confidential help to anyone affected by crime. Our dating safety advice explains the warning signs to look out for.
The platform behind the site
Mature Dating Online runs on an established dating platform that provides its matching, messaging, moderation and verification tools. The platform’s operator is a member of the Online Dating and Discovery Association, the trade association for the online dating sector. Its members commit to tackling fake profiles and fraud, handling personal data responsibly and giving users practical safety advice.