For anyone who is letting their age hold them back from looking for love, model turned celebrity chef Lorraine Pascale has some wise words of encouragement.
Just stop!
“I don't know if it's that I'm funny with age, so I don't have a thing about being too old or older,” she says to Ateh Jewel in the Second Act podcast, to celebrate appearing on HELLO!'s annual Power List of inspiring women over 40. “There's always somebody, however old you are, that will want to date you.
“Some people say, ‘I'm too old to be with anyone’, but there's people who want to go out, people your age. You are someone's dream person.
“Out of 6 billion people I think there's someone for everyone. So this whole narrative of being too old, maybe you're too old for this person, but then some people love people who you are - so we have to get out of that way of thinking.
“There's people that want you. Don't compromise.”
And it’s not just Lorraine who believes this - there are facts to back it up. While national statistics show overall the number of people getting married has generally declined by 20 per cent in the past 30 years, romance is on the up for the over 50’s.
But amazingly, according to government figures the amount of couples between 50 - 69 getting married has almost doubled.
There could be numerous reasons behind this trend. We know ourselves better in midlife, we have more of an idea of what you want and need out of a relationship and if we’re being unromantic about it - there are financial reasons.
Married couples have an easier life when it comes to sorting out pensions and wills, than those long-term lovers who are co-habiting. For stars like Andi Oliver, who has happily been with her partner Garfield Hackett for 30 years, she recently told Ateh it is the only reason she would change their status.
Lorraine hadn’t expected to marry again after her divorce to Count Kaz Balinski-Jundzill, the father of her daughter, Charlie’s Angels actress Ella Balinska, in 2000.
She had a string of relationships in the years after their split, but it was only after meeting her now husband in a gym car park that she changed her mind.
© Hello!
Aged 48, she walked down the aisle in Chelsea Old Town Hall in 2021 with Ella, now 30, giving her away to businessman Dennis O’Brien.
“I got divorced, like in the early noughties, then I had a whole two decades before I got married again,” she tells Ateh.
“Back then, I didn't really want to get married for quite a long time. I was dating and I went on dating apps for a bit.”
Lorraine says that there is definitely a shift she felt in her second act that encouraged her to be more open to listening to her gut and going for the things that make her feel happy and fulfilled - a feeling that may explain the surge in couples taking the leap and getting married.
“Something happens when you turn 50. And I would never believe it when I heard it. I honestly did think people just said it to try and make things good about turning 50, but genuinely something happens. It really does," she says.
"You feel so much more grounded. I know what I want, who I want to hang out with, what I want to do. It's amazing, actually.”
So channel your inner, younger energy and start putting yourself out there - as Lorraine says, age is but a number. Romance is ageless.
Listen to the Second Act podcast, now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and Youtube.