Episode Description - Finding Love After 50: Strategies From a Matchmaking Pioneer
What if the key to finding love after 50 isn't about getting lucky, but about getting strategic? Andrea McGinty, known as the “Godmother of Modern Dating,” discovered this truth firsthand after being dumped at the altar in her twenties. That devastating moment sparked the creation of It's Just Lunch - a revolutionary matchmaking service that grew to over 110 locations worldwide and facilitated more than 10,000 marriages.
Andrea later sold that company and created “33,000 Dates,” a dating service that focuses specifically on helping people over 45 navigate the complex world of online dating with scientific precision and proven strategies.
Andrea harnesses the power of data analytics and algorithms to sift through thousands of potential online matches for her clients. Her approach combines cutting-edge research with old-school relationship wisdom, using everything from demographic data to red-flag identification techniques.
Her results speak for themselves: 65% of Andrea's current clients end up in long-term relationships, and more than 40% of today's top matchmakers trace their expertise back to her pioneering methods.
Andrea’s latest book, "Second Acts: Winning Strategies for Dating Over 50," distills decades of Andrea’s experience into 166 no-nonsense strategies, complete with worksheets and QR codes for interactive guidance.
From understanding why AI-written profiles fail spectacularly to learning the optimal number of dating sites to use at once, Andrea's systematic approach transforms the overwhelming world of modern romance into a manageable, strategic process that actually works.
Show Notes
About Andrea
About Andrea McGinty is known as The Godmother of Modern Dating and her journey is as compelling as the love stories she’s helped create. After being dumped at the altar in her 20s, Andrea founded It’s Just Lunch Matchmaking in 1990. Andrea revolutionized the matchmaking industry. Her innovative service grew to over 110 locations worldwide and facilitated over 33,000 setups, resulting in more than 10,000 marriages. Today, her company, 33,000 Dates, focuses on helping the over-45 crowd find love in the second act of their lives.
Andrea has been featured on Oprah, People, Today Show, and named Entrepreneur of the Month on the Early Show. As a sought-after speaker, she has addressed audiences at the American Marketing Association and other prestigious events. Her insights and passion have made her a trusted voice in the realm of love and relationships.
Connect with Andrea
You can connect with Andrea on LinkedIn at Andrea McGinty and on Facebook at 33 Thousand Dates. You can follow Andrea on Instagram at 33000dates and on YouTube at 33000dates. To find out how to work with Adrea visit her website at 33 Thousand Dates.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Andrea
- Andrea McGinty, known as the "godmother of modern dating," founded *It’s Just Lunch* in 1990 after being left at the altar, revolutionizing matchmaking with short, pressure-free lunch dates.
- The company grew to 110 locations worldwide, creating 33,000+ setups and over 10,000 marriages before she sold it to private equity/Match.com.
- PR played a crucial role in early success, with coverage from outlets like *The Wall Street Journal*, *People Magazine*, and CNN helping the business grow without an ad budget.
- After selling, Andrea founded *33,000 Dates*, focusing on helping singles over 45 navigate online dating with customized strategies.
- She uses research data from Pew, Gallup, and Statista to match clients with the right dating platforms, avoiding wasted time on poor-fit apps.
- Her process includes rewriting profiles, arranging professional lifestyle photos, coaching clients weekly, and teaching red-flag spotting to avoid scams and bots.
- She warns against AI-written profiles and overly-edited AI photos, which come across as fake or repetitive, instead advising authentic, concise, and engaging profiles.
- Andrea stresses that successful online dating requires strategy: picking the right site, investing effort, approaching matches proactively, and limiting time spent to avoid burnout.
- Her success rate is high—65% of her clients enter long-term relationships within three months of working with her.
- Andrea’s book *Second Acts: Winning Strategies for Dating Over 50* provides 166 practical tips, worksheets, and a “business plan for your love life” approach to dating later in life.
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Transcript
Finding Love After 50: Strategies From a Matchmaking Pioneer
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
matchmaking, strategy, authenticity, coaching
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Andrea McGinty
Karen Covy: 1:41
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Andrea McGinty. Andrea is known as the godmother of modern dating. Ater being dumped at the altar in her 20s, Andrea founded it's Just Lunch Matchmaking in 1990. That business revolutionized the matchmaking industry. It grew to over 110 locations worldwide and facilitated over 33,000 setups, resulting in more than 10,000 marriages. Andrea's current company, 33,000 Dates, focuses on helping the over 45 crowd find love in the second act of their lives. Currently, 65% of her clients are in long-term relationships, a testament to her expertise and unique methods. What's even more impressive is that more than 40% of today's top matchmakers trace their roots back to Andrea's mentorship and pioneering techniques. Her influence has shaped the industry, creating a legacy that stands out in the world of matchmaking. Andrea has been featured on Oprah People, the Today Show and the early show, to mention just a few. She's a sought-after speaker and author. Her latest book, second Acts Winning Strategies for Dating Over 50, combines personal anecdotes and professional expertise to guide singles on finding meaningful connections later in life. Andrea, welcome to the show.
Andrea McGinty: 3:37
Thanks, Karen. Wow, I hope I live up to that intro.
Karen Covy: 3:44
I'm sure you will, but I'd like to start by taking you way back to the early days. It's Just Lunch. For those people who don't know the concept and as you and I have spoken before and you know, I certainly do, having used your services myself back in the day, but I digress it sounds like I know what spurred you to create It's Just Lunch, but what was the concept of It's Just Lunch and how is it different?
Andrea McGinty: 4:24
Well, it was pretty revolutionary first time, and you've got to understand something right up front there was no Google and there was no online dating. There was nothing. There was nothing. And I came up in Chicago in my 20 twenties great place to be young, single and then, of course, you know, two days before the wedding, him calling it off, devastation, tears, all that stuff, you know, friends fixing me up on dates. And after I got through that period of time, I thought to myself you know, kind of over the bars, I'm over this, I'm over that, I'm definitely over my friend's fix-ups. And I thought, you know, wouldn't it be nice if, just like, an executive recruiter calls you about a job? You know like it says oh, I've got three opportunities that I think, professionally, you might be interested in. A person called me and I thought to myself I wish she was telling me about three men. I was barely listening to the professional opportunities I was just thinking about. I wish these were men. And then I got this idea of what if they were men. Is anyone doing anything like this? And I, you know what?
Andrea McGinty: 5:42
I sat my butt down in the Chicago public library for like two weeks on the floor looking through these things called phone books. I couldn't afford Nexus, lexus or anything like that Like to see if this name, because I came up with this idea after going on so many dates. That lunch works or drink after work uh, you know works. But dinner, oh wow, you know, way too long, way too much pressure. And that's how I came up with the concept of it's just lunch.
Andrea McGinty: 6:09
And I started in Chicago, and my first I started it with $3,000. I didn't know what I was doing, except I knew I wrote a business plan. I knew I was passionate about what I was doing and that I would use it if it was out there. So everyone in Chicago must want to use my service. I was just very, very positive about the whole thing. So I started with a little tiny office space in River North and 20,000 brochures. Once I got these 20,000 brochures that's what my $3,000 paid for I realized I had no way to mail them because I didn't have any more money.
Andrea McGinty: 6:53
So it's a Sunday night or, excuse me, it's a Saturday night and I talk a couple of my girlfriends into hey, let's walk around Gold Coast and Lincoln park and you know, like two in the morning. I'm going to put them. Put them under people's doors. You know they probably had bad dates on Saturdays, whatever, but this was like serendipity. The first person we saw before we'd even done anything was this Chicago Tribune guy who had this big plastic bag for the Sunday paper and it said Marshall Fields on the side. And I was like, oh, I've got a better idea. You guys, we're going to follow him around and we're going to stick the brochure inside the bag and then people in Chicago will think, oh, wow, this is a really credible company. They can advertise in the Tribune, et cetera, et cetera. So that is how it started.
Andrea McGinty: 7:50
And I was back in my office by 8 am on a Sunday morning, just thinking Chicago's so excited, the phone's going to ring. I don't know where my head was. It's going to go wild. The first person who called me was this woman who said I got your brochure and I'm like, oh great, I'm about to tell her about. You know this thing, It’s Just Lunch. And she said I've got a deal for you. How about I trade you PR? She's PR person and you give me dates. And I'm like, okay, but what's PR? Remember this is 35 years ago.
Andrea McGinty: 8:31
I'm an accounting and finance major. You know I'm like PR what's PR? She goes oh, I'll get you some stories. Well, this woman did. She was probably around my age. So Crane, Chicago and Chicago Magazine picked up the story within two weeks, wrote a little story about me. Then the big one was Wall Street Journal picked it up you know where they do that front page article with like a quirky thing that people are doing, you know, below the fold. And then People Magazine picked it up, a full-page story, and I was off to the races, thank God, because I had no money for advertising. So I learned all about PR and that was what my company was so based on in the, you know, in its infancy, because there was no money. And uh, within I'll just tell you one more really quick story. So within it was probably about two months later.
Andrea McGinty: 9:30
You know, I'm getting members and I'm fixing them up and I'm standing in this grocery store in Chicago and this woman, Jewel, and this woman taps me on the back and she goes oh hi, Andrea, I met you the other night at a party and I have to say her name because I will never forget her name. Her name's Cheryl Triegert and I didn't really know her, but she was really nice. At the party we were chatting, and she goes how's your dating thing going? Here I was standing in the Jewel line and all I was thinking about was am I going to go bankrupt? Am I going to have enough money to make payroll? Am I going to be able to pay my rent? That was what was going through my head. And she goes how's it going? And I go oh my gosh, my first couple, Jack and Roberta. They're dating really seriously and I think they're going to be my first marriage. They were my first marriage. So this girl, Cheryl, says to me well, she didn't say anything to me, so we're just chat. You know, check out, blah, blah, blah.
Andrea McGinty: 10:26
A couple hours later I get a phone call from her and she goes you know I didn't tell you, but I'm a producer at CNN and we were talking about you in an afternoon meeting and we want to follow a couple out to lunch tomorrow and do a story on you. I was like, oh, okay, sure, and you know what? It was stuff like that that you know that made this company and you know it was a lot of positive thinking. But anyway, I'll fast forward a little bit here so we don't sit in Chicago in 1992 long. So you know, the concept took off and I was able to hire people, we started making money.
Andrea McGinty: 11:08
I opened the New York office and the Dallas office, the Atlanta office,, and by the time we hit, I guess it was about 2005, we had 110 locations worldwide. So it exploded. It really, it really did. It really blew up. And now, coming on the front, we do have Google, you know, which everyone loves, and we have online dating, which is an utter, total mess at this point. It's chaotic, there's scammers, it's just a mess, and people are trying it and then having bad experiences and these big companies had no idea owned them, what to do with it. And so fast forward a couple more years and I get an offer. I got two offers, one from a private equity firm and one from match.com, to sell the company.
Andrea McGinty: 12:10
Yeah, to sell, it's just Lunch. And, Karen, I thought to myself I see online as the future. I really do. I mean, I love, it's Just Lunch, but I see online as going to be the future and I'm starting to see how they're slowly getting it together. And now today there's 1,400 dating sites and platforms out there in the US.
Andrea McGinty: 12:33
So I was starting to think this might be a good time to sell my daughter my first daughter had just been born and I thought, oh, this would be a good time to take some time off and then kind of think about you know my next steps. So sold the company, my baby and I, you know, took like a year off and just had fun, traveled. And then I was thinking what am I going to do with this online thing? Because I love this industry and I love fixing people up and you know, and I don't know, I just it's fun. It's like I get to meet people from all different walks of life. You know I'm not working with attorneys all day or bankers all day, or, you know, marketing people all day. It's like everyone who walks through the door is different and they have a different story. And it was really interesting and I was going to matchmaker.
Andrea McGinty: 13:30
Anyway, the first call or how this all started 33,000 dates was my brother. So I have six younger brothers and sisters. My brother, Jim, calls me and he's just gone through a divorce and he goes. You know, I'm doing online and it sucks and I'm like, okay, bottom line. I asked him first to log in his password, I went in and here he is. You know, he's this good looking guy, he's a CFO, and I look at what he posted online in his photos and his profile. I'm like, oh, what an idiot. You know, um, I can say that it's my brother, um, but you know he has these pictures and I'm like, oh gosh, so you know, I fix, I fix everything for him. And a couple of weeks later he goes. I'm getting really good dates, really good dates. I'm like, yay, and 33,000 dates boom started there with word of mouth, people calling me and wanting to consult with me about how to use online dating, how it works. Consult with me about how to use online dating, how it works, what are the good sites, how to write a profile, what are the good photos to use, how to message people and how to get to that date. And that's how this company started and I love it because now, of course, when I was in my 20s in Chicago, I was working mostly with 20s and 30s. Now I'm in my 40s, so now I'm working with 40s and 50s. Actually, now I'm working with 40s, 50s and 60s, so it and that's a whole different group of people, because now they've got a lot of life experience, right, they've gone through divorce, some have been widowed, some have just been single a long time and they don't know what to do. Or they go online and everybody quits after two weeks. Everybody quits after two weeks because they have a bad experience.
Andrea McGinty: 15:38
Because you know, like I said, Karen, there's 1400 sites and apps. You pick the wrong one, you're sunk, you're dead in the water, right, you're not going anywhere. So how do you pick the right site? And that's, I think, where I really helped people. That was my starting point and how I did that was, of course, I came up with a lot of these sites and apps and I knew about them, but I also got data on a monthly basis, paid for the data, which is very expensive, and I don't think most individual people can do this, um afford it. But from Pew, Statista, Gallup where I could drill down into saying, okay, here's Karen. Uh, she lives in, you know, 60614. She is, you know, 50 years old. This is what her interests are. This is our education. Give me the best site that's going to be male-centric and it would pop out with the top five sites. That would make sense for you.
Karen Covy: 16:43
Wow, Now I want to interrupt you right here, because it sounds like I know it's just lunch, because I was a client of yours in my 20s back in the day, right in Chicago, and the concept of that was matchmaking, where you actually sat down, you and your staff would interview every single person who came through the door and then I don't know how you did it, but you'd sit around and chat and you'd say, oh, I think this person would be good to go out with that person, and you would arrange all of the dates. It sounds like what you're doing now is much more digitally focused. Well, because there was no digital back then. Right, but how is this what you're doing now, with 33,000 dates different from what you did back in the day?
Andrea McGinty: 17:35
Okay, it's very different in terms of I've got a pool of people. Now. That is amazing, it's huge, where an average it's Just Lunch office had between maybe 500 to 750 members. So that's the pool. I was picking dates out for you, Karen, so that was the pool, and now all of a sudden I've got like thousands of people to look at for my clients and once plus, I understand the algorithms and the filters online and I'm able to drill down really fast and take it from like looking for a needle in a haystack to like looking for a needle in a little like Easter basket.
Karen Covy: 18:18
So do you actually go in and like look for dates for your clients?
Andrea McGinty: 18:23
Yes. So here's how it works. I first do a Zoom call with my client because they're from all over the country, so we spend an hour together and I learn what they're looking for and they'd already filled out a ton of paperwork beforehand and then I sit down by myself and think about them and write their profile and also, at the same time, I'm putting the data into my research companies and seeing what they have to say, even though at this point in time I really know what they're going to say, kind of you know, for the most part I know what they're going to recommend. It's just when I get into some like small markets, like a Grand Rapids, Michigan, I always look at the look at the data. Okay, so now I've got the right site.
Andrea McGinty: 19:12
I've talked to the client photos, so I would say, okay, photos. This is a very visual medium and it's just lunch. We never showed a photo here. You know, your photo is what the men are looking at. It's what the women are looking at before they're even reading this profile. And back to profiles. We'll step back for a second.
Andrea McGinty: 19:34
Profiles have to be short, sweet and unique. They have to be bullet pointed, almost like you cannot write a lot of words because men won't read them and women have a tendency to like, want to write like a novella, you know, like this long thing, and no guy's going to read it. They're going to look at her photos and they're going to make a decision there and then they'll read a little bit about her. Okay, so you have to have good photos. So, um, I have a network of photographers because 80% of my clients need new photos, so I send them out to a photographer and I don't mean like LinkedIn shots, I don't mean like in the studio with swirly backgrounds behind them, you know. No, I mean, okay, You're into horseback riding, I want you on a horse. You play golf, I want you on the golf course. Uh, you're in the mountain climbing, I want you on the mountain. You know those kinds of pictures, the action shots that really are explaining your life, you know, in it's just so much more fun and you learn a lot about a person from their photos.
Andrea McGinty: 20:38
And men have a tendency to post ridiculous photos. And especially, probably, you know 80% I said it's probably more like 95% of my men I sent to the photographer because we get really good, you know photos then and plus, you know it's not like we're editing them to make them look like something different. And remind me that we talk about AI a little bit later, because that comes into play here with how people are messing up with AI and online dating right now. it is what people are doing with it. That doesn't work. Okay, so we've got your photos, we've got your profile, you're on the right site.
Andrea McGinty: 21:21
Now I do coaching calls once a week with each client and what I'm doing is we've picked the site and I only put them on one site at a time. We're navigating the site together. I'm on, they're on, and I'm looking for high-potential men. They're looking for high potential men or women, depending on who it is so I'm learning very quickly their idea of attractive, their idea of what they're looking for, and I'm also teaching them red flags. Red flags being oh, here's this great woman that looks amazing and she's beautiful, but she only has one photo. Something's wrong here. She might've grabbed that photo from the internet and it might not be her, so there's all these little red flags.
Karen Covy: 22:15
People do that? Okay, help me understand this, because if you put a picture of somebody on your profile that's not you, the minute the date meets you, they're going to know Like I get it Right, right, or what do you say at that point? Oops, I just thought you would. I'm like, what do you say?
Andrea McGinty: 22:35
You know, I don't even know what you say. But here's the other thing they do They'll put a picture from 15 years ago and 15 pounds ago. And you know, I'm like no, you cannot do that because you want to represent who you are and you don't want any surprises. And do you really think this man or woman that you're meeting is going to like you? That you just basically lied to them, right?
Karen Covy: 23:02
Exactly. I remember back in the day when Match.com just started, right, or it was early in its lifeline, I don't know. But back in the day I was single and so I was on Match.com and this guy had some picture and he said I'm, I'm a former football player. I own my own insurance company. I bought like he made it sound like he was the greatest thing since sliced bread Right, like OK, we'll go out, I meet him. He walks in the door. The picture was clearly 15 years old. I mean, it was 100 pounds ago. He played football in high school and he had lost the insurance company to his ex-wife, whom he had just gotten a divorce from. So like everything in the profile was wrong. And I'm looking at this guy, I'm like really Really? like you expect me to have a relationship with you. I don't think so
Andrea McGinty: 23:53
Right, exactly, exactly, and that's why I talk about this early years being really messed up Now. There's safeguards in place now on the top sites where you have to do a photo verification, post six photos, but then the site is going to ask you to, uh, do a quick video of yourself, and they're going to look at the photos and make sure that these photos are of you, and they can even age them. So you know they'll, they'll let go. They'll let a picture that they think is two years old go. I would too, um, or a year old. You know that's fine, because as long as you still look like that, that's okay. But yeah, there's things. The sites are getting real. The top sites are getting really good at screening for so now it's making a lot more sense that the person you're meeting is really what they looked like and what they said online too.
Karen Covy: 25:01
How can you find, is there a way, a technique that you use to identify someone who's scamming?
Andrea McGinty: 25:10
Well, yes, there's a couple ways. You know, I mentioned the one picture thing. Here's the other thing grammar. If the grammar's bad, it's probably a bot, or it's somebody who claims they're really educated oh, I've got an MBA from University of Chicago, or whatever. And then there's all these grammatical errors that just don't match up.
Karen Covy: 25:34
Okay, you just said something what Bot? Why would a bot be on a dating site? What's the point?
Andrea McGinty: 25:47
It's because some people and the bots I find don't really come from the women, they come from the men, and the men just use a bot to write about them and the bots are not very good at English, um and grammar. So you, you know, I can identify a bot really fast and I'll tell my client like this is why we're doing this, especially the first two coaching calls. All I'm looking for are people we're getting rid of so that when my client's on her third time on by herself, she knows what to look for, so she can skip over these people super-fast. If it's something like that and you want to talk about AI? There's things I really love about AI and there's things that we have to be really careful, because some people will put their photos into AI and they start to look like cartoons. It's halfway between a cartoon and a photo. They'll be able to take their waste and cut off a chunk of it. All these things AI can do. Ai can do some things to your pictures. The other thing it can do is it can write your profile, but it's not going to be a good profile. Again, AI is only as good as the information it has. In five years it's going to be spectacular, but right now it still makes a lot of errors and the thing is it also speaks differently than we speak in how it writes.
Andrea McGinty: 27:32
I'll give you an example. I have a woman in Los Angeles who all she liked to do was sailing. She loved to sail. That was her thing. So I'm reading the profile she'd used prior to hiring me and I'm like why is this all about sailing? Like besides, she's talks about you know that she likes to sail and she has a sailboat. She's like I'm looking for a man to sail through life with, to watch the sun sets and sail, sail, sail. It was like used over and over again. So somehow the AI whatever she was on Claude or Grok or you know, chatgpg I picked up on her sailing and it was used all through the thing. I was like, oh my gosh, I go. We can't use this. Nobody's going to think you really wrote this or, if they do, they don't want to go out with you. It's just kind of creepy, your whole thing.
Andrea McGinty: 28:26
So I look at AI like a really good friend who's an editor. You write your own profile. No, actually you hire me. Okay, whatever, you write your own profile. Then you feed it to Grok. Grok writes pretty good ones, Claude's too flowery, or ChatGPT does a pretty good job too, and you tell it, you know, shorten this up, make it a bit wittier, you know. You tell it what to do a little bit with it. But it's yours, it's the stuff you started with, and you can probably steal from them then two or three lines that are really cute, that they use. You know that are that are witty, but you want it mostly to be you, but it's. It's like a good friend who's a really good writer.
Karen Covy: 29:20
Okay. So I have to ask you I don't know if you've heard about this guy. I just heard about it the 2 million swipe guy. Did you hear about this? So there was some guy on Tinder I think it was Tinder. He was on for five years. He swiped 2 million times. He got one date One date for two million swipes.
Karen Covy: 29:44
Now this is like it's all over the internet these days and people are saying, okay, what like this is? Some of the guys are saying this is normal, this is what it's like. It's why online dating sucks. Other people are saying there must have been some red flags. Now the man he did like. Most of his profile pictures were of him in the outdoors, on a boat. There was one with a fish which I don't know that it. I don't know that that's attractive to women, but maybe the right kind of woman, I don't know. But for something like that, if you heard someone who had swiped that many times, what would you be saying to that person? Or trying to have them do or like? Where would you? How would you help them?
Andrea McGinty: 30:29
Okay, well, first of all, if that's really true 2 million swipes one day he's doing something majorly wrong. It's not Tinder's fault, it's his fault. So he is doing something wrong there. So he may be on the wrong site, he might have the wrong photos. There's so many things he could be doing wrong. Because here's the average, the average of anybody online, whether it's Tinder, hinge, bumble, match. Any of them is for every, let's say, swipe, or message, you send um or a heart or a like or wink or whatever. One out of five we'll get back to you. One out of five will get back to you, will message you back. So you know he probably should have stopped at about 50 and not wasted all this time. I don't know if it's a PR stunt or what to.
Karen Covy: 31:31
He got like I don't know the exact number, if it was like 10,000 messages. Like he, he did get some responses, but they ultimately culminated in one date.
Andrea McGinty: 31:43
Yeah, he's doing something. I would love to look at his profile and his photos. Do you know how old he is?
Karen Covy: 31:52
I saw a picture of him. He looked to me to be mid-30s. He was average. I mean he wasn't bad looking. He wasn't good looking, mildly pudgy, but I mean he wasn't a bad looking guy. It wasn't somebody that you go. Oh, you know. But the fish picture for me was a little off putting. But you know, whatever, I mean some people like the outdoors and maybe that was appealing to them. But yeah, no, he wasn't horrible looking. I don't know what he was doing wrong, but it clearly was something.
Andrea McGinty: 32:28
Yeah, he was clearly doing something wrong, and the first thing I would look at was would be his profile and his photos to see what the what, what the issue was. And you know, okay, well, it's nice to swipe. It's much better to swipe with a message too. Um, because just swiping women get a lot of swipes on Tinder. I mean they, they just do so. If you're not saying something, you're not unique and you're not standing out, and you want to stand out, so just swiping is not going to get you anywhere. And here I am, I'm swiping with my hands as you're talking about this. So he was doing something wrong, but you know, you would have thought he would have stopped at a certain point, you know for maybe a hundred and like said hey, what's wrong with me? There's, there's an issue here.
Karen Covy: 33:24
Yeah, clearly, but all right, Like bringing it back to just your average person who isn't going to swipe 2 million times without success. So let's say somebody has just gotten divorced, they're starting their next chapter, they want to jump back in the dating world. Where do they even start? Is online dating their best bet, their only bet? What do they do?
Andrea McGinty: 33:54
Yes, okay, their best bet is online dating. I would like to say the best way would be through your friends, but it's not, because your friends probably don't have many friends. So, yes, we're going to jump right into online dating. Depending on his financial, status and budget if he has quite a lot of money, a high-end matchmaker could be fantastic for him. That's only looking for him. But I would say, a man just divorced, you're not ready for that kind of an investment. You need to get your feet wet dating again and get some practice dating. So you know, I would be very honest on my profile and I would check off a box that says looking for a serious relationship or looking to get married.
Andrea McGinty: 34:47
I'd probably say looking to date, because that's what he needs at that point in time. He needs some practice and he's probably not ready to enter another relationship and you don't want to be the buffer woman in his life that ends up in a relationship with him for six months to a year and then he's. You know, the next thing you hear about him is he married the next one, right, yeah, um, so, um I w. I would say go online and use, use an you know an appropriate um dating site and be really honest. You know that I just got divorced. I'm looking forward to meeting people. The other thing that I would wonder about him, too, is can he go out like if he was my client? Can he go out on dates without talking about his ex-wife and without talking about you know a horrible custody battle? Or was it amicable? You know, if it was an amicable force, say it, say it in your profile. Recently divorced parentheses very amicably and then go on with it.
Karen Covy: 36:11
Would that be the same advice for women too, I would assume.
Andrea McGinty: 36:14
Yes, absolutely. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. Yes, it would be the same advice Women, I mean, you just can't go out there and vent about your ex-husband. And then women have a tendency to talk to their girlfriends more and you know, probably a lot of their girlfriends are married, so they are clueless. Don't listen to your married friends. They don't even know what's going on. They're married so they are clueless. Don't listen to those. You're married friends. No-transcript. Most of them are probably negative or like oh, it's not going to work, it's terrible. Like I just say, kind of, keep it to yourself and do it, or hire somebody to help you. You know, get through it initially and get, get the practice dating.
Karen Covy: 37:03
I mean, is it true? You work with online dating and thousands of people all the time. Is it that bad? Or is it just that you don't know how to do it properly? And if you know, if you do it right, you can be successful?
Andrea McGinty: 37:18
Oh, absolutely. If you do it right, you're going to be successful. I always tell people give it three months. You know, people that are working with me give me three months and you know, 65% of them end up in a relationship. So you know it's a pretty good batting average. I I was married for 24 years.
Andrea McGinty: 37:37
I'll tell a little personal story and, um, I didn't start to do online dating until four years after because, you know, three kids and pre-teen teens. I didn't want, like you know, to bring home a bunch of guys and so I don't know. I woke up one day and I was just like ready and I wrote my profile. I got my oh. I had my best friend's husband take pictures of me and you know, I did it the way excuse me, the way I tell people in the book to do it. I, you know, I followed my own rules and my first oh. And here's the other thing I did I didn't just sit there and wait for men to reach out to me, because that's what too many women do.
Andrea McGinty: 38:20
They're like I'm all up here, I've got cute pictures, I've got a nice profile, they should approach me. No, they are no. Why we're in the 2020s, we're not in the 1950s approached them because approaching them Self-confidence is very sexy and men love it when you approach them, because they get too many hearts and likes and swipes from women with no message and then the balls kicks right back in their court right, and they have to do all the work. So that's not fair. So, um so, my first week oh man, I had five first dates in my first week.
Karen Covy: 39:05
That's not bad. That's not bad at all.
Andrea McGinty: 39:09
No, you know, and what, what I would say about? About them too. All five dates. I went to the same place and all five you know no chemistry, but all five were normal. One was a producer. One was a producer for Shark Tank. One was oh, this was a good one drummer in a well-known rock and roll band which I would have never met in this lifetime.
Andrea McGinty: 39:33
You know, I didn't even know what he did when I met him. Another was a hedge fund guy. Another one was this boring doctor who was like a plastic surgeon, so I just used him. I didn't use him, I mean, I just used the hour of our lunch because I knew there was no way we're going out again. I was just like, oh, that's really interesting, cause he'd like to talk, and I'm like so what do you think about? Like, what's the best skincare for you know this area we're in, like, and when do you think people should and when do you think I mean? And what vitamins? I mean? I learned so much I wrote it all down. When I got home I was like, oh, I know so much. I got this free one hour consult with this, you know, well-known plastic surgeon, so nobody was bad. I mean, they're all like in the ballpark.
Karen Covy: 40:18
Okay, you just said something, though like you went to the same place and you met them all for lunch, so it sounds like your strategy or your approach is still consistent. It's like meet for a low stakes a lunch, a coffee, a drink and figure out if the next step is a step you want to take. Am I getting it right?
Andrea McGinty: 40:41
Yep, you're totally getting it right Now. The only thing that I don't like is I don't like those coffee dates. I don't recommend those to people because coffee is a cop-out. I mean, coffee should probably last about an hour or two like a lunch. But if you're going to a crowded Starbucks or whatever, I can't tell you how many first dates I've listened to at a Starbucks just sitting next to people and with my daughters giggling at the table, you know kicking me under the table like mom, look what's going on at that table.
Andrea McGinty: 41:17
And but coffee, you're going to show up in your Lululemons after yoga or before yoga. You know you're not putting your best foot forward. Ok, and it's, and you can leave at any time. I mean, I give the person an hour. You have to eat lunch anyway. Oh, and I love drink dates too. For first dates, hour drinks, maybe a split, an appetizer if it's going well, but it's an hour. And when I say drink dates like four o'clock on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a drink date, or after work. But why I say four or five on a Sunday? You don't want it to be at like seven o'clock because then it's kind of implied that there might be a dinner. Um, you know, following this and you might be stuck, so keep, keep the first one, like that.
Andrea McGinty: 42:07
And then, by the time, about one of the men, um, he was from Chicago, so we had a lot in common and I kind of liked him and we ended up going out on three dates. He was a really nice guy, um big into cycling and um, but you know, just, it was fine. Then there was this other guy I really wanted to meet. He kept, he lives here and then he also has a house, cape Cod, so he was like always going back and forth, he was like hard to pin down and finally I pinned him down like to a date, and we went on a date and, uh, we're married. Um, he was it. I, you know, when I walked up to the table I was like, oh, he's so cute, he's totally my type, he's got like a little bit of that Boston reserve. He's like, you know, Irish Catholic, like we have like a lot of stuff in common and uh, yeah, so, um, So that was so I had been on line three months at that point.
Karen Covy: 43:08
Okay, so you.
Andrea McGinty: 43:09
June, July yeah.
Karen Covy: 43:11
You are your own success story right, oh yeah, yeah, it happened.
Andrea McGinty: 43:17
I love that it happened and I, you know, and I I had a positive attitude about the whole thing and I knew you don't go on and do this online stuff all day long. You, you know. That's why I break it down for my clients You're allowed Monday, Wednesday, Friday, to go online for a half an hour in the evening, that's it, and you must find five men and write five messages. That's all you're allowed to do, because otherwise it starts to feel like a job and it's no fun.
Andrea McGinty: 43:45
And then it takes all the energy out of it and plus I'm getting them to practice messaging and they send me these tracking sheets after each one and I see their messages and I'll be like I can't believe you messaged him that, you know. So we talk about it or you know, or he messaged you that, and I'll be like or yes, yes, yes, you know. So it's um it. It really helps having a third party looking in. You know, 100 percent evaluating.
Karen Covy: 44:16
Well, yeah, especially a third party who has quite a bit of experience in this field. Right, right, you know just having your best friend who's married looking at this with you is not going to be helpful.
Andrea McGinty: 44:32
Yeah, and you know I'm pretty direct, I'm not Your best friend who's married I'm graciously direct. That's what my clients say. You're graciously direct, but you're direct. When they kind of pick out somebody, I'm like, no, no, no, and they'll go. Why? And I'll go, I've got three reasons why and I'll name them and they'll be like, oh, you're so right, okay, and but I'm, I'm giving them practice. So when they're home alone doing this without me on the phone with them, they're doing the same thing.
Andrea McGinty: 45:01
Yeah, and people ask me sometimes maybe I'm too picky, and I say, no, you're not too picky, you're looking for what you're looking for Now. You are too picky. If you give me a list of 15 traits they must have, then you're too picky. Um, but you know, I'm always like it's chemistry, common values and communication. Those are the three most important things in a relationship. And, uh, and you don't have to have identical interests. You know if, if, if he's still likes to play hockey and basketball, you know, with the guys during the week, you don't have to go play basketball and hockey. You know you have your own thing. You have your own life too and, especially at our age, you know we've got life experience. We know what we like to do, and it's really nice to see people with different interests, you know, come together.
Karen Covy: 45:52
Yeah, that makes sense. But you know you have given so many, so many great tips and so much great information. I want to just wrap it up. But talk about your book. You've got a new book coming out. What's that? And you know? Is it available now? Oh, second Acts.
Andrea McGinty: 46:11
It's second acts, winning strategies for dating over 50. And you know, Karen, it's, it's no BS, it's like, just like I am, like I look at everything from a business standpoint and from a strategic standpoint. How are we going to get to that end goal? What's your end goal? For some people it's marriage. For some people it's a long-term relationship. How do we get there? So my book it goes through. There's 15 different worksheets in the book and there's QR codes to accompany it. So while I'm talking to you, walking you through that worksheet, I want you to fill out. So the first one is where's your head at? Because that's one of the most important things when is your head at? Like, are you ready for this? And it asks a bunch of questions and then it culminates with the last worksheet being um, I get pushed back a lot on this one.
Andrea McGinty: 47:07
Um, it's a business plan for your personal life. And people are like I'm not writing a business plan for my personal life, That just sounds unromantic. I go no, it's not. It's strategic. It's saying what, what you're looking for, what you want, who's your competition? How much time are you willing to give this? What are barriers to entry? Um, you know how committed you are to this and what you're willing to do, just like you're doing a startup. Right, you've got to be committed if you want to find a partner. So you know, I think that helps my clients focus a lot too. And then you know what People who you know can't afford me or don't, or they live somewhere in a different country they can buy the book and yeah, it kind of it guides you through everything and there's no fluffy stuff in it. It's like 166 strategies, boom, here you go. This is what I know works.
Karen Covy: 48:05
Yeah, and I'm just dumbfounded here with how much you know, how much you've shared, how many success stories that you have, which is, I think, a big differentiator from you and the person who just decided to. You know, fix up their friends and, you know, can help people. So this has been phenomenal. If people are interested in getting your book or in working with you, where's the best place that they can find you?
Andrea McGinty: 48:33
Okay. So the best place to find me is on my website. It's 33,000 dates and it's 33000dates.com with an S dot com. Now what you're going to find on there you'll find a link to go to Amazon. Buy my book on Amazon. They have the best prices by far. I mean, it's everywhere, but that's where I would say to go.
Andrea McGinty: 48:55
And then there's a couple other things you might be interested in. On my site there's a dating quiz, and it basically scores you against all the data I've had from people who have been successful meeting somebody. So you'll answer these questions and then you'll get a score back, which I think some people are like Ooh, I scored a 65. I'm doing something wrong, you know. So I think that's kind of interesting. And the other thing you can do online is you can book a 15 minute call with me too to talk, so I can talk to you and see if you're a good fit for me and if I think I can help you, and if I'm a good fit for you too. So you know, there's that too. So there's a lot of stuff online.
Karen Covy: 49:39
That's phenomenal and I mean, my goodness, if someone could take a quiz and then they see out of the gate that they didn't score so well, then that will save them an enormous amount of time and frustration because you start, you got to get like frustrated after a while when you're swiping and nothing good is happening.
Andrea McGinty: 50:00
Exactly and you know what you. And the other thing is people take it personally because how can you not? This is you, this is your love life, you know we all have. I mean, I wish I had thicker skin and people have thin skin when it comes to, you know, dating and stuff, and you can. And rejection it's hard, it's hard.
Andrea McGinty: 50:22
I remember this one man in Palm beach. I thought he was perfect for me. I read all about him, I sent him a really cute note, never heard from him. And I remember going back and sit, you know, and looking from him and I remember going back and looking to see if he messaged me back. He never did and I only took five minutes. He only read his space in my head for five minutes and I thought, what did I do wrong? And I'm like you didn't do anything wrong. He's an idiot for not writing back to me. But you know you get that little. You know, of course, like why didn't he like me? But you can't. You can't because one out of five are going to message you back and just remember that and you're going to feel so much better about this process. You know, if you went five for five, you know you probably don't need me and I'm shocked. You probably don't need me and I'm shocked.
Karen Covy: 51:12
Well, Andrea, that is great advice. You've given so much good advice. Thank you so much for sharing all of your pearls of wisdom here.
Andrea McGinty: 51:20
Oh, my pleasure. It was a really fun interview, Karen. Thank you.
Karen Covy: 51:23
Okay, and for those of you out there who are watching, who are listening, who enjoyed today's interview, please do me a big favor. If you liked this episode, give it a thumbs up like. Subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.
