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Daring to Date Again: A Memoir
Ann is sixty and suffering from celibacy. Going through two divorces has made her skittish; having two children has made her cautious. But finally her longing for sex and romance sends her hurtling out of her comfort zone. Her adventure begins with a very nice transvestite and gets more interesting from there. Put a divorcee raised in the 1950s into the Internet world, and this is what you get: a comic romp that evolves into a profound and touching experience, complete with some meaty moral questions and answers. Ranging from Montclair, New Jersey to Harare, Zimbabwe, Daring to Date Again: A Memoir is a compelling, often racy memoir of one woman s late-life adventures with sex and dating in the modern world."
- GenresMemoir
286 pages, Paperback
First published November 11, 2014
40 people want to read
About the author
Ann Anderson Evans
5 books22 followersAnn Evans is a writer, linguist, and professor. Twice a wife and once a widow, she’s a mother and grandmother. She has traveled and lived in many countries and speaks six languages.
Her first book, DARING TO DATE AGAIN (SheWrites Press, 2014) won multiple prizes for memoir. Her story, “Precious Love” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other short stories have been published in Entropy, The Opiate, Pulse, Phantasmagoria, Forge, Under the Sun, Ozone Park Journal, Phoebe, The Raven’s Perch, Words & Images, Pedagogy, and Better Than Starbucks. Ann has appeared on television, radio, and podcasts, with appearances on The Discovery Channel’s Sex in America special, NPR’s Author’s Corner, and many more.
She shares her experiences and insights drawing on a well-traveled lifetime and a sense of humor and joy. She lives in Vermont.
Ann can be found at www.annandersonevans.com.
Her website and blog are at www.annandersonevans.com. She is on Facebook (Fan and personal pages), LinkedIn (Ann Anderson Evans), and Twitter (@annwriter).
Her first book, DARING TO DATE AGAIN (SheWrites Press, 2014) won multiple prizes for memoir. Her story, “Precious Love” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other short stories have been published in Entropy, The Opiate, Pulse, Phantasmagoria, Forge, Under the Sun, Ozone Park Journal, Phoebe, The Raven’s Perch, Words & Images, Pedagogy, and Better Than Starbucks. Ann has appeared on television, radio, and podcasts, with appearances on The Discovery Channel’s Sex in America special, NPR’s Author’s Corner, and many more.
She shares her experiences and insights drawing on a well-traveled lifetime and a sense of humor and joy. She lives in Vermont.
Ann can be found at www.annandersonevans.com.
Her website and blog are at www.annandersonevans.com. She is on Facebook (Fan and personal pages), LinkedIn (Ann Anderson Evans), and Twitter (@annwriter).
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 5, 2015
In Ann Anderson Evans’ memoir “Daring to Date Again” she doesn’t just put her toe in the water; she plunges into the deep and murky ocean of online dating after a 12-year sexual drought – and at age 60. I was totally engaged; at times wanting to yell at her (“Oh, god, don’t date that one!”) or applauding her open-mindedness and bravery as she separates the predatory sharks from the good guys and takes chances I’d never consider. The book is laugh-out-loud funny at times, especially when quoting some of her suitors’ electronic communications, or describing the disparity between their online profiles and actual physical presence.
This memoir is an honest portrayal of a woman’s desires, fears, and a growing awareness of her own self through her experiments in dating, or as she put it, having some “romps in the hay.” As might be expected, some of the relationships blow up or wane, but as we journey with her, we also get to experience a beautiful love story that takes place halfway around the world in a politically unstable African nation.
In this unlikely and often harsh setting, you can see Evans blossoming, and her writing too blooms with vivid descriptions and tender observations. But as she opens up to love, she faces new dangers as the countryside around her descends into chaos. Ultimately, Evans must decide what to do under untenable circumstances, and how to nurture the gift that is love. “Daring to Date Again” is a journey worth taking, and gripping all the way to the end.
This memoir is an honest portrayal of a woman’s desires, fears, and a growing awareness of her own self through her experiments in dating, or as she put it, having some “romps in the hay.” As might be expected, some of the relationships blow up or wane, but as we journey with her, we also get to experience a beautiful love story that takes place halfway around the world in a politically unstable African nation.
In this unlikely and often harsh setting, you can see Evans blossoming, and her writing too blooms with vivid descriptions and tender observations. But as she opens up to love, she faces new dangers as the countryside around her descends into chaos. Ultimately, Evans must decide what to do under untenable circumstances, and how to nurture the gift that is love. “Daring to Date Again” is a journey worth taking, and gripping all the way to the end.
July 14, 2024
Marketable
There’s a market for sex-based memoirs, but especially those by women who subscribe to “female desire.” “Daring to Date Again” meets these criteria. And that’s its biggest problem. It bargains away independent thought, self-criticism, personal reflection, and the social, for fun sex. It’s a kind of anti-confession confessional book in which “sin,” only an error at best, is an occasion for eagerness and pride, more than for scruples or guilt. Only pushover “opponents” get alluded to: the judgmental, the religious, and the repressed. Since the focus is conveniently pure sex, political and moral perspectives can be expurgated. Evans’ perverse assumption seems to be that women are now equal to men, and should assume male sexual rights, no matter that such prerogatives are founded upon and latched to domination, violence, rape, and prostitution. Get yours is her motto: make up for lost time, collect orgasms, stock up for future scarcity. She even brushes off any associated danger to herself: Craig’s List is just ducky. And she can do all this--even at 60, because internet profile sites are about 70% male, which extends her age bracket downward. “My young sex buddies relished my libido.”
Kinky underground sex for the middle class is Evan’s main attraction. The guys, like herself, need sex, seek sex, offer sex, assume sex, and oversell sex. Built around embodied fantasies, the freaky, titillating accounts are the stuff of TV talk shows. Sop them up. Evans herself is so on fire, that lawyers at her office building sense her desire through the steel of an elevator cage. Offering herself as a willing object in the name of personal freedom, her parade of online contacts range from a young cop, to a doctor, to professors (her list is far longer), and there doesn’t seem be one she doesn’t like or accept. It’s all very nonjudgmental, casual, shallow, and undemanding . Itsy-bitsy chapters chronicle the melodrama of hers and their lives. In one called “All About Me,” she reflects: “My natural self would have been a good courtesan in the old days.”
Apropos of nothing, her minister puts her in touch with his Catholic priest friend who, at one point, remarks: “The goal of Christian marriage should be sexual, not genital, energy,.” But this broadening of the meaning of sex is lost on her. In another instance, when Evans is recruited to teach a sex ed. course to Unitarian teenagers, she confides that the only book on sex she’s ever read was “The Happy Hooker.” Hard to believe, but if so, she must know all about its promotion and normalization of prostitution. Given this best selling brochure as her blueprint, no wonder she bypasses introspection, and disowns personal boundaries. Why she goes this route is her kept secret. But her silence serves her memoir. It allows her to play on the certainty that any judgment of her sex life is beside the point. Actions and outer realities-- not doubt, self-awareness, and consciousness, are what she’s selling. Whatever, the end result is a mainstreaming of the happy hooker sham. And Evans’s tamer variant makes it more palatable--her concluding Zimbabwe and marriage chapters serving as its fig leaves. But this final wider view, however understood, is mainly a diversion from Evans’ self-advertisement for the sexed woman.
There’s a market for sex-based memoirs, but especially those by women who subscribe to “female desire.” “Daring to Date Again” meets these criteria. And that’s its biggest problem. It bargains away independent thought, self-criticism, personal reflection, and the social, for fun sex. It’s a kind of anti-confession confessional book in which “sin,” only an error at best, is an occasion for eagerness and pride, more than for scruples or guilt. Only pushover “opponents” get alluded to: the judgmental, the religious, and the repressed. Since the focus is conveniently pure sex, political and moral perspectives can be expurgated. Evans’ perverse assumption seems to be that women are now equal to men, and should assume male sexual rights, no matter that such prerogatives are founded upon and latched to domination, violence, rape, and prostitution. Get yours is her motto: make up for lost time, collect orgasms, stock up for future scarcity. She even brushes off any associated danger to herself: Craig’s List is just ducky. And she can do all this--even at 60, because internet profile sites are about 70% male, which extends her age bracket downward. “My young sex buddies relished my libido.”
Kinky underground sex for the middle class is Evan’s main attraction. The guys, like herself, need sex, seek sex, offer sex, assume sex, and oversell sex. Built around embodied fantasies, the freaky, titillating accounts are the stuff of TV talk shows. Sop them up. Evans herself is so on fire, that lawyers at her office building sense her desire through the steel of an elevator cage. Offering herself as a willing object in the name of personal freedom, her parade of online contacts range from a young cop, to a doctor, to professors (her list is far longer), and there doesn’t seem be one she doesn’t like or accept. It’s all very nonjudgmental, casual, shallow, and undemanding . Itsy-bitsy chapters chronicle the melodrama of hers and their lives. In one called “All About Me,” she reflects: “My natural self would have been a good courtesan in the old days.”
Apropos of nothing, her minister puts her in touch with his Catholic priest friend who, at one point, remarks: “The goal of Christian marriage should be sexual, not genital, energy,.” But this broadening of the meaning of sex is lost on her. In another instance, when Evans is recruited to teach a sex ed. course to Unitarian teenagers, she confides that the only book on sex she’s ever read was “The Happy Hooker.” Hard to believe, but if so, she must know all about its promotion and normalization of prostitution. Given this best selling brochure as her blueprint, no wonder she bypasses introspection, and disowns personal boundaries. Why she goes this route is her kept secret. But her silence serves her memoir. It allows her to play on the certainty that any judgment of her sex life is beside the point. Actions and outer realities-- not doubt, self-awareness, and consciousness, are what she’s selling. Whatever, the end result is a mainstreaming of the happy hooker sham. And Evans’s tamer variant makes it more palatable--her concluding Zimbabwe and marriage chapters serving as its fig leaves. But this final wider view, however understood, is mainly a diversion from Evans’ self-advertisement for the sexed woman.
February 12, 2021
Brassy Ann just went for it and I, for one, applauded her. Sounded like she knew what she wanted and had few hiccups going after it. The splashes of humor entertained me as well, and I really enjoyed the many dating stories. Guy was my favorite! What threw me for a loop was when the no strings attached dating and the need for committed companionship crept on the pages. Ann got me on that one. Didn't expect it. That's a common challenge many daters struggle to manage. Perhaps some things never change. Straight sex-no strings attached even catch the most seasoned in their feelings. Overall a nice reading experience.
July 29, 2019
This memoir is extraordinary, mainly for the fearless honesty shown by the author, both in her search and her writing. Her dating quest isn’t largely about searching for love - the 60-year-old author is looking for sex, and finds it. Some of her exploits seem hair-raising to me, but Evans treats them with an almost reckless insouciance. I have to admire the way she simply goes for it, and bounces back when disappointed. But I admit to feeling relieved when she did finally find love and married for the third time...
May 31, 2022
Not dead yet: Many of us “older” women still have our libidos intact, thank you very much, and Ann Evans proves it with this daring, funny, and all-too-human story of what happens when a sixty-something divorcee, who hasn’t been “out there” in years, jumps back into the dating pool. Her adventure takes her halfway across the world and introduces us to an interesting bunch of guys, but the most interesting character by far is the narrator herself. A must-read for lusty women of a certain age and for those who aspire to be.
October 24, 2021
Frank, witty, urbane and funny - this is a tapas of a book featuring short chapters and easy flowing stories about not always easy subjects. The physical side of things got down deep and descriptive but the feelings were glossy, even when negative.
I wonder what genius work AAE could write if she exposed her feelings as openly and thoroughly as she did her physical self?
I wonder what genius work AAE could write if she exposed her feelings as openly and thoroughly as she did her physical self?
August 4, 2021
While I applaud Ann Evans' courage in going after what she wanted at the age of 60, I spent most of the book worrying she would catch a sexually transmitted disease. I wonder how she stayed healthy admidst all that experimentation.
April 18, 2022
i don't know if it's relieving or devastating that i can completely relate to the dating stories of a 60-year-old woman in the mid-00s
March 20, 2016
Having just turned 60 myself and only married (this time) for almost five years, I was intrigued by the idea of Ann’s memoir. After 12 celibate years, she is ready for anything that will appease the hunger. To put it bluntly, she’s as horny as an 18-year-old boy
How does a woman of our age go about dating in the early years of the 21st century? It’s a whole different world out there (I knew my newish husband from work). And what about sex? Is it as available as television, movies, etc. make it out to be? Where do women of certain ages go to meet men? Is Internet dating as scary as it seems? Ann’s memoir seems to answer all these questions, but the answers are not rules or guides for single women; the book is Ann telling the reader her experiences. I would never classify this book as self-help (unless it’s to gain confidence that there is sex avaialable.)
Get ready to laugh, cry and enjoy all the emotions in between. Ann’s first adventure to conquer the sexual gnawing is with a guy Larry, who turns out to be a transvestite. Ann doesn’t care about that, but she is looking for a male with male longings.
Ann dates many, many men. So many, by the end of the book, I couldn’t keep them all straight. I’ve been so worried about stalkers I would never allow a virtual stranger into my home, much less my bed. Maybe it’s because Ann is a confident woman. I loved Chapter 13, Strategy. She makes a chart that will help guide her through the e-mails and flirts from the Internet. There are three columns: Indispensable, pro, and con. That list serves her well, until she meets Guy.
I was starting to get a little bored with the whole dating/sleeping around when Ann and Guy connect. I was astounded that Ann went to Zimbabwe to spend some time Guy. But that put the zip back into the story.
I enjoyed Ann’s voice; it was like a best friend/sister talking to me, telling me her adventures. I felt as if I was dating again vicariously through Ann, and all I can say, is please God, never let me single and horny again.
How does a woman of our age go about dating in the early years of the 21st century? It’s a whole different world out there (I knew my newish husband from work). And what about sex? Is it as available as television, movies, etc. make it out to be? Where do women of certain ages go to meet men? Is Internet dating as scary as it seems? Ann’s memoir seems to answer all these questions, but the answers are not rules or guides for single women; the book is Ann telling the reader her experiences. I would never classify this book as self-help (unless it’s to gain confidence that there is sex avaialable.)
Get ready to laugh, cry and enjoy all the emotions in between. Ann’s first adventure to conquer the sexual gnawing is with a guy Larry, who turns out to be a transvestite. Ann doesn’t care about that, but she is looking for a male with male longings.
Ann dates many, many men. So many, by the end of the book, I couldn’t keep them all straight. I’ve been so worried about stalkers I would never allow a virtual stranger into my home, much less my bed. Maybe it’s because Ann is a confident woman. I loved Chapter 13, Strategy. She makes a chart that will help guide her through the e-mails and flirts from the Internet. There are three columns: Indispensable, pro, and con. That list serves her well, until she meets Guy.
I was starting to get a little bored with the whole dating/sleeping around when Ann and Guy connect. I was astounded that Ann went to Zimbabwe to spend some time Guy. But that put the zip back into the story.
I enjoyed Ann’s voice; it was like a best friend/sister talking to me, telling me her adventures. I felt as if I was dating again vicariously through Ann, and all I can say, is please God, never let me single and horny again.
April 8, 2015
Daring to Date Again: A Memoir is a sassy internet dating memoir with an attitude, and comes from a woman who offers tales of romantic ventures in cyberspace and how they led to adventure and changes in her life.
Before she re-entered the dating world, Ann Evans was celibate for twelve years and in her sixties - and not contemplating becoming sexually active. But sexual activity isn't the heart of this memoir: hers is a fun story of a search for love using the internet circles, and as such, it provides a story of overcoming two divorces to re-enter the world of romance.
One doesn't expect wit along with the wisdom, but it's there. What's also unexpected is the spirit of adventure in a sixty-something who is willing to travel halfway across the world to Zimbabwe to meet an internet contact - but it's there, too. Most surprising of all is the quest for sexuality in older years: something few dating books even discuss. The result is best viewed as a rollicking train ride that leads to a few wrecks, excitement, and a lot of fun.
Before she re-entered the dating world, Ann Evans was celibate for twelve years and in her sixties - and not contemplating becoming sexually active. But sexual activity isn't the heart of this memoir: hers is a fun story of a search for love using the internet circles, and as such, it provides a story of overcoming two divorces to re-enter the world of romance.
One doesn't expect wit along with the wisdom, but it's there. What's also unexpected is the spirit of adventure in a sixty-something who is willing to travel halfway across the world to Zimbabwe to meet an internet contact - but it's there, too. Most surprising of all is the quest for sexuality in older years: something few dating books even discuss. The result is best viewed as a rollicking train ride that leads to a few wrecks, excitement, and a lot of fun.
August 16, 2015
What a hoot of a book! Ann is one of those writers who enchants and engages the reader. She is honest, funny (self-effacing & opinionated), and intelligent (without being preachy). Most importantly, Ann is DARING! It's right here in the title of her unique memoir. This is a woman who was honest with herself, set a goal and went for it. Then she WROTE ABOUT IT! I laughed, I squirmed and I appreciated her sense of adventure (she even went to Zimbabwe for a guy) as well as her optimism as she approached each new man with an openness and wonder that I admired. This would be a terrific book club book! Man, it will bring on the comments and conversation! Bravo, Ann! I look forward to your next book!
January 5, 2016
Evans' frankness, humor and good writing make this a different kind of memoir, a different kind of dating book. It's just overflowing with charm and insight.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews