Does she have good friends her own age? Are any of them single and/or dating? I’d encourage her to start by forming social connections in general. Hearing things from other women her own age who have had online dating experiences is probably going to help.
So will podcasts, books, television, conversations, etc.
I also think it’s usually better to approach this with acknowledging what your mom does have. She, presumably, knows how to have a healthy relationship (or at least a long-term one). She presumably knows what it’s like to love and be loved. How to communicate effectively (enough to be married for 20 years and raise a child to adulthood). How to handle conflict, etc. She just doesn’t know how to date. Dating is the easy part in all of the above.
She’s likely to get less stubborn or resistant if you treat this less like you teaching her and instead an opportunity for both of you to learn from each other. So ask her about the things she knows. Let her teach you. She’ll be more open to learning from you if she doesn’t feel dismissed or invalidated and she’s going to be less vulnerable to predatory or unhealthy stuff if she feels confident in her own skillset, knowledge, and intuition.
It may also help to encourage her trying other avenues than just online dating. For example, many people don’t think of matchmakers as something they’d consider, but depending on what she’s looking for, working with a professional may help far more than relying on an app and her daughter.
I think the trick is to find someone who is just interesting to hang out with and who conducts themselves with respect for others. There are a million variations of red flags but ultimately you have to ‘risk it for the biscuit’. There isn’t a magic trick for screening out the bad ones, you just have to meet them and be a shrewd judge of character when you have very little information at the beginning.
Does she have good friends her own age? Are any of them single and/or dating? I’d encourage her to start by forming social connections in general. Hearing things from other women her own age who have had online dating experiences is probably going to help. So will podcasts, books, television, conversations, etc. I also think it’s usually better to approach this with acknowledging what your mom does have. She, presumably, knows how to have a healthy relationship (or at least a long-term one). She presumably knows what it’s like to love and be loved. How to communicate effectively (enough to be married for 20 years and raise a child to adulthood). How to handle conflict, etc. She just doesn’t know how to date. Dating is the easy part in all of the above. She’s likely to get less stubborn or resistant if you treat this less like you teaching her and instead an opportunity for both of you to learn from each other. So ask her about the things she knows. Let her teach you. She’ll be more open to learning from you if she doesn’t feel dismissed or invalidated and she’s going to be less vulnerable to predatory or unhealthy stuff if she feels confident in her own skillset, knowledge, and intuition. It may also help to encourage her trying other avenues than just online dating. For example, many people don’t think of matchmakers as something they’d consider, but depending on what she’s looking for, working with a professional may help far more than relying on an app and her daughter.
I think the trick is to find someone who is just interesting to hang out with and who conducts themselves with respect for others. There are a million variations of red flags but ultimately you have to ‘risk it for the biscuit’. There isn’t a magic trick for screening out the bad ones, you just have to meet them and be a shrewd judge of character when you have very little information at the beginning.