Not having the best luck in Central Oregon’s dating game, DeeDee Garnett formed a club that gives single seniors like herself a chance to connect while snowshoeing, hiking, watching plays and enjoying other activities together. So far, the 67-year-old said, it’s had mixed results.

“We’ve actually created three couples,” Garnett said of Single Adventurous Seniors’ track record since she started the group about two years ago. “That’s something I’m really excited about, but, unfortunately I’m not in one of them.”

An estimated 25.6 million Americans between the ages of 45 and 64 — about 31 percent of the population in this age group — were single in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey .

With studies showing 90 percent of these people are either dating someone or would date someone if they found the right person, the desire to play matchmaker for this age group through traditional and online methods has launched dozens of groups and websites. Even the AARP – which recently teamed up with the dating site HowAboutWe.com to find love online- has jumped in the senior dating game.

“It’s something our members have been asking for,” said Sami Hassanyeh, the agency’s senior vice president for digital strategy.

Playing the field

According to the bureau’s American Community Survey, 15,521 Central Oregon residents between the ages of 45 and 65 were single in 2011. These people make up about a fourth of the total number people in that age group in the region.

And while these single boomers appreciate their current relationship status — a study published in AARP Magazine found 54 percent like being single because they have more freedom and 38 percent like it because they can keep their house the way they want it — they also have some problems with being on their own.

The magazine’s study found 49 percent of single seniors (43 percent of the men and 53 percent of the women) wanted to date someone so they could have a person to talk to or join them in activities; 18 percent (17 percent of the men and 19 percent of the women) wanted to date someone to have fun; and 6 percent of them (11 percent of the men and 2 percent of the women) wanted to date someone so they could fulfill their sexual needs.

Hassanyeh said the AARP hasn’t updated this dating survey since it was first conducted about 10 years ago. But it has included questions about dating and relationships in many of its subsequent surveys – especially those dealing with happiness, health and well-being.

One survey from 2011 found 22 percent of people 35 and older who are married or in a relationship described themselves as being “very happy” while another 50 percent of those in this category said they were “pretty happy.” On the other hand, 59 percent of the people who had never been married put themselves in either one of the categories, according to the survey, while 61 percent of widows and divorcees were “pretty happy” or “very happy.”

“Your social connections are a key driver when it comes to whether you are happy or not,” Hassanyeh said, adding the survey also found key connections between a person’s overall happiness and their health and well-being. Many of those surveyed ranked their relationships second only to their health when asked what they thought was the most important thing in their lives, he added.

But while everybody agrees finding relationships and dating is important, nobody said it was going to be easy.

Stuck in the middle

Garnett was 50 and working as an event planner in the San Francisco Bay Area 17 years ago when her husband of nine years died. She’s since moved to Central Oregon to be with her daughter and grandchildren, found a job in the area and has been doing whatever she can to make new friends.

But she’s also had problems finding the right person to date.

“It’s been very difficult,” Garnett said.

Part of the problem is that being in her mid-60s, Garnett is too old to find someone at the bars or any other place where singles in their 20s and 30s might be able to find a date, she said. But she also has problems finding someone because she’s too young, or, for lack of a better word, too active.

Garnett said her job as a tax negotiator keeps her busy during the day and makes it hard for her to meet people her age because a lot of them are retired and like to do things during the day or go out for lunch. She signed up with one senior activity group in town but had to stop attending its events because “nobody wanted to drive at night,” and she didn’t want to find them rides after dark.

But after a while, things started to click for Garnett — at least when it came to making friends. She started volunteering at the Tower Theatre and found most of the people who worked there were just like her — they were active, and they wanted to meet people with a similar lifestyle.

Garnett sought to fill this gap when she formed Single Adventurous Seniors in March 2011. The group caters to people who are 55 and older — its membership includes a few dozen women and only a handful of men — who are looking for someone to join them on an adventure.

Garnett said it started as an outdoor group that took people on snowshoe trips and hikes across the region. But at the request of its members, she added dinners, concerts, plays and baseball games to its roster of activities so members who aren’t that into the outdoors could still stay active, meet new people and maybe even find a date.

“A bulk of our members are in their 60s, but they’re young at heart,” she said. “They just want to get out and do something besides sit around the house and watch TV.”

Going online

But this type of group doesn’t work for everybody, according to a November 2011 study conducted by AARP. The study found a growing number of senior singles — just like singles of other age groups — are taking their search for a good match to the Internet and online dating sites.

“One in five relationships now starts online,” Hassanyeh said, explaining that baby boomers and other seniors who go online are merely turning to a medium singles from all other age groups have used to find dating partners.

The survey found 23 percent of people who were 50 and older and tried online dating in the past three years did so because it allowed them to meet a broader range of people, 13 percent tried it because they didn’t have time to meet people and 10 percent tried it because they thought it would be fun.

It also found 20 percent of people who were 50 and older, including 26 percent of those who were retired, liked online dating because they didn’t feel as much pressure to reply to or interact with someone they were not interested in or did not find attractive.

“You can feel at ease about saying no,” Hassanyeh said.

But that isn’t always a good thing.

“I don’t know what the deal is,” Garnett said. “It seems like the same guys have been (on dating sites) for years, but when you write them they never write you back. ~ (You’d think) at least they’d have the courtesy to say ‘thank you, but no thank you.’”

Though even with her frustrations with online dating, Garnett said she knows at least one couple that met online a while ago and is still together, so she’s willing to admit “that it works, just not for me.”

She also is quick to say that a lot of the men she’s seen online — including some of those who never replied — have been showing up at her club’s events, which suggests traditional in-person meetups may still be a more desirable way to meet people than the dozens of dating websites that have sprung up across the country to help baby boomers find the right companion online.

Single seniors online

Earlier this month, AARP launched a “Dating Boot Camp” and a dating channel on its website. The site provides people who are 50 and older with information about how they can build a good online dating profile, interact with people they meet online and have an enjoyable first date. The boot camp project follows a new partnership the seniors group launched with HowAboutWe .com, where its members get a 50 percent discount on the dating site’s services.