Have you started watching? Are you caught up in the drama of who Gerry, The Golden Bachelor, will choose as his partner for the rest of his life? You may have little interest in reality television, or the dating lives of others, but you should care about how older adults are portrayed in the world of dating and romance because the secret’s out: Love and intimacy can be just as important to 72-year-olds as they are to 22-year-olds and it seems that if nothing else, The Golden Bachelor is making that clear to the rest of the world.

It may be that, as one TV critic says, there’s a broader cultural shift toward embracing, rather than hiding, aging, which has helped pave the way for shows like The Golden Bachelor. In fact, it’s that same embrace of aging, rather than hiding, that seems to help dating in your later years be a more relaxed and low-pressure endeavor. Because of The Golden Bachelor, articles about dating as an older adult are suddenly in fashion. Sociologists are imparting advice about what relationships in your later years should be built upon (having things in common, being open about your health problems, recognizing you each have a family to consider, not assuming marriage is the goal) and women are being urged to consider “me” time rather than assuming the more usual caregiver role in a relationship. As one commentator notes about the women vying for Gerry’s attention on The Golden Bachelor, “They have the desire to be with someone, not to take care of someone.”

And desire is the operative word. For the 30 million women aged 65 and older (53% of whom are widowed, divorced, or never married), desire, love, companionship, and sex are very much front and center. In fact, scientists have demonstrated that the physiological experience of falling in love is the same for 60-year-olds as it is for 20-year-olds: areas of the brain are dedicated to sex, intense romantic love, and deep attachment, and even if sex drive diminishes a bit as you get older, those other feelings of romance and attachment are still present and can be activated by meeting the right person. One social psychologist even went so far as to praise The Golden Bachelor because, “It is refreshing, in a culture that is still so youth-obsessed, to see older women presented as interested in sex and still sexually desirable.”

So for the millions of single older adults who are out there looking for love, The Golden Bachelor may be the impetus to get yourself back out there and try your luck. While some describe dating over age 50 as “grim,” for older women (according to Axios), the reality is that for many men and women, dating as an older adult allows you to be that authentic, comfortable self you’ve finally come to understand and accept in your later years. Once you’ve reached a certain age, you have nothing to prove and just pleasure to gain if you find the right person. As one older woman who found love in her later years declared, “I used to be afraid to show who I really was in a relationship before, because they might leave. And I don’t have that at all anymore.”