On the cusp of his fifth decade, Mark Allister, a professor of English at a liberal arts college in Minnesota, is an empty-nester in a double sense: his two children are off at school and his wife of twenty-five years has filed for divorce. A friend suggests that Mark explore the possibility of a new relationship through an online dating service. A man who has centered his life on his family now finds himself going on dates with strangers, sometimes two in a single day, sharing intimacies with women who have had their own lives upended. His online search for love in middle age is both an ordeal and an opportunity.

Mark records his journey of discoveries in a memoir that is remarkably candid about his longings, anxieties and embarrassments. Women sometimes complain that men are seldom willing to share these feelings. In Dated, they will find one man who is emotionally open in a personal narrative that is lively and engaging.