Yes, indeed. It's wordplay. But before groaning at the pun, hear me out. Inspiration came from a recent newspaper article describing online dating for the over-50 generation and one woman's promise to herself: "This time, I'm going to marry a friend." Here she was, divorced in her middle years, thinking about the next time she comes close to love — and she has learned from the upheaval. It almost sounds simplistic, but the question was for me an epiphany. Is it possible that the early years of life, that period of learning and unlearning, are meant to be used most effectively later on in life?

According to poet Robert Browning in "Rabbi Ben Ezra," "the best is yet to be — the last of life, for which the first was made." The later years are designed to be proving ground for lessons learned earlier. After all, it's not until midlife that most of us (including yours truly) start to feel comfortable being who we are. It takes all those years to build self-esteem, to understand who we are and where we fit into this bewildering world. That sense of personal comfort comes from untangling early misconceptions and forging nourishing friendships from our inner truths honed later in life. Most of us need time to come to grips with our personhood, and those learning years do seem to fly. But in my experience, it is the men and women who blossom into themselves later on who get the most out of their lives and continue to evolve until the last day.

It doesn't matter how one's life starts; even a bad beginning can widen into the bright sunshine of a good life. (Indeed, adversity can be a powerful engine of change.) In my experience, it's far better to be a late bloomer than an early comet who shoots its sparks in youth and falls to earth too soon to test the truths discovered the hard way.

So here we are, you and I, exploring the latest avenues of roses (aka online dating sites) for the over-50 generation, those with another chance to live out the wisdom they have learned — usually the hard way — by random attempts to find love. They're new to the world of dating sites, but early reviews are positive. OurTime.com seems to be leading the pack.

But back to Browning's wisdom. Don't you find it amusing/ironic/intriguing that the newest, hippest, very latest phenom in the high-tech world of online dating sites is aimed exclusively at the wiser, more experienced over-50 set that optimistically is signing up for another stab at that old black magic? Yes, this time, they're girded by tons of experience and life lessons that they feel can assure them a soft landing. You and I are living through a once-in-a-lifetime pairing that matches a generation with life experience with the very latest in high-tech wizardry. It's up to this seasoned generation of unmarried, not the under-50 set, to make the discovery that life gets sweeter later on, after all those life lessons have been taught.

Can it be true that the best of life comes later? Can life experience reshape a value system? Can people of a certain age find deep, true fulfillment with each other? Personally, I would love to track those first meetings to gauge the success of more seasoned relationships that have plenty of life experience as foundation. Will that woman meet the friend she's looking for? And when she does, will she make good use of her past bad experiences? Has she figured out what is and what isn't important to her? Does she like living with a friend, found at last? And will the man of her choice put amity first, purposely blurring his vision when he sees a few wrinkles and a spreading waistline? Has he gone through enough travail to adjust his expectations and be the good friend to a mate who isn't Playboy pretty? Will the two of them put aside petty issues and go forward together to reap the goodnesses they have craved for so long? Have they figured out the short list of must-haves, or are they still diddling with the petty incidentals, such as height and hair color? Are they aware that younger generations are looking to them as examples of rock-solid values? Will they truly live out this golden opportunity — the last of life, for which the first was made? Stay tuned.

Have a question for Susan? Send it to her in care of this newspaper or online at www.creators.com.