At age 67, Mark Nolan wasn't sure how to find a partner to share his twilight years. He had been alone since his wife of 30 years died of cancer in 2021, and the dating landscape had changed dramatically since their marriage. "I was thinking, How do you meet people now?" he said. "You can't go to Nectar's or the bars or anything. You're not 20 years old anymore." Nolan, a South Burlington resident and salesman at Vermont Paint, attempted to meet people through his day-to-day activities and would attend his grandkids' basketball games partly in hopes of finding someone his age. When those efforts didn't pan out, he signed up for Zoosk, an online dating site popular among seniors. After a few lackluster dates arranged through the app, he felt a spark with Victoria Beattie, a 71-year-old paraeducator at a preschool in Burlington. An initial meetup for coffee at Burlington Bay spilled into hours of conversation, a stroll down Church Street and dinner that same evening. They found connection over a shared devotion to their families, active lifestyles and an enthusiasm for the music of Elvis Presley. Before long, the couple were meeting for coffee every day. It became their ritual to stop at the Black Cap Coffee & Bakery and walk around downtown Burlington for hours after work. In January, Nolan hid a ring behind the pillows on Beattie's living room couch and asked Alexa to play Presley's "Love Me Tender." As they waltzed, he revealed the ring, got down on bended knee and proposed. "I wanted to fall in love with my best friend, and I did," Nolan said. For the couple and other Vermont seniors, finding love can be a daunting enterprise — especially for those thrust into singledom after decades of marriage. But if dating is a numbers game, the demographics of the Green Mountain State in many ways offer an unusually favorable playing field. Vermont is the third-oldest U.S. state by median age and boasts roughly 55,000 unmarried residents over age 65, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2021 American Community Survey. One in four Vermonters is 60 or older, and their number is growing. Avid readers of Seven Days likely have noticed the droves of older adults turning to its personal ads in search of love or companionship. A recent search of the newspaper's personals returned no fewer than 115 results…