Suzanne Somers’ Widower Alan Hamel Reveals What She Told Him About Dating After Her Death: ‘I Hear Those Words Echoing’ (Exclusive)

Alan Hamel may soon be ready to love again.

Hamel, who was married to Suzanne Somers for 46 years until she died on October 15, 2023 at age 76 from an aggressive form of breast cancer, shared with PEOPLE on Tuesday, Oct. 15 that he and the actress “had conversations” about him dating.

Somers, he emphasizes, was the love of his life. “Very few people had the kind of relationship we had,” he says. But she also encouraged him to find happiness after her death.

“When we knew the end was near, and we had those conversations [about dating], and I use the word ‘those’ advisedly, and she said to me, ‘Live your life.’ And we both knew what that meant,” Hamel says. “‘Live your life,’ she said, ‘Don’t spend a lot of time moping around. Live your life.’ And so I hear those words echoing over and over again.”

He thinks he may be ready in “a couple of months” to start dating again, although not necessarily for “romantic reasons.”

“It’ll be for reasons of companionship and interaction,” he explains.

Hamel told PEOPLE in May that he regularly goes on outings, enjoying dinners with other people as one way to stay engaged with the world. He likes to refer to these excursions, often with two other guests, as “double dating,” although they’re entirely platonic.

“Suzanne and I loved dating, we’d get dressed up and go to one of our favorite restaurants and order a great bottle of wine and have dinner and talk and laugh and love,” he tells PEOPLE on the one-year anniversary of her death. “I wanted to ‘date’ again, non-romantically, just having a companion.”

It just so happens those companions are women, not because he’s attracted to them — they’re often married to his friends — but because he generally tends to “get along much better” with women than with men.

He explains his reasoning for going out with multiple women is to avoid making any headlines that he has a “new girlfriend.”

“So I ‘dated’ two women at the same time, and the three of us would go out for dinner — and I found I loved it.” He adds, “I love dating two women, so I continue doing that today. But I think there’ll come a point when I’ll probably start dating individual women.”

PEOPLE caught up with Hamel on the one-year anniversary of Somers’ death after he, along Somers’ son Bruce Somers Jr. and her six grandchildren, attended a ceremony at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California, where Suzanne’s headstone was laid at her grave.

The headstone, labeled “Hamel-Somers,” featured an image of Hamel and Somers from 1980 and the words “We are one.”

Afterwards, the family gathered for lunch at Hamel’s Palm Springs home. Hamel says they shared “funny stories” about Suzanne and remembered the advice she gave her grandchildren.

“She said the most important thing about growing up and figuring out what you’re going to do with your life is to follow your passion,” Hamel says. “Don’t listen to your intellect, because your intellect will usually lie to you. Only listen to your guts. Listen to your instincts, and you won’t go wrong.”