A year ago last Tuesday, I swiped right because some guy close to my age with an attractive photo managed to make me laugh really hard. This is what I wrote about the whole online dating experience when you’re over 50 nearly a year ago, and it is still funny. To think I was worried what he would think of me because I wanted to kiss him on our second date! Ha!
A year ago two weeks from now, we decided we would be exclusive, much to the chagrin of everyone around us. (At least it felt like that to me.) Some of those people have come around, though others remain skeptical and suspicious. But it has been a year, and so far, I have found no evidence that he is evil, a charlatan, or insincere. On the contrary – he has been kind, generous, trustworthy, and what you see is what you get.
I think I have met most of his family, and we regularly take his mom and aunt out and about. He’s met all of my kids, a lot of my friends, and most importantly, my cousin, sister-in-law, and older brother. Listen, if my brother approves, then the deal is sealed. He has an uncanny way of reading people, so his opinion was the one that had me holding my breath. I’m happy to say I was able to exhale rather quickly. Obviously.
I often wonder if old people dating years are like dog years? It feels that way sometimes. It’s been a year, but it feels like we’ve known each other for centuries. Okay, maybe not actual centuries, but a lot longer than a mere twelve-month cycle around the sun. Is it just because we’re old?
So, it’s been a year.
What have we learned in a year? That we find each other very amusing. I am constantly laughing. Many things we say to each other are funny only to each other, I think. Take this exchange, for instance:
“I have dead worms on my shoes,” I tell him one morning after my daily walk. It had rained the night before and there were worms on the pavement. It’s as if they all thought there was a rave they had to attend and then couldn’t get back to their little wormholes before it was too late.
“You have what?” he asks, incredulous.
“I have dead worms on my shoes,” I tell him again.
“Never in the history of mankind have those words been strung together before,” he says. To prove it, he Googles the phrase. No results. I’m peeing my pants laughing. Who does that? The Googling, I mean. The peeing of pants laughing is a common occurrence.
And then there is this exchange. One weekend, he says to me out of nowhere:
“I like boobies.”
Not a surprise, lots of people do. What follows, however, was. Pregnant pause, and then:
“And cheese.”
Cheese? What? And cheese? In what universe do those two things go together? I was howling. Cheese! Now, when we just want to giggle, we say to each other, “Boobies and cheese.” Hilarity ensues.
On the morning of the dead worms, after we have established that I am indeed an original, he Googles his phrase. What comes up? A song, called “I love boobies” sung by none other than Richard Cheese. (?!?) He sends me the link. I then listen to the whole song. The whole ridiculous thing. Did he? Nope.
I learned a new euphemism I hadn’t ever heard before: shirt potatoes. Shirt potatoes! Who comes up with this stuff? Peeing our pants laughing again.
Fortunately, I am not normally incontinent, so the peeing-pants-laughing is merely to demonstrate that if I were incontinent, I’d need new disposables pretty regularly. That could get pricey, so I’d better keep up the Kegels.
Most of the time, our conversations are really boring. We discuss the ups and downs of his business, the trials and tribulations of the seemingly never-ending chore list at both our houses, the weekend weather and if we might get in a hike, and whether or not either of us has lost a pound during the week. Invariably, there will be laughter.
I think the only time I have not been laughing continuously was during the catastrophic injury phase of our relationship. That was rough, but we got through it. Sunshine and rainbows it wasn’t. (Nor was it boobies and cheese.)
But we’re back to laughing, a lot.
So, yeah, this is what old people dating is like after a year together.
