Guest Blogger: Sixty And The City
How’s about NO? Remember when you were a kid? Your birthday was anticipated and greeted with pure unadulterated joy. Now, for sure aging is a gift and hell of a lot better than the alternative; but one notices a real shift when one hits 60.
The first time your age comes up on the dating sites as 60 or even a little older, things change. Now, yes, we all shave off a few years; but eventually that shaving catches up and you’re 60. You’re really 63 but that’s just mathematics.
Don’t understand the metrics of the sites or the apps but the traffic takes a precipitous nose dive at 60+. Now why should that be? I’m the same person as I always was, just older and on some levels a better version. To some men, that 60 number reads O-L-D!! Cut me a break, this is felt by guys who are far north of 60, but whatever.
Anyway, I faced this ground shift and said the hell with it and reached out on the sites to men who are “age appropriate”. That is different for everyone. For me, it starts at mid 50’s and goes to late 60’s. BTW, I recently decided to skew to the mid 50’s and it’s going very well. More another time.
Several months back, I met what I thought was a fabulous guy. His name was Dick+++ and he was smart, fun, kind and we had a ton of common interests and he was tall. WOOHOO! Call me shallow but I like someone who is taller than I am. Just saying.
Keep his name in your head as it will be more valid quite soon!
Anyway, he hit it out of the park on the first date. We went to a great roof top bar had drinks and a lot of laughs. In the middle of the date, he got an SOS from his daughter and he had to hit the road. I walked him to Grand Central and received a yummy kiss. All good.
I skipped all the way to the subway! NOT KIDDING! Well, kidding; but it felt like skipping. I was slightly bummed that we couldn’t spend more time together but I get that kids always come first, even when they are adult kids.
He texted me several times telling me what a fabulous time he had and all that jazz. All very flattering and quite delightful. Between first date and second date, I got charming good morning texts every morning and a few texts throughout the day. They were welcomed as they weren’t the “am sucking the air from your lungs” kind of texts. You know those kind when the guy has planned up your life for the next six months right after the first date.
Some women would love that but I’m from the group that feels smothered with too much attention too soon. To me, there is a fine line between attentiveness and virtual stalking. Also, and this goes for men and women, too much too soon smells a little like desperation and I will take a huge Pasadena on that.
Second date we went to dinner. I had him falling off his seat with laughter. Brilliant guy, he got immediately that I was funny. We talked for hours about our lives, kids, and cultural stuff. We even talked politics which in today’s crazy world can be troublesome but we were on the same page so it was a gas just to talk to another like-minded person. Plus, and this is BIG plus, he was as smart as I and actually, smarter. LOVE THAT!!!
No convo about the exes because as I have stated why ruin a perfect evening by bringing up a bad meal? There’s plenty of time for all that kind of stuff. In my head, it’s closer to never but understand that at some juncture one has to visit the “x files”.
Dick drove me home and asked if he could come upstairs and I said sure. He came up and we had a glass of wine. He was a little aggressive but I decided that his ardor was a little overwhelming but still within limits. I sent him home with a big fat kiss and went to bed ALONE!
I went on the site where we met to confirm his age. He was older than my made-up age but a tad younger than my real age. I’m talking about a few months.
Third date, we met for brunch, went to a museum, walked around and even went to fairway. Oddly, even Fairway was fun. I was pleased as I had just come off doing the freak out dance because of the change in status with my FWB (friends with benefits). I was BACK and having a good time and that huge weight in my chest lifted magically. YIPPEE!!!!!
Dick is an avid baseball fan and was going that evening to a baseball game with his daughter. Was it the playoffs? I think so but who remembers? I told him that I was indeed a lapsed Yankees fan but would love to get back into it and go to a game some time. Apparently, this was music to his ears. We were talking and acting like we knew each other for way longer than we did.
Rather than just drop me off, I asked him to come up as he had some time before he was going to meet his daughter for this baseball game. I was rocking him and really loved that he had such a close relationship to his child. Nothing beats a man who is a good and engaged parent.
I was so comfortable that I told him my actual age. Part of me was horrified but the other part of me said why not tell him??? What’s the big deal?? He said that my being just 9 months older was no big deal as he liked “older” women, wink, wink. Wink, wink, my tush but that’s for later.
We had some wine and snacks and eventually, moved into the bedroom. Now, I have no delusions about what I look like dressed and undressed. As I have aged, I have completely lost my inhibitions about my body. I am so much more fun and so much less uptight, which is odd given my legs do have the map of the United States on them; but the hell with it, I don’t care. Well, I do care but have decided that screw it, I’m a better version of me at 6.0 than at 2.0
In the old days, as in when I was a much younger woman, my boyfriend was never allowed to walk behind me when we were naked because I was uptight about my BFA. Can you figure that out? Big fat ass. Now, I don’t have a BFA but I have the residual reminder of the BFA in my head plus 40 years.
BTW, he looked terrific with no clothes on. Did he look like a 30 year old, of course not, but he looked damn good for a 60+year old man.
He kept complimenting me on my aforementioned blue and white legs (he didn’t say that) and all was apparently bumping along in the “right” direction. WOOPS, it appeared that there was a mechanical difficulty, if you know what I mean. I felt awful for him, as men have a thing and I get it about performance. Their egos are often vested in how the whole horizontal cha cha goes. This is where people on some level are truly at their most vulnerable. I was, as any person would be in this situation, as kind and understanding as possible.I didn’t make light of it; but didn’t make it into an operetta either. I gave it my best and IT wasn’t working. Ok, well, there’s always next time and he seemed to be on the same page with that assessment.
Dick had to go as it was time to leave for the game. While he was getting dressed, we were kidding around and joking and the bedroom malfunction was not on the conversation play list. It was not at all uncomfortable. He gave me one of those movie star kisses goodbye bending, me over in one of those fabulous clinches. So, the next day, my back wouldn’t work. Who cared?
No sooner had I closed the door, there was a text saying what a good time he has with me and that we should get together real soon. I was relieved that the earlier malfunction was not going to spoil our budding relationship. Throughout the evening, he sent me several funny as hell texts. PHEW, I thought to myself.
Next morning, I got up and Dick’s usual morning text was not there. Part of me thought, uh oh, something not right because after 1 1/2 months of waking up to these texts it was weird not to have one. I told myself to stop acting like an adolescent and move on with my day.
At about two, with no text in site, I texted Dick and asked how the game was. After about 15 minutes, I received a very curt text saying and I quote, the vast difference in our age was something that he couldn’t get passed. I was dumbfounded and at a loss for words but I regained my ability to text and wrote him back saying that I was confused and blah blah blah and could we talk. Dick wrote back that there was nothing to talk about and that his mind was made up. Thought that came immediately into my mind was WHAT A DICK!!!
One doesn’t have to be a therapist to realize that my age had nothing the hell to do with it and the “vast differences in our ages” was BS.
I was a little stung but I wasn’t going to let this DICK put me off my quest to find a wonderful partner. And, if that partner has bedroom “issues”, we would work them out. And yes, as I have opined on this very blog about the joys of sex and sex can be fabulous, however, I do understand and honestly know that there is so much more to a relationship that is important. First and foremost being a mensch which apparently this DICK was not.
The takeaway: first, there really is something in a name! I have sworn off anyone whose name is Dick, only kidding but why not?
Secondly, and more important, clearly, this was an insecure guy who could not face his own “problem” and wanted to foist it off on me. How that became in his eyes my problem? Am not quite sure but guess what, it wasn’t and I was over it.
So my friends, watch out for those Dicks and keep your eye on the prize because he is out there.
NEXT! 🙂
BTW, about a month ago, I got a text from this very same DICK. Guess what I did? DELETE!
About the Author:Ellen lives and works in NYC. Her blog Sixty And The City takes us on a poignant and funny ride of the dating scene after 60. Follow Sixty And The City on Instagram and stay tuned here on Kuel Life for more anecdotes. This blog has been reposted with permission from  Sixty And The City.
