Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Dating Game - Hope springs eternal, or something.

While raiding the fridge for my midnight snack, and preparing to watch the ever-radiant Barbarella on Letterman tonight, I caught an ad on the tube for an outfit calling itself OurTime.com and informing us that it's for those of us in the 50-plus bracket....

Hmmmm.... fifty-plus, huh? Around the middle? Or around the calendar? Or perhaps both? Anybody who is over fifty is definitely 'over the hill' and for that matter, anybody over thirty these days is scaring the hell out of that hill themselves. I've been over fifty for almost thirty years now, and thirty years is practically a lifetime career, so I've got a lot of experience at being over fifty and over the hill. It's disgustingly familiar territory to me.

A dating club for the over-fifties is a lot like forming an auto club for owners of
antique cars. You can get together once a month if you can get it started, and
your rheumatism isn't acting up too badly, and your laser eye surgery has healed enough so that you can get a good look at the other stuff, and your pension for this month isn't all spent yet, and there's still a little gas in the tank, and your suit came back from the cleaners without falling apart on you, and well, you get the picture, I'm sure....

Meeting other over-fifties will not be the greatest adventure of your life. More like a convention of aging used car salesmen, reminiscing about the good old days that probably never were that good to begin with, and trying to pretend that the ravages of time and high mileage aren't really so bad after all. The hell they aren't! Take a look in the mirror. I dare you! The main reason I cut myself shaving so often these days is because I'm in such a hurry to get it over with,
so I won't have to look at that ugly old fart that's looking back at me!

Those gold miners seeking riches from us old pensioners really ought to be ashamed of themselves. And we ought to know better than get anywhere near them, let's face it. Besides, I'd rather be lonely than miserable.

2 comments:

  1. Good one Ray. My 94 Mum once said
    "I look in the mirror and I do not recognize the person looking back at me".

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  2. @ Peter -

    Glad you enjoyed it, Pete, and I hope you recover from that eye surgery in time to enjoy the bikini season.

    Life's a big circle: we start out gazing wistfully at things we can't have, and we end up the same way several decades later.

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