Do the Rules of Romance Change After 50?
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Relationship experts talk about intimacy and romance in midlife.
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The Today Show
Relationship experts talk about intimacy and romance in midlife.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
BLOGGER: MARY LANGUIRAND, PHD
There are days when it takes all the self control I possess to be with Carol, a pleasant 87 year old woman with mild age-related cognitive loss. I can empathize with the complaints about the kids who don’t visit often enough, the aide who forgets to put her phone within reach, and the salad with the wilted lettuce. However, I sometimes think that if I hear one more repetition of the story about how her husband bought her a cherished emerald ring in 1973, I may tear out my hair. It’s a long story, it never changes, and I believe I’ve heard it at least twice a month for the past three years.
Short-term memory tends to fade with advanced age, as it is based on such factors as ability to attend to the environment, maintain focused concentration, and track complex information. As illness, diminished energy and perceptual changes erode some of those capacities, the ability to recall recent information diminishes. In contrast, memories from years past strengthen, having been reviewed and repeated (and revised and edited) many times. Caregivers often marvel that Mom can’t remember her upcoming doctor’s appointment, but can tell you what she paid for milk in 1964.
You might think that listening to the same story over and over would be a neutral or—at worst—a mildly boring experience. After all, we hear all sorts of things repeatedly—recorded messages on trains and busses, the music in TV jingles, liturgical passages at religious ceremonies—and many people find the familiar tolerable, and even soothing. Why then, do so many caregivers report that hearing yet again about Dad’s heroic actions in the fields of Korea or Mom’s days as a cheerleader can drive them to drink?
Much of the frustration comes from the fact that this sort of repetition is one of the most inescapable “proofs” that someone has reached a point where they are more comfortable in the past than in the here-and-now, and that this isn’t likely to change. The effort of attending to current realities is too much, and they’ve surrendered to the comfort of the familiar. The content of these repeated tales is also rather telling, as it can give some clues to those events and experiences that impacted the person most profoundly: If a parent’s most cherished memory relates to things that happened long before you were born, what does that say about you?
Repetition apparently isn’t limited to the senior set… When emailing a younger colleague recently, I shared a past experience that I thought resonated with some current events, and was quite chagrined when reminded that I’d already told that story. I felt rather hurt that my misplaced effort at empathy (and the chance to recount how I’d saved the day ‘back in the day’) apparently generated boredom and annoyance, along with the message that I’m forgetful. No kidding—I really don’t remember having told that one before…
Once I moved past the hurt feelings, I began to think about getting my act together and scoring some points in the present, instead of resting on past laurels, which is probably a good thing. I also began to develop a new appreciation for Carol’s experience. I thought about my own response to her oft-told story about the emerald ring, and how I regularly discount her need to re-live a time when she felt loved and special. I just hope profoundly that I don’t communicate my impatience as clearly as my colleague did.
I can’t honestly say that the story took on a new glow when I heard it again, but I did realize that maybe Carol shares it with me because our interactions remind her of that time when she felt valued, and appreciated, with years of life yet to be lived and goals yet to be accomplished. Maybe I need to put more effort into helping her to recapture those feelings in her current relationships.
Realize that when someone relates an experience to you you’re hearing about it for a reason. Don’t just hear, listen.
Mary Languirand and Robert Bornstein are the authors of When Someone You Love Needs Nursing Home, Assisted Living, or In Home Care, published by Newmarket Press. The second edition, revised and updated, was recently released. Here’s the link: http://www.newmarketpress.com/title.asp?id=901
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Sex and the Sixty: The Date
Blogger: Renee Fisher
Before reading, if you haven’t read the first three blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop
When my friend Susan goes on actual dates, she does exactly the same things that most people do. She goes out to dinner. She goes to the movies. She goes to female impersonator shows. But somehow, the end result always seems to veer off course.
Sometimes, she and the guy never even make it to the actual date. On one occasion, she and her date planned a picnic. They would meet in the parking lot near the picnic area. They had decided that they would each bring food. Susan was to bring the wine; her date was to bring an assortment of cheeses and crackers. A romantic first date was anticipated by Susan. Subsequent events would make her less optimistic. Her date was late, and then, when he finally arrived, she watched him circle the parking lot for about five minutes before he finally parked the car.
When he did finally did pull into a parking space and Susan came over to his car, she asked him if there was a problem. He said there was no problem, but he immediately complained about the day being so warm and his wanting a soda during the drive and stopping at a 7-11 to get one, but not being willing to spend $1.50. Susan then told him that she had wanted to call him to see why he was late, but she didn’t have his cell number. He told her he didn’t own a cell phone because they were too expensive.
They then walked to what Susan described as “the edge a cliff” (Susan doesn’t get into parks very often). Susan carried a bottle of wine and two glasses. She noticed that her date didn’t seem to be carrying anything.
By now, she was adding up all the negatives of the situation and deciding that she really just wanted to go home. She told him she wasn’t feeling well, and decided to pass on the “picnic.” Her date expressed concern and asked her if she wanted to just go back to his car, sit and eat the crackers and two slices of Velveeta that were in his pocket. Susan told him she was allergic to Velveeta and left. She took the bottle of wine home with her and consumed a fair amount of it that evening.
Another favorite of mine (I’m not sure why Susan doesn’t find quite the humor in it that I do), is one that I referred to briefly in a previous column. I will now divulge all the details. Susan and a man planned a movie date at a theater that was located in a shopping mall. By the time they arrived, the theater was packed, and they couldn’t find seats together. Her date rearranged the entire audience by telling them he was going to propose to her and they had to sit together. One of the people who was forced out of her seat was an elderly woman with a walker. She ended up being moved to the first row, and being separated from her companion, all in the name of “love.”
Susan was mortified, but she said nothing. The movie began and after about 30 minutes, Susan’s date announced that he was going to get popcorn. He then disappeared for an hour. Susan considered the possibilities and decided that one of two things had occurred. Either he had a heart attack and the EMT had taken him away, not knowing that he had a date still sitting in the movie. The other possibility was that the elderly woman in the front row had beaten him senseless with her walker.
It turned out that neither of these had occurred. Her date finally returned, loaded with packages. He said he had gone shopping because he didn’t like the movie. He especially needed a new pair of shoes, and luckily, he found a store that had the perfect ones. He then proceeded to dig into his shopping bag to show her. Susan was so stunned, she didn’t say a word. When the movie ended, she walked to the front of the theater to try to find the elderly woman and ask her if she could borrow her walker for a moment. But the woman had already left.
I will explore more of Susan’s antics in subsequent postings. Luckily for you and me, if not for Susan, there seems to be a never-ending supply.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: The Coffee Shop
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
Before reading, if you haven’t read the first three blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
When Susan agreed to my rules about coffee only/60 minute maximum, she decided it would be a good idea to knock out (well, not literally) as many men as possible on a daily basis, and thus began setting up two coffee dates per weekend day, one per hour. The venue was a local bagel bakery in a crowded suburb of DC.
On one especially lucrative day, Susan managed to schedule three men, back-to-back. She set up a 10:00 a.m. date, went in, got a cup of coffee, sat innocently at the table in a bright chartreuse shirt (easily identifiable so that no man would ever mistake another woman for her), and waited for her date. Enter Date #1. He found her, they chatted. After approximately 50 minutes, she walked him out the door, said good-bye in the parking lot and then headed back into the bagel place.
She then touched up her lipstick, rid herself of the cup of coffee, and checked to make sure her mascara was still in place. I’m not sure why Susan felt that the act of drinking coffee would damage her mascara, unless the coffee were so hot as to make her make up evaporate, in which case, it would also have been suitable material for a lawsuit.
She then procured another cup of coffee and waited for her next victim (oops, date). Date #2 entered, and he and Susan went through the same scenario. In 45-50 minutes, Date #2 was out the door. For her third date, Susan re-entered the bagel bakery, and she was handed her third cup of coffee. As she walked away from the counter to pay for it, she overheard one of the cashiers whisper to another cashier “Ah, here comes the Bagel Hooker again.”
I can relate to this. For a couple years before I started dating my second husband, I met all of my internet dates at a diner that was directly across the street from my office. That way, I could, at whatever moment I desired, announce, “Wow, gotta get back to the office!” Unlike Susan, I didn’t schedule dates back-to-back. But Susan has always been much more efficient than I was about men.
Unlike a coffee or bagel shop, this diner had a hostess who would seat people. Each week I had one or two meetings with men. Each time I would say to the hostess, “I’m meeting a man here but I don’t know exactly what he looks like.” Then, after an hour, we would leave together. After several weeks, I noticed that whenever I came into the diner, the employees would stop what they were doing, watch me, and shake their heads knowingly.
Then one morning, I met my friend Crazy Debbie for breakfast at the diner. Debbie is nothing if not memorable. It was a weekend morning, and the diner was very crowded. I arrived first and got a booth at the far end of the room. About ten minutes later, Debbie swept into the diner wearing a nightgown, fur boots, and a tiara. She had a purple oval painted on her forehead. When the hostess asked if she could help her, Debbie replied in a very loud voice, “I’m meeting my lover here!” scanned the room, located me, pointed in my direction and announced, “And there she is!”
From that moment on, I morphed from a mere call girl into a genuine celebrity in the eyes of the diner staff.
I think I’ve covered all bases now leading up to relating the actual live meetings between Susan and Her Men. That, depending on how long this friendship lasts at this point, will await that time until either Susan accumulates more stories or until she remembers the ones that were so traumatic that she has temporarily blocked them from her memory.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Not a Good Match
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
If you haven’t read the first two blogs in the series, you can click the links below:
Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
After my friend Susan is contacted by men on various computer dating sites, and, after she continues to communicate with them via personal email and phone calls, she is able to eliminate most of them as not a good match for her. “Not a good match” may mean various things: One of the categories of “not-a-good-match” men include those who send her photos of their genitals. Susan assures me that this has happened on more than one occasion. I didn’t ask her if they were Glamour Shots or just candid. A second category that I have mentioned before are those who have yet to master the art of “spell check” on the computer. Here’s the most recent example, caps included:
YEP YOU ARE A LIVE WITH THE CHEESE AND CRACKERS YOU NEE WINE AND I WORK FOR A IMPORTER OF FINE FRENCH ARGENTINA AND SPANISH WINE I BE A GREAT PERSON TO GET TO KNOW
Another category includes men who have small children/pets/ex-wives (note: The children are small, but the pets and ex-wives can be any size) who take up most of their time. One man told Susan he had to go to his ex-wife’s house on a regular basis to mow the lawn. Unless he was destitute and worked out handyman/lawn services with the judge as a substitute for financial support, I’m thinking maybe he wasn’t quite ready to move on. Another had to end all dates by 8PM so he could go home and take care of his dog. About the only women he could develop a relationship with would be the ones who worked the night shift. A fourth category includes men who have other considerations that should preclude them from entering the dating world (or any other world, for that matter). One man told Susan he had no teeth and said that his son told him it might be a good idea to wait until he had his dentures before venturing out into the dating scene. Another man told Susan he was separated, and, when she asked him further, he revealed that “separated” meant that he was living in DC during the week and going home on weekends but had neglected to tell his wife that he considered himself “separated during his week in DC”) and then he couldn’t understand why Susan didn’t want to date someone who could have him all to herself all week long. If a man isn’t eliminated by any of the above circumstances, Susan usually agrees to meet him for coffee. She used to meet men for dinner, but I got really tired of hearing about four hour meetings, since the length of time usually had nothing to do with the quality of the date or the intention of either Susan or the man in question to ever get together again. The length of the meeting had more to do with Susan’s uncanny ability to have an hours- long conversation with anybody, including, in a pinch, inanimate objects. Because of this, I set ground rules for her: one hour at Starbucks or another place that serves coffee. Not a minute longer. Susan agreed, but she still came up with really creative ways to foil my best efforts. In the next episode, we will explore some of these.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50 www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist for examiner.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Susan Gets Online
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
Click here to read the first blog in the Sex in the Sixty Series – Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
For those skeptics who might be thinking that my friend Susan’s poor results are because she hasn’t put enough of an effort into online dating, rest assured that she has been on most internet dating sites since the very first one (CaveMatch.com). She has only excluded the ones that will result in the FBI confiscating her computer. Both eHarmony and chemistry.com have now told her they can do nothing more for her unless she “expands her search area.” For Susan, this would mean either searching for men who are younger than her son, older than a Civil War veteran, or who are currently incarcerated.
After Susan is initially contacted by men on the various sites, she usually emails back and forth with them, using her personal email. Sometimes a phone call or two is part of the scenario.
One man told her he lived on a boat and wrote a long email explaining that he lived with a gorgeous 18 year old Dane. Susan assumed he was talking about a dog. He wasn’t. Another man spent a lot of time writing to her about his fishing trip. About the only fishing trip that ever held my attention for any length of time was the one in “Deliverance,” and this man’s email was longer than the “Deliverance” screenplay.
Susan sends me some of the emails that she gets. These are mostly from men who don’t have spell check on their computers:
“…let,s see,are there really any woman out there that are looking for true love, or are you all stell way to picky…”
“…she be my best friend, loving, caring, faithfull, understanding,be d/d free, clean about her self…”
“…i,m a BIG redskins fan, and have been sents 1969…”
One man, who seemed like a good prospect and who had a fair command of the English language, was very anxious to meet her in person. A coffee date was arranged for the following weekend, and each day, he would tell Susan how he couldn’t wait for their meeting. Then, a couple days before the weekend, he sent an email saying,
“I think it would be best if I canceled this Sunday…On Tuesday this week – it seems like a month ago – I met someone else online. We’ve yet to meet in person…but we spoke on the phone for an hour and a half – till her battery went dead….I’m amazed at how far, and how fast things have progressed. Maybe we’ve each found the person we’re both looking for…the degree of emotional closeness has developed very fast. Besides, I’m not good at trying to date two women at the same time. So, I sincerely wish you the best. I continued talking to you about meeting because there was a certain momentum there. I really was eager to meet you in person.”
I asked Susan what the “momentum” was all about and why she thought his momentum with the other woman trumped hers. All Susan could think of was that the other woman’s momentum was larger than hers.
Susan still has a lot of emails to sift through (something like 29 at last count), and I’ll be curious to see what she comes up with. I’ve suggested some ground rules for her when she meets guys, like only meeting for coffee and limiting the meeting to one hour. I figured that would minimize the damage. As we’ll see in the next posting, I was wrong. Very,very wrong.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Sex and the Sixty: Online Dating
BLOGGER: RENEE FISHER
My friend Susan has had such a long, varied and rocky career as a dating single, that I, as one of her closest and dearest friends, listen to her tragic stories, and, as the caring, compassionate person I am, laugh myself sick.
It’s tough not to. Susan seems to attract a lot of really interesting and unique men. Some of them have “handles” that conjure up visions that make me a bit queasy:
pistolhead
riding cowboy
katlicker
dixiekraut
pistolpete
swabjock
Now for the actual words:
“I’m 62 but still active…”
Is he saying he is still sexually active or that he still has the ability to get out of bed in the morning?
“I haven’t been with a woman in eight years.”
If someone wrote that to me, I would immediately consult an attorney to find out which criminal offenses would result in an eight year prison term.
“Do ya judge the book by the appearance of the cover, or do ya open the cover to find out if the table of contents captures and peaks your interest enough to read more?”
Actually, I like to scan the index first, then check out the footnotes. Sometimes, I read the jacket, but other times I flip right to the author’s biography at the end…
This one is from “Looking For Busty”: “I am an older, independent, very safe, straight man in good shape and I like very much the younger woman who is busty, local and in very good shape for extra-curricular activities.”
Hey LFB, there are about 10,000 other guys waiting in line for her also. Good luck.
“I am looking for one woman, not two or more…”
I’m wondering about a person who has to clarify this. Has he had negative experiences with trying to find a soul mate and instead being tricked into having group sex?
“I am a very outgoing person and I always see the glass as half full. I’ve been told that I have a very humorist personality.”
This is also called the “Will Rogers Syndrome.”
“I’d like to volunteer this; I look and act a lot younger than I actually am.”
I’d like to volunteer this: 95% of people over the age of 45 would probably write exactly the same thing about themselves. The other 5% would use capital letters when they write the words “a lot.”
A recent poem Susan received had these lines hidden among all the others that professed undying love:
“When someone is willing to do without,
So your life is complete”
This would stop me in my tracks. This guy is either Bernie Madoff writing from his North Carolina jail cell or a man looking for someone to donate a kidney.
Susan was really excited when I told her I would write columns about her attempts at internet dating.
“You can be my blind author!” she exclaimed.
“I think you meant ‘ghost writer’,” I said.
Oh boy, are we going to have fun with this one.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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Seven Reasons to Date Women over 50
BLOGGERS: Renee Fisher, Joyce Kramer, and Jean Peelen
Single women over 50 who want to date, have discovered the terrible truth: Men over 50 don’t want to date them.
Single men over 50 are often looking for much younger women. And older men who are in less-than-perfect physical condition are often looking for women in perfect physical condition. To be fair, we also know that in many cases, this preference occurs “on paper,” meaning in the world of online dating. Put most of those same men in a room of age-compatible women, and attraction will occur. So, here’s what we propose to you men over age 50 who would like to have a real relationship with a real woman:
Put down the Viagra and spend a moment considering the following: Seven reasons why you should date women over 50.
1. Our biological clocks are gone forever. Or else, we have permanently misplaced them, along with our keys and cell phones. We’re not dating you because you’re good genetic material with which to produce offspring. We simply enjoy your company.
2. We live alone. For most of our lives before age 50, we lived with other people. Sometimes, we even knew who they were. We shared our living space with parents, roommates, lovers, husbands, children and assorted friends of our children who we discovered on couches, under beds, and in our garages. Now that we are alone, you get to be with us in a quiet, romantic setting. And you don’t have to wait in line to get to the bathroom.
3. We know that it is not our job to mold our partners. The phrase “I can change him” has been blasted out of our vocabulary by life experience. Part of the joy of being over 50 is that we now take people as they are. So settle down, relax and be happy you made the cut.
4. We don’t endlessly discuss commitment. The question “Where is this relationship going?” is about as useful to us as “Do you think the IRS will audit my return?” The joy is that we don’t spend time now in search of commitment. We simply spend time with people we like.
5. We have our own money. We like being financially independent, and we like deciding what we do or don’t do with our own money. We might agree to go Dutch, treat at times, or even enjoy paying your way, as long as that doesn’t intimidate you.
6. You don’t have to spend every minute with us. We have a close network of female friends. So you get to be with your guy friends, and we won’t feel left out. Or you can sail or play golf or whatever. If you don’t like to travel as much as we do, we can do that sometimes with our friends as well. And we won’t drag you to craft fairs unless looking for antique teapots really turns you on.
7. We will never ask you how we look in a dress. We have way too much self-confidence for that. Instead, we’ll just kiss you and ask, “How does it feel to be going out with the hottest woman on the planet?” And all you have to answer is “Great.”
We are changing the conversation about women over 50. We know that women over 50 are beautiful, sexy, vibrant, and will love you for exactly who you are. What better way to spend the years ahead.
Renee Fisher is a Realtor and writer who lives in the Washington, DC area. She is the co-author of two award-winning books about life after 50www.invisiblenomore.com and is the DC Boomer Humor columnist forexaminer.com DC-Boomer-Humor-Examiner.
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