I have a casual friend in her mid forties who’s been on the dating treadmill since her divorce four years ago.
This lady owns her own home outright, the market value of which is somewhere around 3/4 of a million dollars. She’s gainfully employed and her kids are pretty much finished with their college educations.
She’s in reasonable health, attractive and has a newish automobile.
And she’s always, perpetually miserable about (you guessed it) some man.
Our circle viewed her with respect when she ditched her abusive clod of a husband, and with sympathy when she started dating again. We watched her with affectionate chagrin as she, in midlife, regressed to an adolescence most of us experienced at a more age-appropriate time – embarassing oneself in public, the serial dating, the heartbreaks and disappointments.
At this point, though, it’s gotten old – very old. Having gone through more tha enough periods of dating-induced misery in my twenties, thirties and even forties, I don’t want to relive it again, especially vicariously.
So, yesterday, when I saw her, that all-too-familiar hangdog look distorting her face, I couldn’t bring myself to ask anything more than a casual “How are you?”
Truth is, I knew how she was: unhappy because once again, she’d been badly treated by a male person whom she’d pinned her hopes on.
I’ve wondered, both to myself and out loud, what does she really want? What would marriage offer her that she doesn’t have now? Not financial security, certainly. Not kids, hers are grown up and she doesn’t want to start that cycle again. Perhaps a dinner companion, or someone to play cards with? Seems like not much of a reason to want to be married.
For the young folks, marriage is a ticket to respectability and financial success. It’s proof that you’re one of the group. It’s the main societally-approved way, although not the only way, fortunately, to raise a family.
Marriage in middle age is a whole different story. I don’t “get it” exactly, unless it’s the old, cynical story of a woman down on her luck financially and a man with major erectile dysfunction who wants a Barbie doll.
Maybe I’m jaded because in my generation, you always find a lot more on-the-ball women than men at any function, whether social or professional.
Anyway, I’m tired of my casual friend’s complaining about the way she gets dumped on – after all, what does she expect?