Dear Wally 72

(Old) Men Troubles



Dear Wally,

I am a woman of a certain age who has never gone for much older or younger men. That is still true. My preference is someone within three or four years of my own certain age, which is none of your business. My problem is I never go for anyone anymore because men my own age have started looking and acting really decrepit. In fact they often look like my grandfather. I don’t want to date someone whose diaper I need to change or who will set their chattering dentures on my night table before bed or whom I’ll need to stuff with Viagra every 15 minutes like he’s a NYC parking meter or someone who grunts or smacks their lips when they sleep. That’s not my idea of fun.

Please don't come up with an easy answer such as change my preferred age.

Hoping you will have a solution. I’m artistic and attractive by the way.

-Randy (not my real name, but close)

Dear Randy:

Diapers? Decrepit? Agonal breathing? Just how old are you anyway that within 3-4 years of your age you are winding up with Methuselahs like this? Are you trying to pick up guys at a nursing home or the ICU? Are you speed dating stiffs at the morgue?

There’s a fellow at my gym who must have been alive when Lincoln was president and he’s in fine fettle. Doesn’t even grunt when he’s lifting weights, unlike the gentlemen it seems you tend to couch. You might just be a looky loo and show up.

When my grandfather died 37 years ago, I thought my beloved grandmother might be lost. So as a kid I wrote a letter to bachelor Marlin Perkins who was then the already very old host of Mutual of Ohmaha’s ‘Wild Kingdom’ --the tv show ostensibly about shooting zebras in the rump with dart guns as they ran willy-nilly and petrified across the African grasslands. (In fact the show was a shill somehow for life insurance but that was lost on this whippersnapper at the time). Anyway, he was the oldest looking person I knew of other than my dead grandfather and he actually looked a little like my grandmother (matching age spots) when he was leaning out the chopper door hooting and hollering. My letter was never answered but even to this then 6 year old, it was clear there were options out there for the willing and patient. So ‘Randy’ rest assured.

Do you go to a car dealer and ask for the oldest piece of crap they have? The one that won’t even make it off the lot without breaking? The one with bald tires that backfires? The one with a large suspicious puddle of some brightly colored lubricant under it? No one likes getting stuck on the side of the highway because their fuel pump or timing chain went out. Fuel pumps and timing chains break on old, used cars. You, my friend, have been hanging out on the old used car lot. And if you buy an old, used car, beware--you will also need to buy AAA with unlimited towing, do you hear what I say?

Anyway, where I’m going with this is maybe you can do some internal work to revisit the whole objection to younger men thing, and thus your objection to my ‘easy answer’ of lowering your age requirements. (Why wouldn’t anyone want an easy answer? Hmmmm. You stumped me).

I’m sure you have much to offer a young buck beyond carnal satisfaction --experience, appreciation for chamber music, the ability to cook without a microwave, actually remembering the 60’s (and the 50’s?) (Egads, the 40’s??).

And the spoils of such a relationship would be myriad, including only getting told stories once and not having your date pitch forward in his oatmeal if it is after 6pm.

I’m not saying to go pace the chain link fence at the local college, but how about splitting the difference between 18 and 108?

The worst that is going to happen if you start trolling the waters for young men is that you will be accused of being a cougar (so what?) by jealous friends, mocking members of the public and readers of this column, if there even are any left. Technically a woman one single day older than her target is a cougar, so don’t get hung up on the definition no matter where between the goal uprights (i.e 18-108) you are.

Of course if you do still object to being with a guy too much younger, yet want all the sparks flying (ahem) except stimulating conversations and bad morning breath, then there is another option-- Get the other kind of boyfriend. (I’d put the term boyfriend in quotes but it’s too salty).

Hope this helped. By the way, if you find you like this last option, please, save some batteries for the rest of us and our flashlights-- hurricane season is coming.

-Wally

Got a question that needs answering or just want to learn how to tweak your match.com profile so the old geezers with no money stay away? Email him at cwn4@aol.com This is also a good address for your irate letters.