A fictionalized dating-after-divorce essay.
After a decade-long relationship, I returned to dating at forty-five and discovered that the other people had been aging while I was busy. This struck me as a surprising administrative oversight.
Daniel, also forty-five, was funny, attractive, and easy to talk to. He had a few gray hairs. So did I, though I preferred to regard mine as a lighting issue.
The difficulty was not Daniel’s appearance. It was that my mental picture of a new romance had been stored years earlier and never updated. I expected the atmosphere of my thirties while bringing the calendar, sleep preferences, and lower-back opinions of my forties.
He complimented my hair. I briefly wondered whether he was being diplomatic. Then I realized I was responding to a pleasant evening by conducting an internal inventory of everything time had changed.
Daniel, meanwhile, was asking about a book I had mentioned. This was considerably more attractive than the imaginary younger date I kept comparing the evening with. That man existed mainly in memory and had never been required to book a restaurant recently.
I stopped inspecting us and listened. We had a good dinner. Neither of us became younger, but the evening improved when I stopped treating that as unfinished business.
There are adjustments involved in dating again. One is accepting that the present contains actual people, while the past has enjoyed years of favorable editing.
Daniel asked to see me again. I said yes, at a time that allowed both of us a decent night’s sleep. It felt surprisingly romantic.
