The cover of the May issue of National Geographic shows a baby with the caption, “This Baby Will Live to be 120.” Inside the magazine is the article, titled “On Beyond 100.”

Before diving headfirst into the article, Life in the Boomer Lane suspected it would be about the continuing rampant production of old people in our society and she briefly considered buying stock in Depends, hemorrhoid cream, and whatever company makes those hats that really old men wear when they are driving.

The article starts by highlighting several greys (not the extraterrestrial kind), five of whom are over 100 years old. They are, of course, terminally perky and don’t spend their days kvetching about their knee replacement, IBS, bad back, and the increasing discrepancy between the shape of their clothing and the shape of their actual body.

Back to longevity. For eons, people who live long lives have been asked to what they attribute their longevity. This is like asking one of those odious leggy blond-haired beach volleyball sluts to what she attributes her athletic prowess. It makes good copy, but it doesn’t answer the question.

Science, until lately, didn’t help. In a misguided attempt to extricate LBL from her nachos, long life has long been attributed to a severely restricted diet of non-fun foods, and a limited caloric intake in general. This is most likely because some researcher, decades ago, looked around at the surroundings of the centenarians who were being interviewed and noticed that none of them lived anywhere near a Golden Corral or a place that sells a Baconator. Hence, the fallacy began.

Actual research is a bit different. It turns out that, like virtually everything else (like the percentage of bad hair days in a given year), longevity is strongly influenced by genetics.

Depending on who you are, you are more or less inclined to develop cancer, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, diabetes, and Laron dwarfism. This is because, as humans spread across the planet, and the concept of limiting the number of carry-ons had not yet been invented, they took their genetic mutations with them. When they then settled in small, self-contained communities, the mutations, over the generations, eventually spread to most of the population.

If you are concerned with cancer and heart disease, be a Japanese American. If you are concerned with fat in your blood, be Old Order Amish. If you are concerned with high blood pressure and Alzheimer’s, be an Ashkenazi Jew. If you are concerned with not getting enough chicken nachos, meet LBL for dinner next week.

Several interesting side discoveries have been made. One was that by shutting down the growth hormone pathway in mice, the mice lived 40% longer than normal mice. Scientists are now looking at the link between short stature and longevity.

Another is that “the amount of thinking people are able to do in the executive prefrontal part of the brain while they walk and talk predicts the risk of dementia, loss of mobility, and falls.” This does not mean that you should start practicing walking and talking in unison. It means that a gene known as CETP (cholesterol ester transfer protein) gene protects against cardiovascular disease, and those who have it perform better on cognitive tasks.

One fascinating hypothesis is that the womb is yet another factor in determining life expectancy. Researchers predict that “influences en utero can etch chemical modifications in DNA and thus introduce lifelong changes in the activity of genes.” The DNA of umbilical stem cells of small and large newborns in the Bronx differs markedly from that of normal-sized babies. But, in all cases, no matter their size, the newborns all speak with a Bronx accent.

The best news about all of this is that a study run by the National Institute on Aging concluded that monkeys kept on a restricted-calorie diet for 25 years showed no longevity advantage. Scientists intended to do further research on the primates, but unfortunately, the monkeys have eaten all the scientists.

What can we take away from all this, aside from a pepperoni pizza? Nothing much. If you are reading this, you are either a family member of LBL or you are already decades into whatever genetic crap shoot you have been dealt.

Based on all research she has read so far, LBL is now off to feed her genes.

Having had such a swell time with my recent trip to the ER, I decided to arrange for another life threatening adventure. Since I had been caring for my one-and-a-half year old and three-and-a-half year old grandsons, all scary and deadly items had been safely stored away.  So I had to get creative.

Calling upon my vast knowledge of Ninja training (knowledge gathered painstakingly by listening to a brief comment made by someone in passing), I knew that Ninjas are trained to use innocuous items in devious ways. For example, in an average living room there are dozens of objects ninjas could use to kill you, including the room itself. Of course, most people have about 12 remotes now, so that number is easier to achieve.

Back to my story. While racing Elder Grandson from one end of the room to another, EG pulled a small throw pillow off the loveseat and batted my right hand. I heard a loud popping sound and noted that in the 65 years I had owned my right hand, I was fairly certain that I had never heard it make a noise. I looked down and was greeted with the sight of a a considerable amount of blood, gushing out of my hand.

Coincidentally, I had recently watched an episode of 24 in which the terrorist (or, in 24 lingo, “hostile”), grabbed Jack Bower’s (the fearless anti-terrorism agent who gets killed at least three times per episode and manages to come back to life with no ill effects) anorexic ex-girlfriend (who was also the daughter of the Secretary of Defense), and cut her somewhere on her neck so that she would bleed to death very slowly, through approximately three commercials. I mused on this as the blood ran down my hand and streamed  into the sink. Based on this looking remarkably like the anorexic ex-girlfriend of Jack Bower, I assessed my situation as grave, if not worse. In my case, I would not only die, but I would have ruined my carpet in the process.

I wrapped a hand towel around my hand, and when the towel turned completely red, I called a friend. She came rushing over and we all drove to the ER, where I was immediately asked, “What did this to you?” I answered, “A pillow.” A small crowd of ER types gathered around me, leaving patients unattended on gurneys. A conversation ensued, consisting mainly of “We’ve never had a pillow injury here.”

Two hours later, I had been x-rayed (nothing broken), got a tetanus shot and three stitches  and watched my hand blow up to resemble Mickey Mouse’s balloon hand at the Macy Day Parade. I was told that I had a massive hematoma that would take a week to go away. I was also told to expect my hand to turn black, and that if I wasn’t totally back to normal in a week, I should either consult a hand specialist or apply for a job at Disney World.

It wasn’t until I got home that I looked at the pillow again and saw that one of the three decorative buttons had chipped, creating a tiny sharp edge. So technically, I wasn’t attacked by a pillow, but rather by a button.

Two days later, my hand looks like it belongs on your average cadaver (bloodless white, bloated, with patches of a greyish blue color.) My palm is almost entirely dark grey. I can flex my fingers halfway. I can type but not write yet. I can’t point my finger, snap my fingers or give anyone the finger. If I could give anyone the finger, it would be the throw pillow. I will never trust another pillow again. Or a button. Or anything.

Just in case I haven’t mentioned it enough, my entire life has been impacted by my inability to get from point A to point B without the aid of a brain transplant. The history of my dysfunction has resulted in, among other things,

1. The dissolution of my first marriage
2. Numerous neuroses, fears, anxieties, and hysterias that have dogged me since childhood
3. My inadvertently voting for Ross Perot in 1992

This blog post is far too limited, and my ability to remain on task even less so, to get into the details. I will simply say that calling this malady a “bad sense of direction” is akin to describing life in North Korea as “quirky.”

The advent of the GPS has not helped. In spite of repeated attempts to change anything, mine is permanently on a secret default setting of “Most use of unpaved roads” and “Desire to inflict as many u turns as possible.”

At an age when the only people interested in my body are the manufacturers of comfort shoes and full support bras, science has found me. Enter Getting Lost, a research study out of Canada. I found them online and told them I thought I might be a good candidate for their study. They asked me a lot of questions, mostly about whether my parents and grandparents had the same malady as I do. Since no one in my family owned a car, I explained to them that getting lost was less of an issue for them. And, since my grandparents’ generation lived in villages in eastern Europe and their idea of a vacation was to have someone else stand in line at the communal water pump in the morning, I didn’t think it was an issue for them, either.

The test that Getting Lost sent me, placed a virtual Me in a virtual city and asked me to find my way out. Long after I have exited this planet, my virtual Me will still be wandering around that virtual city, cursing and believing that all of the virtual streets are changing direction every few minutes. In addition, the researchers had neglected to place any food establishments in the virtual city, not even a virtual Seven 11 selling long-expired baked goods wrapped in cellophane. This means that my virtual Me, in addition to being completely frustrated about being permanently lost, will also be pissed off about my inability to consume chocolate covered Donettes.

Having demonstrated an uncanny ability to get lost under even the simplest of circumstances involving only one dimension and a limited color palette, I am now officially in the study. The next step is to test my DNA, to see if those of us who have this disorder are genetically related. I suspect that we may all be members of the same small community in which we, for some reason, ended up here, while most of the others have been trying to figure a way out for the last 50000 years.

The results, when they come in, will be interesting but won’t really change anything. I will continue to live my life engaged in endless U-turns, and have difficulty recognizing people and remembering their names (two other characteristics of the disorder.) I will try to keep everyone informed, unless I get stuck somewhere out in the Great Unknown, which could be someplace two blocks from my house. Hopefully, it will be in front of a Seven-11.

The other night, Life in the Boomer Lane came perilously close to joining her ancestors in the Big Shtetl in the Sky. The events were as follows:

While having a conversation with her daughter, a virus and annoying cough she has been dealing with all week triggers a severe asthmatic reaction, resulting in LBL’s inability to do anything other than gag and regret that she never went all the way with Steve Jacobs back in 1967.

Daughter takes one look at LBL’s state of distress and rushes into the master bedroom, where Now Husband is sound asleep.

“Wake up! There is something wrong with my mom! Hurry! She’s choking or something!”

Now Husband leaps out of bed, runs directly into the family room, and gives every indication of having come immediately awake in all ways except brain functioning.

“What should we do?”

“She looks like she’s choking. Are you choking, Mom?”

LBL, concentrating entirely on an inability to breathe, is unavailable for comment.

A note here to anyone who is perched on the edge of death’s abyss: Try not to listen to what anyone around you is saying, unless you can have a direct impact on the conversation.

“We have to do something.” (Daughter, getting to the heart of the matter)

“Like what?” (Now Husband lags behind)

“Maybe one of those walk in emergency clinics. They have them all over.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Everywhere.”

“Like CVS? I think they are open 24 hours.”

LBL immediately switches gears from honing in on a vague image of death to a specific one of expiring between displays of ribbed and lubricated condoms and “As Seen on TV” frying pans. She manages to choke out a word she hopes sounds like “hospital.” It arrives as “hobble.”

“I think she wants to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll call 911.”

LBL prefers to avoid 911, given she is wearing pajama bottoms decorated with dried glue, a torn tee-shirt with no bra, and, as informed by daughter several hours ago, is in possession of a strange-looking two-tone neck as the result of sloppy self-tanner application. Unable to do more than flail her arms at this moment, she flails in the direction of the street, where Now Husband’s car is parked. Now Husband, by this time in possession of a minimally acceptable number of functioning brain cells, understands.

LBL and Now Husband leave the house and head for the car. LBL recalls the last time she experienced an emergency that required a trip to the ER. Now Husband, in his concern for her welfare, had inadvertently closed the car door on her hand. This allowed LBL to shift her thoughts from having a possible blood clot in her leg to a murky future with one hand. This time, she keeps her hands hidden from view. She is able to arrive at the hospital with both hands intact.

One emergency breathing treatment, a dose of steroids, and one lung x-ray later, LBL is released from the hospital with a rescue inhaler, a prescription for Prednisone and a brief lesson from the ER nurse about successful self-tanning.

The next night, she is awakened by a coughing fit. This time the coughing is the normal kind, in which oxygen plays a part. Now Husband jumps out of bed and announces “I’m getting dressed!” LBL asks why and Now Husband tells her it is to go to the ER. LBL tells him to go back to sleep. In 10 seconds he is snoring.

LBL is grateful that she has a life partner who, even more than loving her and being devoted to her, has now hopefully learned that life threatening emergencies should be dealt with by someone other than a CVS pharmacist.

When I received an inquiry from someone named Alan Brady, about being a guest poster on my blog, I immediately flashed back to the character of Alan Brady on the Dick Van Dyke Show. That Alan Brady was pompous, had a lot of hairpieces and made a lot of bad decisions.  He was a guy we loved to laugh at. This Alan Brady is a writer who uses personal experience as inspiration to write about family, the law, and business practices. He currently writes for Attorneys.com, which locates local child custody lawyers. We need to carefully read this Alan Brady.

*****

The way we view divorce has changed drastically over the last few decades. The intense social stigma that used to surround someone who left a marriage has faded to an ugly memory in our cultural consciousness, and younger Americans have never even heard the word ‘divorcee.’

The freedom to walk away from an unhappy relationship led to a bit of a divorce binge in the 1970s and 80s, when more than half of all married couples were calling it quits. Those numbers have been steadily dropping ever since, with one notable exception. Divorce rates for people above the age of 50 have doubled in the last twenty years, leading commentators to coin the term ‘gray divorce.’

Why now?

Observers discussing this trend have offered several possible explanations as to why divorce has become so common. The fact that the children have moved out, that more women work and earn enough money to be self-sufficient, and that the emergence of the Internet gives people hope of being able to find another partner in the future are the favored answers.

Perhaps to better understand these reasons it would be wise to ask why these couples waited so long to leave unhappy or unfulfilling marriages. In the 1980s, when the last of these couples would have been beginning their marriages, we as a nation were still referring to the children of divorced couples as being from ‘broken homes.’ The feeling that we must ‘stay together for the kids’ was born out of this stigma, which has largely faded among most Americans.

Just a few decades ago, we as a culture were sure that a divorce was a scandal and a divorced woman in particular should be ashamed of herself. Research has shown that the majority of gray divorces are initiated by the woman, which would suggest that this manufactured shame has finally been put aside.

Although women still make only a fraction of men in the same field, their financial independence has become a more plausible reality than it was when these couples embarked on their marriages. For many women this has given them their ticket to leave a marriage that is unfulfilling or unhappy.

Unique challenges

Ending a marriage is always full of challenges, but those hurdles are different for people who divorce later in life. While there aren’t likely to be child support or custody issues, and step-parenthood is less of a concern with adult children, the emotional stresses of leaving a long-term partner are the same. Add to that the fear of being ‘single at this age,’ or being alone for the first time in many years and you have some very real sources of stress.

There are also financial concerns that are unique to gray divorces, largely because of the fact that there is less time to recover financially. This may be a part of why fewer retired people are getting divorced, since they’re already living on a fixed income and won’t have an opportunity to earn more for their future. Working with a qualified financial planner can help you to be more secure and make leaving your unfulfilling relationship easier.

The joy of independence

Still, being alone after many years of marriage is an opportunity to reintroduce yourself to yourself. Take some time to explore new hobbies or forgotten interests. During a lifetime as a spouse and/or parent, it is easy to let the demands of others crowd out your own needs. Remember some things that made you happy, or made you feel good when you had time to focus on your own needs. If you can’t live for yourself now, when will you? Take up a hobby, join a book club or other interest oriented group, or do some volunteer work. Getting out, meeting new people, and trying new things are some of the biggest perks of independence.

For anyone struggling with the natural emotional turbulence that drastic changes like divorce bring on, find an effective support system to help you work through those issues. There are many support groups in existence, some even geared toward specific age groups. These offer a place for people to talk openly about the challenges they face and the different ways they’ve successfully overcome them.

If you have never experienced walking into a room and forgetting what you came there for, please stop reading immediately and go stand in a corner with all the other people this writer has no interest in communicating with.

The rest of you, listen up: Science, taking a short break from predicting tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, earthquakes, sliding hillsides, snow fields, glaciers, burning trees, meteor mayhem, killer viruses, and the Holocene Extinction Event, has finally done something helpful. They have given us something other than ourselves to point to for our memory lapses.

Blame it on the doors (but not on The Doors. If your brain has been fried due to ingesting too many hallucinogenics while repeatedly listening to “Light My Fire” in some seedy student-infested lodging, we can’t help you here)

Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what’s known as an “Event Boundary” in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next. Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale.

That means that by the time you’re staring blankly at the kitchen counter, your brain has already moved on from the thought that led you in there, and you can’t always effectively backtrack. “Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized,” chief researcher Gabriel Radvansky said. “Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away.”

The best part about this research is that it seems to pertain to people of all ages. So young people, those folks who remind us on a daily basis of all the terrible things we did to our own parents, are just as vulnerable to this as we are.

Radvansky conducted three experiments in both real and virtual environments, observing college students as they performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.

In one experiment, Radvansky found that the subjects forgot more after walking through a doorway compared to moving the same distance across a room. This can be explained by suggesting the doorway or “event boundary” hinders an individual’s ability to retrieve thoughts or decisions made in a different room.

The second experiment in a real-world setting required subjects to conceal in boxes the objects chosen from the table and move either across a room or travel the same distance and walk through a doorway. The results in the real-world environment replicated those in the virtual world: Walking through a doorway diminished subjects’ memories.

The final experiment was designed to test whether doorways actually served as event boundaries or if one’s ability to remember is linked to the environment in which a decision – in this case, the selection of an object – was created. Accordingly, subjects in this leg of the study passed through several doorways, leading back to the room in which they started. However, despite going back to the room in which the subject selected the object, memory was not improved.

The most dangerous doorway of all is one which connects the kitchen to any other room of the house. Passing into the kitchen will not only make one forgot what one’s intended task was, but it presents one with a delightful number of new opportunities for action in the refrigerator, the freezer, and the pantry. If one’s kitchen is located in the middle of the house, and one has to pass through it to get to the bathroom, as this writer can attest, it will take many hours to finally extricate oneself. Then, one will not only have forgotten what the task was, but also why his or her pants are wet.

Unfortunately, Radvansky and other scientists were unable to come up with a remedy (other than spending one’s life in a geodesic dome or a studio apartment). The best they could suggest would be to repeat your intended task to yourself as you walk through the doorway. Just make sure the refrigerator isn’t in sight, or even that won’t work. And wear Depends.

Many years ago, she fought the good fight against breast cancer and she won. She left her job as a Realtor and went to work for the Breast Cancer Walk, run by the city of Alexandria, VA. The passion she had put into real estate was now put into saving women’s lives. She went on with her own. She was a wife, a mother, a friend, an artist, an advocate. She was a force of nature. Forces of nature don’t die.

I met her several years ago in a Pilates class. She had been recently diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she had gotten scared. Now she got angry. She learned that 20% of women with lung cancer never smoked (she didn’t). Far more women died of lung cancer than of breast cancer. Far less money was given to lung cancer research than to breast cancer. She was now fighting something that was more dangerous and less understood. She had no time to feel sorry for herself. She was a wife, a mother, a friend, an artist, an advocate. She was a force of nature. Forces of nature don’t die.

We became good friends. While I understood her prognosis, I never experienced the consequences. Her energy level allowed her to work out several hours per day. Her attitude toward life allowed her no room for self-pity or for depression. Eventually she took early retirement from the Breast Cancer Walk. She devoted her boundless energy to the gym, her art, her family, her friends, her advocacy. She had the time and the energy for it all. So it seemed.

She became a fierce advocate for her life. She browbeat, she cajoled, she pestered, she demanded. She gained access to the best doctors and the best research protocols. She made people pay attention to her, people who normally wrote off patients whose cancers were as advanced as hers. She outlived her support group. She continued to benefit from one of the protocols, even after everyone else, with earlier stages than hers, stopped getting any benefit. She continued to beat the odds, day after day after day. She coached others about not giving up hope. She was a force of nature. Forces of nature don’t die.

The last few months were different. A chemo that no longer worked, followed by a firm denial to enter the next protocol, one that was having a great success rate. For the first time, she lost weight. For the first time, she stopped going to the gym. For the first time, she referred to the cancer as “this monster.”

We went couch shopping. She wanted what she called her “cancer couch,” a place where she and her husband and her son could snuggle together and watch TV. The salesman told her delivery would be 8-12 weeks. She raised her voice. “Listen to me,” she said, “I have stage 4 lung cancer. I need this couch before I die.”

She worked on gaining entry to the research study under the “compassionate care” category. She was denied. She kept at it. Like a dog with a bone, she dug in and dared anyone to take it away. I was at the house when the call came from the doctor in charge of the research study. The doctor promised entry, one way or another.

Two weeks passed. I held my breath. One day she called me. “It’s happened!” she yelled. “I’m jumping for joy! In two days, the count will arrive!” I said, “Incredible! So if the blood count is good, you can get the protocol?” There was a moment of silence.

“I didn’t say anything about the blood count. That was already done. I said the COUCH will arrive!”

The couch arrived. Bright red leather. Gorgeous, bold, shrieking of life. Within a day or two, she received her first dose of the protocol chemo. Her blog post the following day was buoyant. She had done it. I told her she would wear that couch out and go on to the next one before this whole thing was over.

Two days later, she experienced shortness of breath that quickly worsened. Her lungs, already severely compromised, could not cope. Before her husband and son could get her out of the house, she collapsed. By the time the EMT people got there, she was gone. It was at the exact time that it seemed her life would get back on track, that the couch would be a place on which to simply relax and not on which to wait to die.

When I think of Ellen, it is the colors that I see. In her home, in her clothing, in her jewelry, in the vast amount of art that she both collected and produced. Especially in her words and her passion. She was passionate about her family, her friends, her faith, and her future. Those of us who were blessed to have known her cannot help but go forward in a world that, because of her, contains more color and more life.

I love you, Ellen, and I thank you.

In its March 2013 issue, AARP Magazine presents “Sex at 50+: What’s Normal?” in which they answer our burning curiosity about other people’s sex lives. A heads up (in a manner of speaking): If you routinely incorporate the Area 51 Love Doll, the Strict Leather Dildo Face Harness, or the Drilldo into your sexual repertoire, you may be a bit too advanced for the likes of this article.

The use of the word “sex” in the title is about as apt as the use of the term “rush hour” for DC to and from work traffic. Most of what is under the category of “sex” is anything but. When we see this provocative title, do we really care about how many partners hold hands or say “I love you” or finding out how many people feel their partner fulfills their needs? I don’t think so. Here’s one example of a time-waster:

39% of people (whether happily or unhappily partnered) reported taking sneak peeks at their partner’s emails. The article then adds, “Most partners feel violated when they learn their privacy has been breached.” The article doesn’t tell us what percentage of people weren’t aware of this little nugget, but hopefully, they aren’t people making life or death decisions for others out in the world.

See what I mean? You didn’t come here for that. You saw the word “sex” and you clicked. Or you searched “sex toys” under tags and you clicked. Or you wanted to know if you were normal and you clicked. (This third category is easy: If you have to search on WordPress for something that tells you if you are normal, then you aren’t.)

This blogger understands all that, and she will now do her best to extract whatever meager crumbs there are in the article that actually have to do with actual or manufactured genitalia.

Here goes:

31% of couples have sex several times a week.
28% have sex a couple times a month
8% have sex once a month.
33% rarely or never have sex.
Seven people said their virginity had returned after being partnered.

Take a hard look at these percentages and:
1. Feel good about yourself
2. Feel bad about yourself
3. Go immediately to the refrigerator

60% of women and 40% of men have used sex toys with their partners. This writer has tried to equate the 60% with the 40%, and, even accounting for the greater longevity of women and for the fact that toys are usually meant for women, she still felt compelled to visit the refrigerator to think about this more deeply.

12.5% of people in a relationship a year or less think their partners have sex with them out of a sense of obligation. 49.6% of people in a relationship of 21 years or more say the same.

It’s not clear whether these people feel guilty about what they are doing to their partners. And the statistics don’t take into account all the people who are having sex and not realizing that their partners aren’t actually taking part in the enthusiasm.

Assuming these are the same people who are reading their partners’ emails and not aware that their partners would feel violated by such an activity, this means a lot of people are having their emails read by, and are grudgingly having sex with, their partner. This thought is so disturbing as to warrant another trip to the refrigerator.

On January 7, 2011, I posted a piece titled “The Myth of Older Men Wanting Younger Women.” I said that, in spite of the common belief that all older men are chasing after younger women, my experience has been otherwise. The response was instant and strong. On both sides of the aisle.

On February 28, 2012, I posted a follow up, “Older Men, Younger Women: Fact or Unicorn?” in which I reiterated and clarified my position in the first piece. I did so because, as a writer who always seeks to bring truth and enlightenment to the unwashed masses, I looked at the first piece and thought, “Man, that’s a shitload of hits. I gotta milk this baby again.”

Now, I am compelled to speak about this issue a third time, not because of potential hits (I have taken a vow of celibacy over the rampant accumulation of hits), but because two pieces on HuffPost (a publication characterized by its relentless ignoring of my work) have just wrestled this issue to the ground and stomped all over it with jackboots.

A HuffPost video in the last couple days, Why Older Men Date Younger Women, was sort of like a bleating National Enquirer headline, that, like me in high school, seemed to promise everything and deliver nothing.

The video began with an actual man who said he was 64 years old and dated women who were considerably younger than he was because “women closer to my age are less dreamy.” At first I thought the word “dreamy” had the same meaning as that used in any Elvis Presley film. But he was actually talking about women who have dreams, i.e. “are still optimistic and have a good attitude toward life.”

In case you were shoveling peanuts in your mouth while reading this, and got distracted, you read it correctly. The reason to date younger women has nothing to do with sex or youth or perky breasts. It’s because younger women are joyful about life, while older women are “jaded due to bad experiences with men.” He continues, “I want a woman who shares my passion for life. Women my age don’t have that.” He strongly asserts that “this has nothing to do with sex. Younger women speak to me.” OK, Unnamed Guy. I get it. Younger Woman=No Sex, Just Joy About Life.

This was followed by the next segment, from a human being who did not own a penis, but who was married to one. The penis in question was 15 years younger than she was and he was still following her around with his tongue skimming the floor. On a scale of one to five, sex was a number that hasn’t been invented yet. She explained, “Younger women want to be loved. Older women want to be loving.” To show how loving she is, she continued, “I could marry anyone. I love everyone. If my husband drowned in a pool of his own semen, I could marry the next man who came along.” (Well, OK, she didn’t exactly say that, but it’s my blog. Arrest me.) The equation then becomes Younger Man=Rip Roaring Ohmygod Sex or Any Man=Rip Roaring Ohmygod Sex.

The video continued with how boomers could be successful at dating. It was so riveting that I was forced to consume the soggy walnuts from a salad we had several nights ago.

Last were the statistics. Out of a thousand (or a billion) boomers, the results were
31% preferred to date people their same age
42.5% preferred younger
14.5% preferred older
12% preferred either a banana, a blow up doll, or a model of Donald Trump’s head.

So, hoopla aside, 45.5% preferred to date people their age or older. Doesn’t give much credibility to the title of the piece.

In sum, only one segment out of three had anything to do with older men wanting to date younger women, and that segment left a bit to be desired, credibility-wise. So let’s move on to a piece Ken Solin wrote recently for HuffPost titled “Why Boomer Women are Perfect for Boomer Men.” In it, he writes,

“I’ve known lots of boomer men who were still trying, but mostly failing, to extend their casual sex years beyond their physical capabilities. When they try, it’s nearly always with younger, tight-bodied women who fuel their sexual fantasies. Is there anyone on the planet who honestly doesn’t know why older men date younger women? Okay, it’s about sex. Glad to clear up any lagging doubts. This is a fallacy, however. At 67, I’m having the best sex ever, and it’s with a 63-year-old woman. Great sex stems from the heart, not the head. But that’s another topic for later.”

Solin also writes “Women over 50 have far more emotional, sexual and intellectual depth than younger women.”

So Solin has a mildly different interpretation of the whole older man, younger woman thing. This is like our present Congress having a “mildly” different interpretation of leadership.

Hey, let’s not insult younger women here (If we do, my daughter will bar me from seeing my grandchildren). Maybe a better way to say it is that women over 50 are solid in the social/emotional/sexual department. They are also optimistic, “dreamy,” are not scarred for life over “bad experiences with men,” and can be just as vital as women far younger than them.

If you are a man and you want to date younger women, I wish you the best of luck. Just be real, please. Don’t say it’s because women your age are deficient in some way or that you can’t relate to them. And don’t say all older men want women who can bear them children. We’ve heard that before, also. In fact we’ve heard everything before. The only thing that matters is real, honest compatibility. That, and a lot of hits on this post. I lied about the celibacy part.