MAGICAL THINKING

I spoke to Alex on the phone before we met. He let me in on his secret when I shared mine. I was actually 5 years older than I had stated in my profile. I explained that in the past when I had put my real age down I was taken to task on how current my pictures were. It was irritating so I shaved off five years. I thought that was realistic.

Alex fessed up that he wasn't actually sixty, but seventy. He assured me his photos were all current. I didn’t have a leg to stand on, but in my mind, ten years seemed to be a big jump. He was a handsome guy in his pictures, so I did that magical thinking thing and made it all ok: He was going to be that guy that would sweep me off my feet and have the maturity to provide that illusive sense of security I had yet to find. Ever.

As I walked over to the little coffee shop in the village, I recalled the other online date I had met there. Mac was seventy-three and still practicing law. Obviously, I hadn’t learned anything or I wouldn’t be returning to the scene of the crime. Mac looked nothing like his picture. He wore a plaid suit (old and tacky) with a short sleeve button down shirt, a faint yellow against his lily white, frail skin. His hands shook so badly I tried not to stare. All I could think was, oh great, he has Parkinson’s and I’ll be taking care of him in a year. In three years he’ll be bed ridden and when he dies, his daughter will sue me for that piddly amount of money Mac would leave me for taking care of him. Oh, no thank you. So when he rambled on about himself, describing everything in minutia type detail and on every subject from writing his “novel” to his “famous” actress daughter who, at forty three, is still doing local plays in small theatres, to how he invented a process of recovering money from fraudulent credit card charges, I told him I had to go. But, but, but, he sputtered, I have more questions to ask you and we haven’t talked about the bread I bake every Sunday. Bread? And more questions? You have yet to ask me one, I thought. I started to gather up my things as Mac tried to keep me there:

Mac: Do you like guitar?

Me: well….I prefer Piano.

Mac: Oh that’s nice. I’ll look up some piano bars and we can go listen to some music.

Me: Well, I don’t really like Piano Bars.

Mac: But you said you liked piano

Me: Yes I did. I like classical piano

Mac: I can see who is playing that, too.

Me: Ok, I really have to run now.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Later via text, he thanked me for my honesty when I told him I wasn’t feeling the connection. His text had waxed poetic based on no information other than my love for classical piano..I guess that was Mac’s magical thinking and now I had mine with Alex….

I had convinced myself that Alex wasn’t anything like Mac, and as the coffee shop comes into focus I see this old man sitting at the very same table Mac and I had. I almost turned around and high tailed it home, but I just couldn’t. More magical thinking until I walked up and Alex said, “I knew exactly who you were”. All I could think was “yeah, because I look like my pictures, unlike YOU, you freak!” but I just smiled and put out my hand out to shake his.

I could see that he had been terribly handsome in his day but today was no longer his day. His complexion was ruddy with big white spots all over his forehead. Skin cancer it looked like. I watched a neighbor die of skin cancer related dementia when it went to his brain. What fun. No thanks. I was having the most difficult time with these seventy plus year olds and thinking I’d only become their nursemaid. No fair since I hadn’t found that love of my life yet. Thanks but no thanks.

He wore tortoise shell glasses, which made him look studious along with a touch of that nerdy sexy thing, but the fact that he had missed patches of his whiskers on his lip detoured my eye with every sentence. Did he not wear his glasses to shave? And as my eyes finally took in the whole picture, I saw the paunch on top of a concave chest. His hands had those old man bruises that emphasized that frail skin ( again). Ok, there’s no way anyone would buy his claim of sixty versus seventy. Are all old men delusional? I started to build a case in my mind: delusional, legends in their own mind, unable to have a conversation about anyone but them. That had been my experience with men my Dad’s age…..

We ran the gambit of subjects but nothing was sticking. I had no interest in any of his views, when my response was short, Alex would ask another inane question. I guess I’m never happy; no questions, ie. Mac or stupid questions, ie Alex. The last question Alex asked was a hail Mary in my estimation: “So tell me about massage therapy”. I took a couple beats, while thinking to myself, what the hell?, but answering, “ What would you like to know”. At that I thought he didn’t really know what he wanted to know because he stopped talking mid sentence, looked down for a few beats and then looked at me and announced he needed to go to the bathroom. What the…? I stifled a laugh as I was appreciative he hadn’t let out a massive amount of gas before hand like my eighty nine year old Dad who then would announce he has to go to the bathroom as he farts all the way there and leaves you inhaling his putrid smells.

I sat waiting for Alex for what seemed to be a while. I thought about his best friend that he had told me had died just a few days prior, suddenly of a massive stroke. I wasn’t too surprised given his age that he had lost his best friend but then he started painting the picture for me: 33, homeless, obese and lived outside the Subway shop that Alex frequented. Oh Jesus! Why would an affluent (elderly) man be best friends with a homeless guy who lived in an alley. I’m not without empathy, but BEST FRIENDS?

I watched Alex exit the bathroom, stop and then go back in. what happened, I wondered. Did he have prostate issues as well? Oh God. When he finally got back to the table, I told him it was time for me to get home. He asked me if I had driven. No, remember I walked here? Oh, that’s right. I was going to walk you to your car. I ended up walking him to his car since it was on my way home. The conversation had shut down and now he was trying to make small talk about his parking space. I couldn’t walk fast enough. He gave me a nice big hug, which felt powerful and actually really good until my hands felt his massive lipomas (fatty tumors) across his back. Images flooded my brain from an old client that who was covered with lipomas. He would conveniently drop his towel as I walked into the room. I would turn on a dime and tell him I had forgotten to wash my hands. Forget the lumps all over his body, he wanted me to see his jewels; another legend in his own mind. I took my leave of that guy and now it was my turn with Alex. Thank goodness, there was no talk of seeing each other again. No more older men. No more magical thinking.

© black sheep matters 2017