 MEN YOU MAY NEVER HAVE CONSIDERED
Barbara Lochner (Part 4)
Looking for a man the second or third time around is definitely different. Of course we are no longer fresh-faced and firm-bodied, but that's hardly the issue. The major difference is we are no longer twenty-three, shopping for something suitable in our age bracket. Under those olden-day conditions, how could we miss? We were the first at the banquet table. Not only did we have our whole lives before us, every man we met had his whole life before him. Tech failures aside, there are no lifetime failures at twenty-five. All of us were filled with potential, promise, and great expectations. Anyone could turn out to be president of the U.S. or at least of IBM. No one was bald, fat was still being passed off as muscle, and every man you knew was going to make it someday.
I contend that there are just as many men available to you now as there were when you were twenty-three. You just don't recognize them. You don't recognize them because some are fat and some are bald and only a handful made it much of anywhere. They are no longer "suitable," or as suitable as they looked to be at twenty-five. Their lives are no longer ahead of them, instead, they are smack in the middle of what their lives turned out to be, and that may not be much. Poor guys. There are plenty of failures at forty-five.
Alimony, child-support, ex-wives, unmanageable children, business failures, missed opportunities, thwarted ambitions--that's what many men our age are made of. God knows they don't present a pretty picture. Not nearly as attractive as potential, promise and great expectations. And, certainly, finding such a man "suitable" today requires more courage and adjustment than was necessary twenty years ago. Twenty years ago the only ting necessary was blind willingness to go along. Since then, though, we've traveled our own roads and we're not as fresh as when we started out, either. So you would think, wouldn't you, that we could muster up some courage and make adjustments and reevaluate our idea of what "suitable" really is. You'd think, wouldn't you, that we would become more realistic in our expectations. Well, we don't. Often we just get worse. (to be continued)
1:47:11 PM 
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