So when my colleague Sandra mentioned she had a brother who was single and “really very nice,” I surprised myself by actually listening.
“You two would be a good match,” she said over lunch in the break room at the insurance company where we both worked as claims processors. “He’s your age, divorced like you, steady job. Nothing flashy, just solid.”
I laughed at first, genuinely amused by the whole concept.
What kind of dating is even possible after fifty? I’d been married for twenty-six years before my ex-husband decided he needed to “find himself” with a woman fifteen years younger. The whole idea of starting over, of trying to be attractive or interesting to someone new, felt absurd and exhausting.
But Sandra was persistent in that gentle way that wears you down through sheer kindness.
“Just meet him for coffee,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen? You waste an hour drinking overpriced lattes.”
So I agreed, mostly to make her stop asking.
We met on a Saturday afternoon in late September at a café near Prospect Park—one of those cozy places with mismatched furniture and local art on the walls.
His name was Robert. Bob, he said most people called him.
He was tall, a little heavy around the middle, with thinning gray hair and glasses that kept sliding down his nose. He wore khakis and a button-down shirt that looked freshly ironed, and he stood when I approached the table, which I found oddly touching.
