You’re Making Me Feel Old

It’s always nice to receive a “wink” from someone on Match.com. I know it’s a bit of a kop out on their behalf, but it’s made all the better when their profile contains more than one sentence, has a profile picture - and a rather nice picture too. I know that’s being a little superficial, but I’m finally beginning to learn that in the cutthroat world of Internet dating you need to be more ruthless in your approach to such things.

Anyway, I’ve yet again spruced up my profile by rewording most of my overview sections and added and removed a few sentences from my main profile description. I’ve even added a few extras pictures too – including removing a couple of ropey looking ones. It appears to be working – for the moment at least – as my profile view counter is quite busy and I’ve received a few winks too.

One of the winks came for a rather attractive woman with a good profile, but I couldn't help noticing that she was two years younger than me, recently divorced and with two teenage children. Two teenage children, and younger than me!? I’m sure the music suddenly got louder and my arthritis started to kick in. There’s certainly no better way of telling you that you’re getting old by announcing you’ve got teenage children.

Whilst I have no issue with women already having children, I guess it can make a relationship difficult – especially with teenagers who decide that any argument can be settled with “you’re not my father”, but it also tends to mean that they don’t want to have any more. I don’t know if men are suppose to have such feelings, but I do get quite broody at times and I often think that it would be nice to have children of my own. Perhaps it’s my hormones trying one last desperate throw of the dice.

Still, it’s quite remarkable how even that thought has changed, and if you’d asked me a few years ago I would have laughed in your face at idea of ever wanting children. But that all changed when I was working away with a colleague who had young children of his own. One of his offspring was a shy little girl who’d hide from me and not speak to me at all. Then one day she suddenly came out of her shell and, for the next few months, chattered to me constantly. I actually got quite attached to her, but it was when she accidentally called me “daddy” that I got a lump in my throat and had to fight back a tear. It’s quite amazing that it was a small two-year that finally managed to melt my heart.

Unfortunately, I’m now coming to that point in my life where I’m starting to question that, at 37 years old, it’s now fairly unlikely to ever happen. It’s a pity really because I’ve been told by various people that I’d make a good father. Still, it’s amazing what doctors can do these days...