Dating When You Are Older

He Said
by Larry Oldham

Do you remember back when you were 16? Just about time you began realizing how significant girls were in your life, you also realized that the girls at school were different from your sister—especially if you were going to ask one of them for a date. That got to be a major fear for some of us, not because we were shy, but because we were terrified of being rejected.
But that was then. This is now and dating now that we are older brings on a whole new plethora of major troubles and fears.
Don’t get me wrong. I love dating, but relationship rules have changed. The biggest problem at sixteen was what movie to see or what to wear to the prom. Now I’m older, the question is still which movie to see and what to wear to church. But these days my significant other also has an opinion—usually an opposite opinion.
My fiancée says if I wear my brown suit, it will clash with her new black outfit. She wants to go to the movies, but it has to be between three and five, nothing scary, nothing with too much blood, and though she wants popcorn, “they cook it in saturated fat and they put too much salt on it”.
Now I know this sounds trivial, but I am trying to stay away from the controversial issues when dating as you get older like, raising children differently, sharing expenses, household duties (hers and mine), visiting relatives, choosing which friends to pal around with, how long we stay visiting each mother’s house, where we go on vacation, and who ate the last doughnut?
You know after thinking about it, dating at sixteen was probably a whole lot easier than I remember. There was less responsibility, accountability, and much less expensive. On the other hand, these days my fiancée cuts the grass, makes my supper, keeps the house spotless, buys the groceries, irons my shirts, and keeps me happy. Maybe dating as I get older isn’t so bad after all, plus—she is still just as beautiful as she was at sixteen.


She Said
by Dena Hill

Dating when you are older or dating when you are sixteen is basically all the same thing. You have to take care of a man.
Don’t get me wrong. I like dating. Men just never grow up. I think they all have that mother complex. They want a girlfriend; they want a woman in their life; but they can’t tell the difference between a girlfriend, a wife, or a mother. Their mothers took care of them, fixed their meals, cleaned up after them, and helped them through their most difficult times...now that’s what they want from a girlfriend or a wife.
I feel like now my children are grown and out of the house, I can sit down, relax, and maybe do something I want to do for myself. Instead, out of the blue, in the middle of the day, my fiancé decides that “we” want to go to a movie. Of course he wants to see a bang-bang, shoot’em up, car-wrecking, blood-splattering epic that lasts for at least four hours. If I don’t go, he pouts. If I suggest something that I want to see, he whines “Oh, that got bad reviews...but if you want to see it...”
Don’t get me started on clothes. Whatever is lying around the house that doesn’t walk by itself, he will wear. Truth is, he just needs to wake up and realize he is not sixteen anymore. He has a great mother—he doesn’t need two. He can fix his own sandwich, get his own soda, wash his own car, cut his own grass, and pick out what he wants to wear (as long as it matches my outfit).
He also needs to remember that we are both older now and have our own individual ideas about life based on how we were raised. He needs to start thinking about how we can make our lives better by sharing ideas and being happy that we are together.
Dating as an older couple isn’t hard, it’s just time consuming. I enjoy dating now, but give me some space and a little time for myself. As a matter of fact, if he went fishing with the guys more often, it would probably make dating much more fun.
Oh, I forgot. He doesn’t fish or go out with the boys. I guess that means we’ll be together all the time, so maybe we should just go ahead and get married...but that is entirely another column.