ProTip: If you meet a guy, don’t mention this statistic.
Ouch. That hurt.
Sorry, it was actually meant to lighten the mood.
That would only be weird if she was in her 30s.
Ok. But think about it… it’s really very sad. When I was in my 30s, I didn’t expect to wind up totally alone at 73 with so many painful losses. If there is some way to lighten this up, I can’t see it.
And yet loss is an inevitable part of getting older. (Please don’t quip, “it’s better than the alternative,” as I’m not so sure about that.)
When I was in my 30s I expected to be dead before hitting 56 (my dad’s age when he died). I avoid looking up old flings/SOs/wives because I’d rather not know.
Back in 91-93 I dated a woman that was the poster child for “don’t stick your dick in crazy”. We had a roller coaster relationship ending with her filing a restraining order on ME after she physically broke into my apartment after we broke up, She interrupted me and my rebound friend.
She started dating a guy who owned an Art gallery/Framing shop and ended up buying 1/2 into the shop. Less than a year after she bought in he disappeared off the face of the earth… never ever to be seen again.
Fast forward 12 years… She died and the cause was never made public. I suspect suicide or alcohol poisoning.
For a guy, getting through that year when they’re the age their dad was when he died…it’s a toughie.
I’ve just passed the age at which my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
One can’t help but listen for the sound of ice cracking under one’s feet…
I went on one date with a woman who has since passed, but only a kiss passed between us. One of my wife’s ex boyfriends recently died, but he was around 20 years older than she was.
I had my first real boyfriend in 9th grade. He was way more mature physically and emotionally than the other boys in our class. He was really handsome and charismatic. He was into music and was an excellent guitar and sax player. We dated for a few months but I felt like the physical aspect was getting out of control - he wanted more than I was willing to give. So I broke up with him and it hit him really hard. He ended up going to a different high school and I never saw him again. Twenty years later, I see a news report that he was killed by gunshot. He had converted to Rastafarianism, had lived on the West Coast for a while, came back to his home state, changed his name to a one-word name, played in bands, and recorded an album. The story was that he answered his door and someone shot him - related to drugs.
I always think…what if? What if I had never broken up with him? Where would I be now?
The Road Not Taken. I wonder about that kind of stuff all the time.
Siblings as well. My dad was very close to his older brother. My uncle passed away after battling very aggressive cancer about five years ago. My dad is also dealing with some cancer issues currently, and while I realized it a while back and kept it to myself, he only recently said out that that he’s the exact age his brother was when he died. That weighs on him heavily.
Two of my grandparents lived to their late nineties, but the last ten or twenty years were no fun. My grandmother smoked for 70 years or so and spent the last couple of decades hooked up to an oxygen tank with the lung capacity of a thimble. So I’ve never expected to have to deal with my (septuagenarian) parents passing away for at least another ten years, until recently.
I found out today that a boyfriend from back in the 70s died yesterday. He was a part of my large friend group in the days when we were all mixing and matching and we weren’t together long. He was an artist and moved to New York shortly after we broke up.
I saw him through the years when he came home to visit family. The last time was 2016 when we had a big party and friends from all over the country came back. He had always supported himself with his art and was an influential voice in his small city outside San Francisco. He raised a wonderful son who himself is an artist.
He didn’t tell anyone but family that he had pancreatic cancer. I respect that but feel conflicted about it. I wish I could have reached out and shared happy memories but I guess he just didn’t want everyone feeling bad about it. I’m sad and I hope he knew how much everyone loved him.
I definitely know how you feel. Every Sept 30 I pass another year that I’ve lived longer than my father. This year will be 13 years.
Same for me. I never had a bad breakup or an ex with drug/alcohol/mental problems. The very first girl I dated as a teen is still a friend and she has met my wife and they get along great. I tell my wife it’s because of my impeccable taste in women. I’m sure if any of my exes died it would be quite a shock.
I can’t even imagine how weird/stressful that must be. Since my dad lived to be a very active 89 year old, I’m shooting for that. Thirty plus years to go, seems like it’s impossible to make it.
We have a Facebook page for my graduating class. Nobody that I actually dated has died. But I look at them and of course, they’re contemporaries. A lot of it seems pretty random.
Life is in front of us. My dad was in WWII and he convoyed across the Atlantic with other ships. He said that if the German U-boats picked off someone, their orders were to keep going. Circle back to help and you’ll be sunk as well…and these supplies need to make it to the British Isles.
I have had a couple of ex’s pass away and I can’t say it had much of an effect on me besides some initial sadness. The one that affected me the most was not even an ex as we never crossed that line. She was my secretary and I was married at the time but secretly had fallen for her. We only worked together for two years. I never saw or heard from her again but she never left my thoughts. 40 years later I heard she had passed away very young in her 40’s. I still think about her, I never understood why she had so much impact on me.