A Slightly Atypical Twenty-Six Year Relationship

I am on the verge of 62 years old. I am not married and never have been. Nevertheless, I have had the same woman in my life for 26 years. This woman, Diana, is now 55. We were a lot younger when we started out. I’m not sure if we’re ever going to get married. We have nothing against marriage; it’s just that marriage requires some kind of action. A marriage license needs to be purchased, and only specific individuals can perform the ceremony. See what I mean? If a person doesn’t really care about marriage one way or the other, why bother? That’s kind of been our view on it for the last 26 years.

There are more curious details to this 26 year relationship than being unmarried. For example; Diana and I don’t live together. We sleep together most nights, but almost all of my clothes are at my condo, which is located a few miles from Diana’s modest house. I generally shower at my place too. When I come home from work, I come home to my place. I will watch TV and have a snack. About four days a week I drive over to her place in the evening where I will stay the night. I’ll drive to work from her place the next morning. This has been pretty much our scenario from the outset, lo these many years ago.

My place is distinctly mine, and Diana’s place is distinctly hers. When I am at her place I will go to her refrigerator without asking, and I can brew tea without getting permission, but I do not tell her what photos to display on her walls or what color furniture she should buy. It’s her home. I have mine. 

We do not have kids, of course. I don’t think it has ever been a consideration. I think we both like children, we simply have never wanted to have any of our own. Now at the age of 62, I can honestly say that I have never missed having kids. Of course a person generally misses only those things he has had and lost, not things he has never had.

I don’t look at our arrangement as strange or unusual, but I know that some people are puzzled by it. All I can say is that for 26 years Diana and I have been as happy as any couple in a long-term relationship, and happier than most. Still, I don’t know if I would recommend such an arrangement for most people. It takes either a pretty good dose of open-mindedness, or a big helping of stupidity. I’m not sure which. Maybe I’ll ask Diana when I see her this evening. 

Circa 1990

January 2013

     

New Normals

I am 61 years old and I have a Facebook account. I have occasionally gotten some good-natured flack for being on Facebook, flack coming from my peers and contemporaries. I generally tell them, good-naturedly, that I am now living in the 21^st Century, and I might as well do those things that have become part of this century. That usually ends the chiding.

On Facebook I sometimes respond to posts written by some Facebook friend. On rare occasion I will post something of my own. On those few occasions when I submit something, I have to stop and think about whether I really want to hit the POST button. See, I know that what I am posting will appear on the Facebook pages of others, and I don’t want to seem too forward. I mean, they might have important things to read.

When I look at the Facebook pages of younger individuals, such as people under the age of 30, I will often see the Facebook page of someone who submits several posts per day. One of these posts might state nothing more than “the newly-fallen snow is pretty”. Such a post could well be accompanied by a photo of a snow-covered driveway. Still another post might proclaim the purchase of a new toaster, along with a photograph of the appliance. These types of announcements are pretty common on Facebook.

And that’s just it; I don’t get it. I don’t see why anyone would bother to post such things. Granted, I am 61 years old, but even if Facebook had existed when I was 22 years-old, I still would not have been willing to publish ordinary occurrences and routine activates as if they had some significance. To me, it looks as though these younger individuals are egotistical and self-centered. That’s what it looks like. But frankly, I don’t believe that’s true.

See, I think it’s a generational thing. I think the “new normal” is to post such trivial things as the lunchtime consumption of a taco salad, or the purchase of new shoestrings. The “new normal” sees nothing wrong with sharing this type of trivial information, and consequently it has become socially appropriate to do so. That’s my theory.

It isn’t like it is the first “new normal” in the history of mankind. How about Women’s Suffrage in the early years of the 20^th Century? In my youth there were plenty of “new normals”. Heck, the 1960s were chock full of “new normals”, including sexual behavior, and civil rights. In fact, those “new normals” were far more profound and earth-shaking than people’s posting habits on Facebook.

I have wondered what my long departed father would say about the social changes that are a result of Facebook, Twitter, etc., and then I stop and realize that there is no need to wonder because, well, for all intents and purposes I have become my father. And more than any other “new normal”, that “new normal” has been tough getting used to.