Dial It Down!

This past weekend, I was once again reminded of how dangerous it is to be single at my age. It starts simple enough. I see a guy. I think he’s cute.  Then the awkward question I ask myself as I crane my neck and my eyes in a hopefully inconspicuous way towards the direction of his left hand, “Is he married?” Which is then followed by the killer question: “How old are you or better yet, how old do you think I am?”

The older I get, the more and more age weighs heavily on my mind when trying to meet someone. Luckily, there is a nifty notion to help determine whether or not someone is too young for me. It’s called the Wheelhouse. My brother, Joe, was the first to introduce me to this concept. One’s Wheelhouse is calculated by something I liken to a quadratic equation, which works for Joe since he is a math genius. The Wheelhouse equation is (N/2)+7. The N in the equation is your age.  You divide your age or N by 2 and then add 7.

Here’s my Wheelhouse: 36/2=18+7=25. So, according to the Wheelhouse, the youngest guy I should date is 25 years of age.  I hesitate at the thought. The danger is when I mull over the prospect of dating someone that young, well, all I can think is “Watch out! I could be his Mama’s friend.”  Case and point: my friend, Kevin, is 25 and I am friends with his Mama. She’s Mama Palumbo to be exact.  

The one imperfection with the Wheelhouse equation is that it accounts of the bottom of the wheel, but what about the other end? How old is too old? Do you just add 7? Maybe there’s no equation for the top of the wheel because it doesn’t really matter how old you go, because hopefully you’re in their Wheelhouse.  Using that logic, the equation would then be (N-7)*2. For me, that means 36-7=29*2=58.

Whoa! Clearly, that is flawed logic. Age 58 will be 3 years younger than my Dad when he has his birthday this year.  So, no offense to the hot 58 year old men out there that may read this blog post, and I know you’re out there, but that’s flying to close to the sun. I’m more inclined to just add 7 and call it a date.

As far as being hit on by older men, this is a sample for what can happen. I was in San Antonio for the Chick-fil-A Operator’s Seminar and I was stepped to by more than a handful of silver tops. A special thanks goes out to Dale for reenacting the scene with me.

I know that I have been in a dating slump for a while now, but if the Lord was trying to lift my self-esteem, is it asking too much if he could please dial down the age? I’m just sayin’ is all.