Ok, so I Have to tell you something…. today, I received my First…. Note this please…. My First Response from a someone, a male someone, who was blasted into my email as MY NEW MATCH.

But before I go any further, let me remind you that if you’re still reading this on your email page, I encourage you to go to my site, because the version there is ever-so-much more sexy…. and now I continue….

See… I listed my ideals as guys from 50 to 60, as I’m a bit tired of the older set…they’re cute, they’re adoring, and goodness knows they’re needy and willing to say just about anything, but I’m just not ready to settle down into playing cards and helping him remember to take his pills quite yet.

I have Always found younger guys everso much more fun and interesting, challenging and well…sexy.  And til I moved to Oregon, it had never been a problem. Oregon is just a little bit different from NorCal… just a wee bit…..

So… this site sends me weekly NEW MATCH links…. And actually, once in a while I find someone interesting.  These tend to be in the fifty to 58 range.

Oh and you’ll Love this:  after the YOUR NEW MATCH, is something akin to SO GO GET HIM.  When they send a YOU HAVE A NEW FLIRT … it says HE PICKED YOU OUT OF THE CROWD…..awwwww…

And when someone FAVORITEs you…. This is the Best one…. DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY…….eeeek!

So although I send a light and airy “Helloooo” and “Check out my Profile”, Not One has responded .  Really. Weird huh.  Especially because the guys who Do the approaching always talk about my picture, and my profile writing.  Oh you could teach a class on writing a profile, one told me.           Oh wait…., but that was the Player guy… forget it.

But really, I’m talking maybe a Dozen interesting active, artistic,  guys. Doing things and out and about.  Cute, somewhat sincere, as much as you can get a sincere vibe from a profile….

Yet not ONE has responded.

So… I go to my deepest recesses… and know what ?  What is the first thing a person reads after the name….. ?  Ready?  Your Age….yes….Name… AGE… and Then where you live.   Age is more important than the fact that you live in Nebraska?

Now when’s the last time you walked into a bar, sat alongside some cute guy and softly whispered in his ear…”Hi big boy…. My name’s  (insert name)…. I’m 68 .     Exactly.   This is SO Lame, I am becoming more irritated by the minute.

And what do You think when you hear of a 68  year old woman?  What comes to mind, please be honest….. uh huh…. Mee toooo….

So this brings me to the discussion of the day…..                                                                                                       AGE.

We are all prejudiced in regards to age.  I am the first to admit it.  It places us in our generation, it tells the world what stage we’re in, it says what we have left, and what we want while we’re here…and maybe where we’re headed.   But…. Does it? No of course not.  As we age, the numbers mean less and less.

I know this, because I have spent time with lots of folks of different ages, and I know first hand that after a while, the number mean little, compared to health, attitude, habits, the past, and let’s not forget education, life experience and genetics.  And these differences increase exponentially as the years add up.  We are so different, and numbers just don’t tell it, baby, not at all.

There’s a reason for the word Ageless…. Because ideally, that’s where life leads one, to a place where you’re just a person, seen first as the energy ball you are, and then later there might be a semblance of… oh ya… wait… how old do you think she is?

Think Eartha Kitt….. think Harry Belafonte…. James Earl Jones….. there are certain people that just Are.   Even Sean Connery, who’s getting pretty grampy  these days.  And yet even back a ways, Hollywood could still cast him opposite Michelle Pfeiffer…. I think she was like 25, and he was …. Oh….maybe 70?  It was completely ridiculous, but they still got away with it because he has that Thing, that age defying agelessness Thing that has more to do with energy than anything.  Well, the good looks and great voice and cute accent help too,…..

I remember my beloved grandmother, who one day while she was pulling up her girdle, tucking all her roundness into this giant rubber band…. She said     “I know I look like a funny old lady on the outside, but inside I’m still a girl.”

I never forgot that …..(obviously)……, that image of her struggling with controlling her body so she was presentable to the world, and so intimately sharing this with me at the same time.  What a touching moment, made even more so by my present station as grandma to six budding beings who look to me, and at me, each in their own way.

I remember her saying “Oh Carol, don’t ever get fat, and have to wear one of these things”, and I remember thinking “Uh…..don’t worry…I don’t care how fat I get, I’m Never gonna wear one of Those things”.

I think she’d be proud of me now, of the kind of grandma I am, barefooted and independent, making popcorn and discussing films with my grandson, playing dice with my granddaughter and dressing her up in my clothes for her Austin Powers party.

So all this leads to the beginning, which started off with crowing…. Yes, crowing that one interesting fellow had actually gone past the age barrier, and checked me out.

We had an extraordinary conversation for over an hour, and at some point we may even meet.

There’s always hope.  Meanwhile, I still get Flirts, and Come check me outs, and I may write you next week with another weird story about just one more stranger who will remain so.  But for now, things look just a little brighter.