LIFE LESSONS
Don’t Listen to People Who Tell You That You’re Too Old for Love
I love spending time with family friends, especially those who’ve been in my life for as long as I can remember.
Now that I’m an adult, I can speak to them as an equal — a rather interesting position to be in when you’re talking to someone who’s seen you since you were in diapers.
One family friend in particular sat next to me on the front porch one evening, pinched my nose while affectionately calling me by my childhood nickname, and in the quiet of the night asked me softly if I thought she was too old for love.
Marta the Girl wanted to protest right away and say no, of course not! My titka, though a widow for over a decade, is still as beautiful as she’d been in her prime.
But Marta the Professional Relationship Consultant, on the other hand, knew it was a lot more complicated than that.
That Ship Has Sailed
Whether it’s because of ageism, modern society’s beauty standards, or simply the human race’s inherent fear of mortality, many of us have a complicated relationship with the idea of old people.
As a result, when it comes to dating and relationships, those who’ve reached a certain age often wind up believing that they’re too old for love.
My titka is not alone in thinking that she’d lost her chance at a happily ever after sometime between her husband dying of cancer and waking up with a full head of gray hair.
I’ve met women who genuinely thought being 40 and inexperienced at love is a huge failing. There are men out there who think a divorce is a life sentence and that pursuing a relationship with younger women is a social taboo they’re too afraid to try.
Never mind that dating has never been a race.
Never mind that a successful relationship isn’t about the age gap.
And never mind that as long as someone’s heart is beating, they can still chase after what makes them happy.
At some point in their lives, they heard that there’s such a thing as being too old for love, and they’ve listened to that ever since.
Well, I think it’s time to stop.
Love Has No Expiration Date
What I ended up telling my titka is something she once shared with me when I was younger: that life is far too empty without love.
In which case, I asked her, someone who is alive is still the right age for love, aren’t they?
It’s cheeky, and perhaps a little reductive, but in the end, that’s all there is to it. No one can tell you that you’re too old for love because there’s simply no such thing. There is no one on earth who can judge your capacity for any form of love according to how many years you’ve lived.
You can even argue that the wealth of experience you’ve accumulated makes you more qualified to better understand how love works.
So the next time someone criticizes you for putting on your best clothes and going out to meet new people, let them know that the things they believe in are far more archaic than you ever will be.
Tell anyone who dares to say you’re too old for love that maybe they’re the ones who are simply too young to comprehend why that’s not true at all.
