a senior moment

by jennifer

after the date with the old guy, i confess that i was not ready to let it go, despite his mention of the other woman.

i hung on to the few flirtacious emails. but he never asked me out again.

after a couple of weeks, i called and asked him out, invited him to a barbecue. he tentatively accepted my invitation, characteristically nervous and nerdy. i thought, maybe he's just that awkward. even though he is forty.

five minutes later, i receive an email from him. these are the major components of the message:

I. i like you. i have a lot of fun hanging out with you. BUT...

II. i need to be considerate of my situation and everyone involved (meaning, the other woman he mentioned at dinner, who was most definitely not his girlfriend). SO...

III. what i can offer you right now is my friendship and, hopefully, that will be enough...for now.

i was mortified. the first thing i needed to do was to revoke my invitation to the barbecue. after consulting with my sister (also known as my dating guru), i told him that i appreciated his honesty, and that his situation did seem rather delicate. i agreed. it would be best for us to be friends.

actually, i wrote, with everything going on, maybe the barbecue this weekend isn't such a good idea. let's just plan on getting together some other time.

since the email we have seen each other fleetingly at church (but have not spoken); he's called me a couple of times (i've never picked up the phone); has sent me a few emails (to which i have responded politely). i'm not interested.

i don't understand why his "situation" with the other woman only became apparent to him after our date, after we'd kissed, after we'd exchanged these email messages and phone calls.

i wrote an email to a friend complaining about my latest romantic fracaso, and she responded with the following:

i'm sorry about the 40 year old. that's messed up. you can attribute it to a senior moment (sorry).

a senior moment. that must have been it.