• Mood: contemplative

The Rest of the Chris Story

So I watched the entirety of the "Chris/Daniel" episode of "Millionaire Matchmaker". This episode featured Chris, a 39 year old, who wanted to date young. His last girlfriend was 19 years old; 18 years old when they were dating. Chris insisted on somebody in the 21 to 28 year range. Patti (the matchmaker) "tricked" Chris into dating a date older than 30. She was a very pretty and fit yoga instructor. Their date was surfing and a nice dinner. Everything seemed to go OK, but Chris chose to pass on the yoga instructor for future dates. These details are important because Chris said he wanted to find a younger person so they could "keep up with him". From where I sat, the yoga instructor did just fine keeping up with Chris physically. Chris could not get his date to admit her age and suspected her to be in her early 30s. She was actually 35 and looked darn good. In a back stepping explanation of why he did not want to date her again, Chris said something about older people "had more baggage". He did not admit that physical age was an issue, but Patti was sure that was the deal breaker because Chris was still thinking about even though he didn't know the exact age of his date.

Patti will fuss and fume at her clients that practice ageism. She will then either fix them up with the age they requested or pull a switch like she did with Chris. Her usual practice is to comply with the clients' wishes since she is in a service business. Her philosophical salve is that the people who practice ageism will end up old(er) and lonely as their "standards" betray them. Somebody like Chris would say, "I know what I want". Patti says, "Yeah, you want to be alone when you are old". The punchline here is that Chris was initially drawn to the yoga teacher because of her sense of humor. In my own old(er) age I've realized that something like humor is priceless, transcending surface appearance. IMO Chris subconsciously realized this when he chose her, but his own age did not bring with it the wisdom to see a prize.