Introducing GATEWAY MAN! Dream Date or Nightmare?

I met "Gateway Man" on a Match.com date.  Who or what is a Gateway Man?  He is the answer to your prayers if you are a single woman...just ask him.  He will tell you that he is what every woman over 50 is looking for.  Yikes mister, have you looked in the mirror lately?  He must have the magic kind like most men. The variety when you look in it you see a full head of hair, no bags under your eyes, pearly white teeth, a furrow-less brow , zero laugh lines and no nose or unsightly ear hair.  To say nothing of the magically flat abs and extra 4 inches in height! Trust me that is what they see but not what you get.  Welcome to my on-line dating nightmare.

Gateway Man was 77 and out of my desired age range but coincidentally we had a friend in common who encouraged me to go so I agreed to a dinner. Admittedly he didn't lie about his height (5'7")which most men do by approx 3".  Curiously he asked me if he looked his age and I can only assume he thought I would declare "not even close" but truthfully he looked 85. Gateway Man told me his dating life was going great guns and lots of women liked him. I had to query further, as "huh?" was the bubble over my head. Holy moly, his dating life was flourishing and mine was DOA.  He must have a secret and I needed in.  Surprisingly he volunteered his appeal - money.  With a shit eating grin on his face he stated he offered women a better life ; a way out of their financial struggles and there were plenty of takers! He implied he was fishing in a stocked pond. I grimaced. Could this be true?

Admittedly money is not new bait, it is practically biblical, but no one had ever sat across the table from me and stated their dating strategy so candidly. I have nothin' in the way of bait.  Regardless, this date was not a gateway but a dead end.

MY INVISIBLE LIFE

 I vanished.  Invisible!  Where did I go?  HELLO!!!  Can you see me now? I still have an Instagram account. Maybe I’m on a milk carton, or sign at a tollway booth.  Does a woman become "Vapor Woman" after her 50th birthday?  Poof gone, it's all over but the funeral arrangements.  I find this deeply disturbing and obviously need a better sense of humor to pass the remaining years. 

  

But wait, hold on just a second, there might be hope as Gwyneth Paltrow just declared she is 45 and also peri menopausal - a double whamee yet she's still visible. Why her and not me?  Her face isn't on a milk carton but in fashion magazines. I wonder if she sees a reflection when she looks in the mirror?  I admit I was surprised by her big announcement, but she's a trickster and also has a new product line called Madame Ovary for menopausal women. I am suspect of her motives but maybe she can save me from my vaporous state.  I have my fingers crossed but might get arthritis first.

And how about the big announcement that Candice Bushnell who brought us "Sex and the City" is coming out with a new book about being over 50.  Ha, ha, ha.  I would be more curious as to how Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda would cope with middle age but will have to settle for Ms.Bushnell's new single life.  I wonder if she can find sex in ANY city and make it a hot story line this time around.  Not many Mr. Big types out there now that you're sixty.  Slim pickins' isn't it Candice?  I have no interest in sharing my dating or sex life as it reads more like "Apocalypse Now" than "Fifty Shades of Gray."  I hope she is luckier than I am but I kind of doubt it. Maybe all I can hope for is the name of a good plastic surgeon.

P.S.  I will be making my own funeral arrangements.