The term \”boyfriend\” is like the knee joint on someone who is morbidly obese. It is being asked to do way more than it was designed to do. It is buckling under the pressure. Where it once could do the job, it is now carrying too much weight
Setting out onto the yellow brick road of singlehood at 40, I could already see it would be a haunted trail. Those of us, man or woman, who have been married a long time, who have birthed children together, dandled and diapered them together, those of us who thought we were building lifelong partnerships before we were betrayed or bored or desolate or dead inside, cannot help but be haunted.
At one time, destination weddings were reserved for celebrity vows, hushed elopements and civil ceremonies. Exotic locales meant no chuppah, no rabbi, and no kosher-wine toast. But today, Jewish couples can have their wedding cake and eat it, too. Brides and grooms are getting married on the sandy beaches of the Bahamas and under the neon lights of Sin City, where traditional religious ceremonies are being hitched to romantic getaway affairs.
I am completely frozen.
I have just walked out of a pitch meeting in Santa Monica. Wilshire Boulevard is breezy and gorgeous. It
is 4 p.m. I have been married for 17 years and now, it appears, I\’m not. For the last 17 years I had a wife, a family, a home, a dock in the open sea of the world.
Moreso, for the last 10 years, I\’ve had chubby, laughing babies to return to, who then morphed into muscled cyclones, ready to hurl themselves onto my back the moment I walked through the door, then preteens, eager to sing me their triumphs, real and imaginary, at school.
At the end of the day, I knew where to go — home.
It has been said that a man is not complete until he is married. Then, he is finished.
Well, I got married.
When last we visited these pages, I was on my way to the altar. My long-suffering girlfriend — lets call her Alison, although I can\’t see why we should, when her name is and always was Amy — agreed to the terms. She has since told me there was nothing in the ceremony about \”obey,\” and you can only imagine how much I wish I had paid more attention before the rings were exchanged.
It was the perfect day for a wedding. As birds chirped, guests sniffled and the bride and groom exchanged vows, I sat in the back row and reflected on the wedding party, all dutifully standing at attention up front.
Have you ever noticed how people who buy a newspaper from a coin-operated rack tend to ignore the top paper, and dig down for the second or third copy?
David Ross and Lauren Schmidt met for the first time in Los Angeles in May 2000. Or at least, the couple is pretty sure that was the first time.
Rivera, 59, the flamboyant TV reporter, recently announced to the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post that he is planning to marry TV producer Erica Levy, 29, in a Reform ceremony in New York this summer.
My 29-year-old cousin, \”Barry,\” is having his first \”midlife\” crisis. By simple math, this would put his entire life span at a scant 58 years, well shy of the actuarial tables\’ prediction. His midlife crisis should be about 10 years hence. It\’s been a slow week over here at my place, so let\’s take a look at his misery, shall we?
Barry falls short of the $1 million he\’d counted on having in the bank by, oh, about $1 million and change. He could live with that, but now his car lease is up and it looks like he\’ll be downsizing out of the go-go \’90s-era \”starter\” Lexus into something more in line with his new budget — something with really great mileage. His sense of entitlement is badly bruised by something called \”reality.\” He checks his cholesterol. He wears sunscreen. He takes Viagra. He\’s a little old man.
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