A Real Story

I hadn’t been on a date since 1994, back when you met people at the video store or through your cousin. My son set up my Bumble profile after I mentioned, mostly joking, that I might try dating again now that the divorce was final. He picked the photo of me in a canoe on Lake George because he said it made me look “outdoorsy and not desperate,” his words, not mine. I spent the first week just staring at the app, terrified, convinced everyone under 55 was either a scammer with a fishing boat photo or someone’s ex-husband still wearing his wedding ring in the picture. Then I saw a profile that said, and I quote, “I alphabetize my spice rack, this is either a green flag or a huge red one depending on your relationship with cumin.” That was Gary. Fifty-four, widower, retired high school chemistry teacher. We messaged for four days before either of us suggested meeting, which felt slow and old-fashioned in the best way, like we were actually getting to know each other instead of racing toward a hookup or a U-Haul. We met at a diner at 4pm on a Tuesday, his idea, because he said dinner-and-drinks felt like too much pressure for two people who hadn’t done this in decades and neither of us wanted to be tipsy-nervous on top of regular-nervous. We ordered pie before our meal, which I took as a good sign about his priorities. Eighteen months later he still keeps that spice rack alphabetized, and I’ve stopped pretending I mind it. The app didn’t do the work, honestly, but it got two rusty, out-of-practice people into the same diner booth, and that turned out to be enough.