As someone once said ...

"What's love got to do with it?" I had dinner last week with my old friend, Mindy, and it upset me. Yes, a week on, I'm still tossing it over in my head. Maybe writing about it here will help me purge it.

Mindy and I have known one another for decades. We're Beatle-bonded, both Paul girls. We were once extraordinarily close – talking every day, vacationing together. Then our lives went in different directions. She got married, moved to the North Shore, started having babies. It isn't so much the domestic side of the equation that came between us as lifestyle. Mindy and her husband have different values than I do. Example: when they visited my new condo for the first time, he commented on my 24" set, "You must not watch much TV."* No, I watch entirely too much TV. I just don't want my TV to be the focal point of the room, and I don't want to prematurely add electronics to the landfill by arbitrarily trading up to the newest. I think they can be superficial, I imagine they view me as sanctimonious. 

Anyway, Mindy and I met for dinner. She was sweet, as always, and brought me a thoughtful gift. I asked her all about her recent trip to Scotland. During the planning, it sounded epic. Her husband, newly retired, wanted to celebrate by playing on legendary golf courses. They traveled with their adult sons and their wives. I had so many questions! Did they all sit together on the flight? What did the womenfolk do when their men were on the links? Do the sisters-in-law get along? What's it like to be Americans overseas in the Age of Trump? Did they stay in a hotel or an Airbnb? How was the food? 

She cut me off and changed the subject to me. Only she didn't ask about me. She wanted to know if I've traveled this summer. Nope. This seemed to make her sad. Then she asked for a recap of the TCM Film Festival back in April. We've talked since then, she knew all my stories. So I tried to come up with some new material. 

I started to tell her about Doug. A SoCal native, I see him annually at the TCM film festival and frankly, for years it was awkward. He's very MAGA and outspoken about it. (During the first post-covid festival, he flouted the mask rules and mocked those of us who followed them.) I don't feel like having my every choice attacked and politicized, especially when I'm on vacation. Anyway, Doug witnessed his wife Laura and I bond over baseball and suddenly he saw my charming side.† He has joined our movie group via Zoom several times since and brightens whenever he sees me. We're now in the same Facebook/TCM group and he always likes my posts. This makes me happy. I don't like being mad at the 37% of America that still somehow supports Trump. One of the things I loathe most about my President is that he tries to exploit our differences and I resist that. Donald Trump has cost this country so much, I'm not going to let him take my humanity away, too.

I told Mindy this story, hoping she would tell me how she deals with MAGA in her own life. Instead, she took it another way. She seemed sorry that Doug wasn't single and we couldn't pursue romance.

What the ever-loving fuck?

She asked me if I was "open" to relationship. No. I'm too old and set in my ways and besides, I don't want anyone to see me naked these days. She said, "But his body wouldn't be perfect, either." "Then why would I want him?" I was joking!

She went on to tell me that, if I had a partner, I'd have someone to take care of me when I get sick.

Yeah, that's why I want a lover. So I can be a burden on him. What a very transactional way to look at life in the final innings.

So as I got on the train, I realized that Mindy feels sorry for me. She seems to see me as a lonely, loveless Cat Lady who doesn't travel. Poor, poor pitiful me.

I rail against this! I do not accept victimhood. I see myself as a woman who struggled with the unexpected emotional impact of retirement and came through. I am rebuilding my life after losing two of my best friends within months of one another in 2024. I am trying to establish new friendships with new boundaries and I'm doing my best.

I don't want to go to Europe. It's not the money, Mindy. It's that I don't feel like it. The trips I'd like to take would seem very small to her – Graceland, the spa at Colonial Williamsburg, Springfield and my man, Abe. Most of all, I'd love to go back to the Kennedy Center and celebrate that it's survived Trump, too. These things would make me very happy, but right now I'm content with my two planned trips to Michigan to see Baby Violet and my upcoming week in Hollywood for TCMFF 2027. 

And if I fall in love again, it will be because I want to spend time with someone who touches my heart and stirs my soul. Not someone who is willing to change my diapers.

 

*I'm amused that he often watches sports on his phone. On. His. Phone. That's a 5" screen! So it's not really about screen size or resolution, it's about having the coolest new toy. Which is fine if it makes him happy. It's just not for me. 

†I have noticed men find me especially adorable when I'm talking about my Cubs. I think it's because they don't expect me to know what I'm talking about and are delighted when I do. The same way you're surprised when you go to the children's zoo and see a chicken play the piano. I suppose I could find this condescending, but I choose not to.