Older and Falling in Love

Less drama and more fun

I was 52 and had begun the adventures of menopause when I met my current partner, AleXander, (On my most recent vacation from the pill I’d realized that, no, it wasn’t the AC on the fritz; those were hot flashes).

He was 58 and had just returned to New York City two months earlier after a self-imposed exile to Vermont where he’d spent over two decades raising a family. When he discovered that the lease on his apartment wasn’t going to be renewed, and his youngest kid turned 18, AleXander decided it was a sign from the gods. He got rid of most of his possessions, loaded what was left into a rental van and came home.

We’re both bisexual and have long been clear that monogamy was not on our to-do list. Meeting at the queer sex party I’d been going to for years in Brooklyn gave us a handy shortcut past what could have been awkward conversations.

After meeting we realized that we’d actually met at the same party in Brooklyn five years earlier when he was down from Vermont with his partner. My partner and I had given them a ride back to their hotel in the city.

That first giddy two years while AleXander was living in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn we did the bi-borough schlep on the C train, spending alternate weekends at each of our places. I’d be tingling with anticipation getting on the train in Harlem and that would amp up the entire way to Brooklyn until I felt like I was sort of floating above the ground as I walked up the steps to his place. Seeing him coming down the stairs indoors with that smile lighting his whole face did wonderful things all up and down my spine.

It still does

After a couple of years and two trips to Burning Man, we decided to take the plunge and live together. Because I have the rent-stabilized apartment while he’d been renting a room in a brownstone it only made sense that he move in here. In a perfect world, we’d find a new place of our own to share but this isn’t a perfect world. It’s New York.

I’ve found that while the highs are still thrillingly high in this relationship the lows are not quite the zipline to the depths of despair I’ve experienced when I was younger. We’ve had our moments and hurtful crap has come out of both of our mouths from time to time but we seem able to move through the storm more quickly. We’re also better at actively listening to the other’s point of view and admitting when we’re wrong.

At the start of this and all previous relationships, I had a mantra: it will be different this time.

It was different this time and not just because I tried to behave differently. Previous partners had used that dreadful word “needy” about me as things would begin to sour between us.

I kept making promises to myself that this time I wouldn’t be so needy.

It turns out that I’m not needy. I’m loving. I’m openly ready to accept and offer love and it took me until the age of 52 to find a partner comfortable accepting my undisguised love and offering his own in return. While I don’t necessarily recommend attending queer sex parties in Brooklyn or anywhere else with an eye towards finding a lasting relationship, I’d also say don’t rule anything out.

We celebrated nine years together in September. I’m going to be 62 soon and AleXander just turned 68.

One could generously say we were in our late middle age when we met but there’s no way around it now. We’re old. AleXander qualified to get the half-price Metrocard so he can ride all the transit in New York for under $70. After his job at a world-class orthopedic hospital was eliminated two years ago he’s found it next to impossible to find work. Now I’m in the same pickle. I recently was up to a third-round interview for a position that was practically tailor-made for my skills and experience.

I didn’t get the job

This means that we have a lot of together time these days. A lot. We’re navigating new territory and hitting new levels of what we need to communicate and accept. We still get our signals mixed and some of the conversations are hard. Add to that a possible future with very little income and who knows what for health care insurance for me and, yeah, life gets tricky.

But I’ve never been more secure in any relationship and that allows for things to kind of fall into place. Neither of us feels like we have to muscle things to fit the way we want them to.

And we may not have much money but we still can afford the rent on this apartment and there are many, many free and inexpensive things to do in this city. We regularly go out for day-long excursions to the ocean, to original growth forests, to free days at museums, botanical gardens, and the Bronx zoo. We both write a lot and generally start most days at our computers (like we’re doing right now), creating new stuff out of thin air. We collaborate on projects and promote each other’s work. My piece, “In Praise of the Foreskin” has been viewed nearly 3,000 times thanks to his tireless promotion on many intact forums and websites.

We’re not going to be that couple who has been together 50 or 60 or 80 years. No one is going to be doing any human interest feature stories about us which is fine because we can write our own (see what I did there?). Years ago I realized I’d become the kind of person I’d really like to talk to if I saw me on the train.

AleXander clearly feels the same and isn’t that the most amazing thing?

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