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| Authentic Autographed USFL football owned by Tom |
| On Life and Love after 50 eNewsletter August 30, 2024 Senior Dating Fantasy and Football By Columnist Tom Blake |
| The first paragraph of my initial newspaper column read “Unfortunately, many of you have been there, are there now, or will be soon. Where? Middle-aged and dating again.” The second paragraph was, “I won’t bore you with why my wife and I separated. The separation occurred Christmas time, 1993.” That initial column was titled “Home Alone With Only Dogs For Company” and appeared on July 7, 1994, in the Dana Point News and the “Laguna Niguel News in South Orange County, California. Seeing my column that day in the two newspapers nearly floored me. Why? Six months before, when the separation happened, I wasn’t a writer, let alone a newspaper columnist. But it’s amazing what can happen to people when adversity strikes. Opportunity often arises later and when it does, people should seize it. And now, 30 years after that first column appeared, I feel as blessed as I felt then to have my articles appear in printed newspapers and eNewsletters. In 1994, middle-aged dating was difficult. I wasn’t prepared for it. But as Frank Sinatra sang in My Way, “…when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out.” I muddled through and wrote columns about the senior dating challenges I faced. Newspaper readers, mostly singles, shared their information with me by leaving messages on the newspaper’s telephone information lines. That information enabled me to continue writing columns with fresh material. I started writing eNewsletters 20 years ago. The topics in the newsletters and newspapers are not the same. Yes, sometimes they are similar but often totally different. Two weeks ago, at Oggi’s Sports Brewhouse in Mission Viejo, California, a group of old buddies gathered for our annual fantasy football draft, which began 36 years ago. Our fantasy league’s name is TMFL, an acronym for Tooter’s Morning Football League. My nickname has been Tooter ever since 1988 when I opened Tutor & Spunky’s Deli in Dana Point. In 1990, when I started the fantasy football league, the founding 12 franchises named it TMFL. And some of them still call me “Toot.” Six of the original 12 are still in our group. Before the Internet arrived, we all drafted together in one room, usually at Tutor & Spunky’s. Now, some choose to draft online remotely, using the CBS Fantasy Sports website. For those of us who still draft together in person, we have fun being together, although we draft online, but in the same room. One of our league members, Jason Gross, whom I’ve known for 20+ years, asked, “Are you still writing those middle-aged dating articles?” I said, “Yes. I’m at about 5,000 articles in 30 years, but it’s not about middle-aged dating anymore. I now call it senior dating.” Jason said, “How do you come up with fresh material?” I replied, “As we age, more and more people become single, be it through divorce, or the passing of a partner. Or they are single because they haven’t met ‘their’ person yet. They seek information to help them find a mate and their numbers keep growing. “I can keep my topics fresh because of my eNewsletters. My readers are called Champs and they always send in information I can use as topics. They ask questions and share dating experiences—some are success stories and some are simply their frustrations with senior dating. Jason Gross said, “It’s important for seniors who have been afraid to start dating again and those who may be lonely or want to make new associations, to get off the couch and socially interact with people.” I said, “It doesn’t have to be with only single members of the opposite sex. Married friends and family members can help people ease loneliness.” Jason and I gave each other a high-five. It was time for our football draft to begin so I accessed the pages of football research notes I had generated over the recent weeks and placed them on the table for easy access. Making sense of the online football draft was more confusing and time-consuming than senior online dating. That discussion with Jason at the fantasy football draft made me realize that senior dating is a topic that will never grow old. Perhaps it’s time to focus on writing about it for 10 more years. The title might become, “Senior dating in our 80s.” Egad, when that first column was written in 1994, I had no idea how many more there would be. Had someone said “5,000,” I would have probably put the pencils and paper away and retired from journalism right then and there. So Champs, please continue sending in your comments and questions, we need to keep the senior dating information current. And you are the reason this fantasy dating column can continue. By the way, my first pick in the draft was Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen. My fantasy is he will score at least a couple of TDs this weekend. |
On Life and Love after 50 