Accurate personal descriptions go by wayside in mature dating scene 

Thanksgiving in Connecticut was marvelous. We gathered at sister Lisa’s—the overachieving middle child.

In addition to the massive feast in her perfectly delightful home with the moppine directly from Italy, we were also celebrating her new found freedom.

Divorce. Usually such an ugly word, but in her case it’s the end of twenty five years of unhappiness, so we toasted to new beginnings.

Until… she dropped a huge bomb on us.

“Now keep an open mind here girls, I’ve joined Our Time.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Well, it’s an online dating service, and you have to be over 50 years old to sign up.”

Jamie and Alex: “Oh dear. We’ve heard of it—old people looking for love, right?”

And so it began. Holiday or not, this is one brutal family where no prisoners are ever taken. She knew what she was in for but took it like a champ.

The four primitive rules to sisterhood immediately reared their sometimes hurtful but eventually helpful heads.

All, of course, are followed by the traditional name calling—it can’t be helped.

1. Shock. Failure to absorb—this does not compute. Why? Can you just tell us WHY? You’re an idiot.

2. Outrage/Anger. You did this without consulting us? We’re tellin. Big fat know-it-all.

Unfortunately, since we’re the elders, there’s simply no one to tell. How I despise being an orphan, no matter how much time passes.

3. Grudging acceptance. Show off. Just because you look thirty… Once we warm up to an idea, there are suggestions to be made, which leads to the final rule…

4. Bossiness. Back off Miss Know It All, you need to hear this. Gentle suggestions turn blatantly into orders, have-to’s, and what-not-to-do’s.

Lose the black, bring a little color into your wardrobe. Promise us nobody over 60—it’s too grampa-ish.

And please, easy on the questions. This sister will query you to death, or at least until you’re silently praying for it. These poor potentials have no idea how inquisitive she is—trust me, she’ll want all details from womb and beyond.

On and on it went until we were laughing so hard that the discussion turned to Depends, and how she may just run into that little issue.

At the end of the day, when everyone else had gone home or hit the sack, she and I hit the i-Pad.

Oh Dear is right. There are tons and tons of lonely guys out there, so the art of sifting out the good ones is just that—an art.

We scrolled, we read, we googled, we depicted profiles, we pondered every pic.

“Hm. Check out Bob here. Clearly the bloom is off of THAT rose.”

“How ’bout Dan? I see lots of eye wrinkles—he must be a laugher!”

“Oh lookie here—The Raging Machine—is he kidding? Says he’s 56—looks about a hundred with that neck. But hey, it’s winter, you can always insist on turtle necks…” yeah, put that in your profile. LOVE turtlenecks on my men.

“Whooaaaa Nellie—ol’ Harry here claims to adore movies, reading and long walks, but wait a minute. Zoom in there—holy cow, are those superman undies I see? Yup, they clearly are. Bye bye Harry.

Three hours later we had a couple of old hotties on the line and she’s been dating up a storm. The very first dude, who claimed to be 61, ’fessed up in the first five minutes.

“Guess I should come clean here—I’m really 67.” This was uttered after a squeeze to her kneecap—needless to say—OUT.

Anyway, she’s having a blast, although we do worry about her sometimes naive nature. One of her prospects seemed a bit shady to me, so I suggested she pack a piece for that date.

God help us, she asked “a piece of what?”

Oh dear. In addition, the moppine from Italy mysteriously disappeared that Thanksgiving day. Gotta love my daughter—it was neatly tucked into her purse, wet an’ all.

Poor Lisa searched high and low for hours and was getting ready to start pail diving when our hysterics gave us away. Yes, somewhat naive.

Admittedly, there were times in our lives when I could easily have choked the life out of this sister of mine.

But she is brave, adventurous, and for the first time in forever, really, really happy. I wish her all good things and I’m proud to say she’s mine.

I pity the poor slob who tries to do her wrong THIS time…