My high school class is having a 35-year reunion soon, and class leaders have set up a Facebook page for the occasion. Clicking through the profiles this week, I was struck that some of my classmates, now in their early 50s, are already grandparents.
Then here I am, 53, with a son in pre-K and another in fourth grade. I’ve always known I was late to the parenting party, fathering children in my 40s, but the Facebook pages made me feel like a real outlier.
I had a flashback to the early 1990s when I sometimes wondered if I would ever become a husband, much less a father. Back then, I was mystified by the whole dating scene and enmeshed in a career, journalism, that actually rewarded reporters who chose the lone-wolf path.
Being a lone wolf works in your 20s, but that wolf skin becomes sodden in your 30s and 40s unless you are resigned to a lifetime of canned soup and solitude. So I’ve always had a soft spot for unmarried people in their 30s who want to be in a committed relationship but don’t know how.
Recently, a book landed on my desk that promises to help people over the hump. “Meet To Marry: A Dating Revelation for the Marriage Minded” was written by Bari Lyman (Health Communications, Inc., $15).