I lied about my age on Tinder and now I’m menopausal, spooning an unsuspecting millennial while he sleeps.
“Everyone over 50 lies about their age on dating apps, plus you don’t look 53.” I never should have listened to Helen. We’re best friends and I love her, but we’re polar opposites.
“You deserve a little action, Shanti; you’ve been through a lot.” She was right, but pretending to be 42, what the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t.
I was way over the legal limit when I signed up for Tinder, buzzed on cheap rosé and expensive cheese, and high on the idea of meeting someone. I blame Helen – she lured me in with her blissful dating stories of tapas and Spanish wine, seaside bungalows and sunset hikes. Ugh. Whatever golden dating algorithm she fell into should be cast in bronze and preserved in a museum.
Mine, on the other hand, was an unfortunate spectacle of basement dwellers and commitment-phobes. Fur-clad unicyclists at Burning Man and swollen gym devotees in muscle tees, posing with Vegas showgirls and freshly caught marlin. What horny “genius” sent out the memo that dead fish are a selling point? And don’t even get me started on bathroom selfies. Gross.
I was seconds away from deleting Tinder when his profile appeared like a phoenix rising from my dating cesspool: “Josh. Single, San Francisco. Chef. 38.”
Now, three months into our newly minted morning routine – sex, tea, toast, shower, coffee – we’re post-sex and pre-toast on a lazy Sunday morning when – bam! – the honeymoon phase hits an iceberg.
“You haven’t had your period since we met. What’s up with that?”
Uh oh.
Radio silence.
I roll over and play dead, contemplating how to distract him, either with more sex or more toast. He loves both.
“You don’t think you’re preg …”
I’ve managed to shield his millennial eyes from the underbelly of my hormonal shift – plucking the dark web of unwanted hair behind locked doors, and cleverly diverting any conversation that might reveal my age with foreplay or craft beer. I can explain away the night-sweating because it’s summer and “I should go to Ikea for a lighter comforter, but I get claustrophobic and too distracted by the smell of cinnamon buns to shop.”
He’s wide awake and going zero to 60. Full Sherlock.
“More toast?” I pull out the big guns.
He’s unresponsive; I’ve lost him.
I can feel his wheels churning while he compiles the evidence – no period, bloated belly, tired, robust appetite.
He has no idea how not pregnant I am.
Dammit. He’s glazed over, slowly drifting off into a dreamy wonderland of “Am I a daddy now?” as I burrow deeper into his armpit hair, trapped. Trapped in bed between a cup of lukewarm coffee and a lie I’m not ready to admit, not yet anyway. We’ve only just started and I’m too blissed-out, floating on a loopy cloud of sex, caffeine and pillow talk. Plus, he’s so young he doesn’t even snore yet.
Truth be told, this Tinder lie is exhausting, even more than all the sex we’re having. If it wasn’t for Helen’s dating intervention, I’d be curled up in bed with my cat, binge-watching Virgin River on my iPad with a mug of pinot noir and a bag of stale cheese puffs. What’s so wrong with that?
I need to break the news before he rattles off his favorite baby names. Just rip off the Band-Aid, Shanti. This kind of high anxiety is sure to induce a major hot flash and it’s hard to maintain a poker face when I’m beet-red and sweating. Oh God, the sweating. Sure, he’ll probably dump me, but on the upside, a new season of Virgin River just dropped, not to mention the Costco-sized bag of cheese puffs I have hidden under the bed. My cat will be apathetic, but that’s to be expected, he’s a cat.
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Heart racing and palms clammy, I blurt it out, “I’m 52!”
“What?” Josh asks.
“I’m 52 years old, Josh. There, I said it. 52.”
He still looks confused. Of course he is. I just dropped a grenade from Crazy Town.
“Aren’t you 53?”
What the?!
“You were born in 1969, right? That would make you 53.”
Great, now he thinks I’m a liar AND bad at math.
Josh knew my age all along. “Duh, Shanti, Google.”
“And you still thought I was pregnant, at 53?”
“Menopause wasn’t on my radar, plus I figured you’d confess when you were ready.”
Having never dated anyone my age, he had no experience with menopause symptoms.
Lucky bastard, I barely have a clue what to expect myself from day to day.
In the end we part ways amicably, “consciously uncoupling” and still friends (with occasional benefits), until Josh gets a job and moves to LA.
For three months he went along with my ridiculous charade. He never had an issue with my age, I did. It was my insecurity, my self-doubt, and my shame around my ageing body. What was I so afraid of? That he would see the real me in all my midlife glory, and run? He was already seeing the real me (sans chin hair), and he liked it – a lot. He wasn’t going anywhere; it was me who was running, from myself.
Before he left for LA, Josh made me promise that I’d never lie about my age again, and I agreed. Of course, I’ve had a few brief moments of weakness when I contemplate shaving off a few years, but all in all, I’m learning to embrace midlife, one hot flash at a freakin’ time.
Did I learn my lesson? Yes.
Did I binge-watch the new season of Virgin River while eating an entire bag of cheese puffs? You know I did.
Will I ever lie about my age on Tinder again? No, absolutely not.
Is my cat happy to have me back, all to himself? I don’t think he even noticed I was gone.
-
Shanti L Nelson is a writer and photographer
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