Middle-aged PDA

My husband and I are an old couple.  While we are still shy of what everyone in their 30s and 40s defines as “middle aged” these days, we are nearing the center point of an optimistic life expectancy.  We’re an old couple because we’ve been together for almost half of our lives.  We are a unit, but there’s not much public physical contact.  Fragments about our children’s schools and college funds, whether we are going to be late for the babysitter tonight, dance in the collective thought bubble above our heads.  So when we go out in public, we really contrast to those “new” middle-aged couples, the ones who paw at each other as if it’s the senior prom all over again.

 

We were seated near such a couple the other night at an upscale restaurant in Los Angeles.  The West Coast contemporary art on the wall as well as the wait staff’s pink Polo oxfords have been the same for years.  It was Saturday night, our “date night”.  You know you’re middle-aged when you have a standing “date night” with your spouse.  We settled into a corner seat at the bar of a place that has remained virtually unchanged since “LA Law” was a huge hit.  We ordered wine and dinner, and an older couple sat a few seats away on the couch and ordered cosmopolitans.  They interspersed meaningful looks with Blackberry checking and deep, passionate kisses.  They really needed to get a room.  The polite bartenders and waiters a few feet away pretended not to notice the groping, the eyes-closed, rapturous, Casablanca kisses, but I could tell that it was hard for them to ignore.

 

I tried to figure out if my annoyance was jealousy – if I actually wanted my husband to be feeling me up in Michael’s bar and was peeved that another non-young woman was getting all of the attention.  But I’m pretty sure that I was just grossed out, just as I was when I was younger and new couples all around were eager to show the world that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.