Looking for Love at 82

By Alex Gall

The book chronicles and summarizes my trials and tribulations in the online dating experience. It describes the path on how to use the computer to locate, try to select and meet dates, companions and a soulmate, a future bride. I met my wife nearly 60 years ago through a friend of my mothers. Since then the dating process has changed radically,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alex Gall Publishing
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781956161502

Alex Gall

Shoeshine and newspaper boy, Cub and Boy Scout, Mechanical Engineer and Army soldier, Test Director of Army non-ordnance equipment at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. Section chief, 28 years, of test technicians and engineers, Pilot program, Army Management Staff College with over 3200 class hours on many topics. Presently retired and vegetating.

Book preview

Looking for Love at 82

Copyright © 2021 by Alex Gall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN

978-1-956161-51-9 (Paperback)

978-1-956161-50-2 (eBook)

Dedication

To my late wife Anna,

she was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Introduction

My wife of 57 years passed away in July 2019 the victim of the Alzheimer malady. I was devasted. I loved my wife. We had no children. We never argued and I felt comfortable in her presence; she was a wonderful woman. Anna was a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA). We married as Catholics, but she became interested in the SDA religion and decided to change religions. At first, I questioned the change but since I could see that the change made her happy, a condition that I liked I demurred. My goal as a husband was to see to it that my wife was happy. Happy wife, happy life. It was not too difficult adjusting to her change of religions; in fact, I liked it. SDA people follow tenets of the Old Testament, but don’t quote me. They observe the Sabbath on Saturday, do not wear jewelry and do not eat unclean foods primarily pork and fish without scales. SDA members try not to drink alcohol or smoke and they tend to live a long time. With their no jewelry dictum, my wife promptly removed her wedding ring. Rather than grouse and pout I removed my wedding ring. My paramount goal was the happiness of my wife. I survived the wedding ring removal, since I looked single without the wedding ring. I thought I would be inundated with attention from single women or frustrated love-starved separated, estranged, divorced or widowed women but to my amazement none of this occurred. I managed to survive this phenomenon despite the fact that I may have lost my magnetic charm which I am looking for high and low, mostly low. I could not believe that I wasn’t a chick magnet, a legend, in my own mind.

When my wife passed away, I wrote a tribute to her. I was no pharaoh. I could not build a pyramid or an obelisk or a huge tomb or whatever the local pharaoh did to perpetuate his magnificence. In my case to honor my wife’s memory I wrote the tribute so that people 10 or 1,000 years from now would be aware of my wife’s existence, the beauty of her soul and that her husband loved her. That was my intention and as a thank you to Anna who was the best thing that ever happened to me. Anna made me a better person and will live in my memory until I pass away and be forgotten along with the countless of others who preceded me.

I had my wife’s tribute distributed for free on the social media network (whatever that is exactly being computer challenged). My step-brother Frank visits me periodically. I explained to him the premise of my new book entitled Looking for Love at 82. Frank listened patiently and when I was done, he suggested that I include my wife’s tribute as the first chapter of the book since it was the reason for the book. Her passing had triggered my search for love at 82. Had Anna lived we would have still been happily married to each other. My step-brother was right; I had contemplated that and distribution on the social network and in the book while redundant furthered my goals.

On reflection I did not want to start the book on a somber note. I wanted to allow the lonely readers to look for love quickly by telling them how to proceed. My wife’s tribute would follow and to brighten things up I would include and conclude with a section of original squeaky-clean jokes that were intended to leave readers in a good mood. The plan allows the book contents to proceed logically at least in my mind.

Well there you have it the evolution of Looking for Love at 82. The book in all its glory, my latest attempt at a legacy. A most humble attempt on my part to leave this world in a better state than when I found it. My attempt to bring happiness to individuals yearning and longing for love and to find happiness to brighten their futures and to give meaning and newfound hope and purpose in a world where solitude and loneliness abounds, and companionship and love promises an opportunity for happiness and a better life.

Contents

Introduction

Preface

Looking for Love at 82

Profile – Describing Yourself

The Basic Dating Plan is Free

Love: What Is It All About?

The Women on the Computer Dating Service - A Different Perspective

Education Level of Women on Computer Dating

Love and Aging

Repeated Reasons, Motivators and Goals in the Profiles of Women

Women on Computer Dating

Profiles in General

Religion and Computer Dating Women

Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

Honesty is a Two-Way Street

Ballpoint Pens (Added as Bonus Points)

The Use of Attention in an About You Section of a Computer Dating Profile

What Price Success?

Smoking, Alcohol Drinking, Exercise and Diet

Telephone Dating (Somewhat Redundant About Me)

A Few Memorable About Me Remarks

Random Comments in the About Me Section of Profiles

My Dating Profile

Profiles and About Me Revisited

Discussing the About Me Section of Women’s Profiles

Sweat the Small Stuff

Success – At Long Last

Love Your Spouse

Final Thoughts

To My Late Wife, Anna Gall

PLUS (Essays)

Is It Charitable Gambling?

Epilepsy

Hooray For Radio

The Mosque

My Favorite Sandwich

Modern Elections

Clutter

Mystery Telephone Call

Mail Intimidations

JOKES

Accountants

Acting

Adam and Eve

Airplanes

Alcohol

Ambition

Anger

Animals

Anxiety

Appearance

Arguing

Arithmetic

Art

Automobiles

Banking

Barbers

Baseball

Beauty

Boxing

Brains

Business

Candy

Cannibals

Cards

Charity

Christmas

Cleaning

Clothes

Coal

Coffee

Compliment

Condiments

Cooking

Cowboys

Crime

Cursing

Dancing

Dating

Death

Debating

Deliveries

Dentists

Doctors

Dracula

Dreams

Economics

Education

Efficiency

Eggs

Electricity

Empathy

English

Entertainment

Environment

Evolution

Exercise

Fairy Tales

Family

Farming

Fashion

Fishing

Flowers

Food

Frankenstein

Friends

Furniture

Gambling

Games

Gardening

Ghost

Gold

Golf

Hair

Halloween

Handwriting

Happiness

Health

Height

History

Humor

Identity

Insults

Insurance

Inventions

Justice

Laundry

Lawyers

Laziness

Lies

Life

Light Bulbs

Living

Love

Luck

Magic

Mail

Management

Manners

Marriage

Mathematics

Medicine

Mercy

Military

Modesty

Money

Mood

Mummies

Music

Names

News

Nudists

Observations

Painting

People

Personality

Physicians

Plants

Plumbers

Police

Politics

Pool

Problems

Psychics

Psychologists

Reading

Religion

Revenge

Role Models

Rumors

Running

Safety

Sales

Seafood

Seniors

Shoes

Shooting

Shopping

Signature

Silence

Singing

Sleep

Smoking

Space

Speaking

Speech

Spiders

Sports

Statues

Strength

Success

Telephone

Television

Thinking

Time

Trash

Travel

Vanity

Vision

Waiters

Wall Street

Weather

Weight

Work

Wrestling

Writing

Zombies

Preface

I was not anxious to write a preface, but I may be duty bound by custom. Can it be a desirable book without a preface? I don’t recall a preface in the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments, and they managed to survive through the ages without a formal preface.

It may be wise at this juncture to hurry because some people may be champing at the bit to press on to the text. I have known people who didn’t bother to read any introduction or preface to a book that came to hand. I read all introductions and prefaces without fail. If I dislike either I have often skipped reading the book. I like to get the sense of how an author thinks. If that person’s introduction is boring, too simplistic, too complicated or if they make little or no sense, why continue? An excellent introduction or preface will draw me in similar to iron fillings to a magnet, to continue. I find that the introduction is the key element for me. I admire any author who can make the introduction interesting and engrossing which is a reflection of the author’s creative thinking process to follow.

Book reviews are often very useful. Strangely, I frequently forego reading the review of a book since I want to use my own judgement rather than relying on the judgement of others. I have occasionally abandoned reading a book if I have had to struggle through the first confused chapter.

There you have it, an unorthodox preface and technically not a preface at all. A preface has a plan or a goal outlining the gist of what is to come. Summarizing, the book is delightful since it is unique, humorous, funny at times, enlightening on occasion, clean and hopefully different. No one helped with the writing of the book. I am too unknown to merit a ghost writer. I may not have any skeletons in my closets either; how drab? Relax and enjoy the book. For people in the great country of Great Britain, cheers! Britain is great by definition, ‘Great’ Britain. Preface completed.

Looking for Love at 82

My wife of 57 years passed away in an assisted living facility in Aberdeen, Maryland on 25 July 2019. She was the victim of the Alzheimer malady. We had no children and the loss left me devastated. Happy wife, happy life. There was no one in my living area except my Maine coon cat, ‘Cutie Pie’. The TV kept me informed but it was inanimate. The telephone merely reminded me that my car’s warranty had expired and that I needed a security system and more life insurance. My late wife’s Seven Day Adventist (SDA) church members stopped coming by and my few friends that I had worked with had moved away or passed away. I had outlived many of them. My living area was very quiet. The silence wasn’t deafening because I couldn’t hear it. The occasional telephone call literally woke up the dead. Its ringing was quite alarming. In a word after 57 years of happily married life I began to feel the pangs of loneliness. If it wasn’t for my cat, Cutie Pie, I might as well have been a monk with a vow of silence.

I mentioned my sad state to my neighbor Ted. Ted, a Doctor of Law, was close to my age and one of my few friends. Ted was a tenant of mine. We lived in the same house in separate apartments for over five years. Ted was more than a tenant; he was a true friend in that we were both concerned with each other’s welfare. Ted had been a bachelor for as long as I had known him. Knowing my plight Ted felt sorry for me and one day he stopped by to commiserate with me and offered up a suggestion. Ted said, "You know Alex, I signed up for a computer dating service. I submitted my profile describing my background, particulars and desires about the lady that I wanted to meet and in no time, I had dozens of inquiries. I did not follow up on the inquiries but Alex you would be surprised at the responses that I