Deal 'em

Lucky at cards, unlucky at love. Is that the saying? I’ve heard something like that before, and it sure has been true for me. Lately, anyway.

I’ve got a regular poker game that I attend, every two or three weeks we’ll have a game on Saturday night. We’ve got five regulars, four guys and one of the guy’s girlfriend plays, and then we’ll usually have one or two others that are pretty steady attendees. We had seven show up tonight, six guys and the lady, and it was a good time, we ordered pizza and semi-watched the Jaguars-Dolphins game.

Quarter ante most of the games, fifty cent max bet, three raise max. Friendly stakes. I won about forty dollars tonight. It’s been like that the last five or six times we’ve played. Well, actually last time I won about eight, but the other times I’ve won a minimum of thirty dollars, and usually closer to forty.

I don’t know what the deal is, but I get some damn good cards. I mean, really good cards. I’ve gone on stretches where I’ll win four out of five hands, three in a row, like that, and somebody else might not win four hands all night. It was amazing, humorous at times (to me), how the cards would just fall like I needed them to.

Meanwhile, my love life sucks. I don’t go out to bars anymore, not often anyway, but you’d think that through work, or at the gym, or AA, or even the grocery store I’d meet someone and something would click. It’s been so long since I’ve felt that click, I don’t even know if I’d recognize it. Getting laid isn’t the issue, it can be accomplished without too much trouble, but meeting someone that turns out to be a companion, romance, all that stuff, man, it’s just not happening. I guess when you’re in your forties the odds aren’t as good as when you’re in your twenties or even thirties. Most people in my general age group are married, for the second or third time in a lot of cases.

I’ve also finally come to accept the fact that women in their twenties, unless they are particularly mature for their age and happen to like older men, are too young for me. I went out with a lady a couple of weeks ago, twenty nine, and she seemed young. Maybe it’s because she just got out of a relationship and she’s ready to be one of the girls out on the town every weekend, but it really hit me like a brick. Women in their twenties are young to me. I’m an older man now. Wow.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d date a late-twenties woman, no problem for me, but I think, why would she want to date me? I’m in my forties. Now, I do count the fact that I’m very immature for my age as working to my advantage with younger women (that joke goes over better when it’s spoken rather than written). But seriously, where the hell are the single thirty five to forty year old women? Probably dating guys in their twenties. What the fuck.

I really don't sweat it much. I stay busy, and I’m generally okay with my own company, but it’s nice to have someone to share the good times with. I'm not out there searching for it, though. If it happens, great, but in the mean time, deal me in.

Peace and aces down…