"If I’m in a social situation sometimes I’ll hang back and observe people but I feel very much a part of things most of the time and feel very comfortable socializing and have for most of my life." Tobey Maguire

          Being old means you don’t socialize much with people who are not old and are still active and like to do things that make you feel old, so I don’t like to socialize now.  One’s potential circle of socializables is other old farts, but other old farts think they know everything and are very closed-minded.  I know because I’m one of them.  We’ve lived long enough so we’ve had plenty of time to think things through and reach the wrong conclusion about almost everything.

We’ve also lived long enough to know that certain topics are off limits.  Religion and politics are the prime examples.  What are fashionable, of course, are discussions about operations, doctors, enemas, X-rays, MRIs, bone problems, prescriptions, skin blotches, hair loss, digestive systems, colonoscopies, heart valves and arteries, urinary tract infections, hearing aides, and cataracts.  Those are just a small sample, but you get the idea.   These topics can fill hours of a dull evening lubricated by gallons of martinis.  From these discussions, I think I’ve learned enough to be able to do a complete medical diagnosis for most complaints and in some cases do the surgery needed to fix the problem.  It’s a living hell, I tell you.  When you’re not old, “Take an aspirin and call me in the morning if it doesn’t get better” often suffices.

So, with these topics to anticipate, I cringe when an invitation to a party or a dinner if forth coming.  But I usually go after checking my bathroom medicine cabinet to re-acquaint myself with my prescriptions – and, of course, my blood pressure and the color of my stools.

Another disturbing aspect about socializing with old farts is we tend to repeat ourselves.  We tell the same damn story over and over.  I know I’m guilty of this as well.  The problem is that you can’t remember to whom you have told which story.  My children are fond of interrupting me, “Dad, that’s story # 118.”  (I have two sons.)  But as long as I hear a story and recognize it as a repeat I don’t worry about having Alzheimer’s.  If I go to a social gathering and all of the stories are new, interesting and funny, then I know I’m on the downward spiral because it’s most probable that I just don’t recognize what I’ve heard before.  So repeating a story is just a tool for others to do a sanity check.

I remember (I think) I enjoyed socializing when I was not old.  Get together with some friends – drink a few beers, have a BBQ, trade barbs.  Perhaps, a friend had just been shopping for a trailer hitch and one could learn something from his experience.  Size, cost.  It was all interesting stuff.  Of course, I now realize that I’ve never bought a trailer hitch in my life, but I didn’t know then that I wouldn’t need that priceless knowledge.  Old farts never shop for trailer hitches.  If they need one, they pay someone to put it on.

© 2014 Lester C. Welch