Age Gap

    Dan's instagram took heavy fire that night from a barrage of trolls, still caked in soot after crawling out from beneath their bridges aflame. Provoked apparently, by his confident bliss to be engaged untraditionally to an older woman, they sought to inform him of his folly. Their comments did little more to slow his passion than a child's castle wall would to a tidal wave, and really he wondered how many out there forfeit love at the cost of normalcy. Of course with talent behind the camera, Dan's followers soon out-numbered his friends and along with the hoards will come the lonely cur. Bent on ravishing those close targets so riddled a bull no longer returns the satisfying ring it once did, they fail to see their own hope could exist in the same spot they place their rage.

     Of course she was encouraged in her twenties to follow stability and the cool maturity of a life insurance policy holder. His years nearly doubled hers and for each gray hair of his she had an uncrushed dream to follow. Their compatibility seemed to have more to do with a culture dependent on uneducated mothers than it did with the needs of either partner. Though now she dates in a more accepting climate, as a mere ten years his senior they draw judgemental looks when they dine out. Inattentive servers comment on the sweet gesture of a son to join his mother for dinner. His friends can't take him seriously and place his happiness beyond the gauntlet of derisive humor.

     We don't always know our own loves when we see them, if love is blind then first sight is a fantasy. How then can we judge another by the impossible standards we hope no one will hold up for us? The couple finds themselves in a type of human zoo. Encased in glass and concrete their friends, family and even strangers study them. Perhaps they should listen to the drunken scoffs from behind the glass. It's easy to see uniformity as satisfying and the safety of precedent when that uniformity falls for a younger mate. After all a relationship in isolation can't be healthy and support comes from the outside. Yet if your heart belongs to someone on the same side of the glass, does it matter who is visiting and who is on display?