Dating Over 50

Here's a video pertaining to the issue of age, in relation to dating. http://youtu.be/9J_bJqseLN4

As a 58-year-old man, these issues are very close to my heart. I freely admit that I have little or no interest in dating someone who looks so old that she appears to be a candidate for life in a hospice!

I totally agree with the woman who states that most men would prefer to date a woman who's 10 or 15 years younger than himself. I also agree that people should be honest about their own age, regardless of their gender.

Widows and Remarriage: About Tammy Trent

One of my Facebook friends is a woman named Tammy Trent. She's a talented Christian singer, from Michigan but now living in Nashville Tennessee (where so many Christian singers live). She fell in love and married a man almost the same time that she became a Christian. (She was very young at the time, but they waited until she was in her early twenties to get married, as did my own parents.) Her stage name of Trent was the first name of her husband, Trent. (Her married surname seems to have been Lenderink.)

YouTube has several Tammy Trent videos. The one at http://youtu.be/cX2_gwG6cSI tells her story, in relation to the tragic death of her husband in a diving accident in Jamaica. http://youtu.be/0AAwEEVi2W0 also tells that story.

Trent's body was recovered around the same time as the tragic attack on 9-11-2001. (That must have been VERY difficult, since most people were so preoccupied with the terrorist attack that they had little time left over for her private tragedy.) She also tells the story on her own web site, at https://www.tammytrent.com/index.php/about.

Tammy is probably not gorgeous enough to be a supermodel (e.g., Cindy Crawford), but she's still pretty enough for my own tastes.

The fact is that there are attractive women who are "available", some of whom have lost their husbands to death, and some of whom have lost their husbands to divorce. (Of course, there are also women who have never been married, but the number of such women in my own age bracket is so ridiculously small that it's hardly worthy of my attention.)

I am unlikely to visit Nashville in the near future, Even if I did that, the chances are good that I'd never bump into Tammy. But there are plenty of available women in or near Whatcom County. I just need to make a love connection to such a woman. I deeply yearn to do that. I've been single for my entire life, and I'm tired of it.

I freely admit that the desire to experience sexual intercourse is one of my motivations. But there's more to marriage than sexual pleasure. Having a "soul mate" is a matter of committing one's self to someone who shares one's values and interests to some extent.

Having a helpmate is not always a smooth experience, but I firmly believe that it's worthwhile, regardless of whether or not a couple has children, and regardless of whether or not those children came into existence via normal reproduction, or via adoption.

This blog does not have a huge number of readers, but if you're a widow or divorcee who longs for a spouse as much as I do, please feel free to call me (360-201-6473) or e-mail me (mark_w_pettigrew@hotmail.com). I'd love to share a cup of coffee with you, and possibly a nice dinner, so that we could get to know one another.

The Origin of Valentine's Day

I was moved to post this because my e-mail In box contained a Twitter message consisting of several recent posts there. One of those posts said:

"St. Valentine was beaten, stoned, beheaded and buried on 14 Feb 269 AD for helping persecuted Christians and marrying Christian couples!"

That IS a pretty bloody story, considering that we now celebrate Valentine's Day by sending out greeting cards (sometimes pretty cheap ones, if we're little kids just getting acquainted with the holiday) and giving flowers or chocolates.

It would seem that the part about marrying Christian couples helps to explain why we now associate the name Valentine with love and romance.

Thoughts About Eunuchs and Wives

Lately, I've been using Facebook a lot more often to post short articles, just because I have enough Facebook friends that I can count on one or two comments indicating that they have actually been read. So rather than post the article here, I am just going to put the link to that post in this article.

https://www.facebook.com/mark.pettigrew.3950/posts/1010358462314782

Jim Rehnberg and His Rent-A-Rev Service

When I lived in the Chicago area, I made the acquaintance of a talented abstract painter named Marg Rehnberg. At the time, she was attending Willow Creek, a megachurch in the suburbs that later started a downtown Chicago branch.

I helped Marg to paint her suburban painting studio, for which I was paid a modest amount that nevertheless made it possible for me to survive some hard financial times.

Her husband, Jim Rehnberg, is an ordained minister. But he didn't pastor a church, and still does not do so. Instead, he runs a business he calls Rent-A-Rev. He specializes in officiating at marriage ceremonies, and also other kinds of events that are typically done by pastors.

http://www.rentarev.com/contact.php is his contact information.

Call the Rent-a-Rev:    312.386.1348 - Chicago
   847.854.1230 - North & NW suburbs
   630.232.2211 - West & SW suburbs   847.854.1098 - fax

   jim@rentarev.com

I'm hoping to start a radio show at Praise 106.5 FM in Linden. It would be called "Get Hitched" (no big surprise there). I'm thinking that an interview with Jim might make for an interesting show.

Bellingham Socials and Get Hitched

I currently have four Meetup.com groups, one of which is Get Hitched. I started Get Hitched specifically for single people hoping to meet potential romantic partners.

But that may be too narrow for some people, in terms of an agenda. As it turns out, it seems that Bellingham Socials' previous organizer, Eva, had specified that the group had been created for singles.

When I first joined the group, I noticed that some of the existing members were married, so she does not seem to have enforced that aspect of the group's existence. That's probably a good thing.

Having said that, I do want to keep the original emphasis on single people.

Alicia's Bridal & The Formal House Bowed Out

As you can see, I approached Alicia's Bridal in Bellingham, regarding the possibility that they might help Get Hitched, by sponsoring the group on Meetup.com. (It seemed like a logical partnership to me.) http://alturl.com/2jttj is the link to the Facebook post where I presented that possibility to them. But they replied " I'm sorry but at this time our marketing dollars are already allocated. Good luck with your venture!" Good luck indeed. I will need luck, since God knows that I have very little money. Rather discouraging, as many events in my life have been.