Dating : Is This What I Get to Look Forward to When I Start Dating Again?

Over the weekend, I got stuck talking to an acquaintance that I occasionally have to spend time with because of our kids. I see her maybe two or three times a year. Usually, it is just a bunch of small talk to pass the time. I hate small talk, but it is preferable to what went down this weekend.

When I arrived, I saw she was the only other parent there, so I sat down next to her, greeted her, and asked how she was. For those of you who are confused, when a casual acquaintance asks how you are, they do not want your life story. Anything more detailed than telling them you feel a little under the weather due to a cold is too much information. Fine is the best possible answer you can give.

She decided to take the opportunity to unload on me about her father’s love life. This woman appears to be in her early 40s. I think her mother died about 4 or 5 years ago before I met her. I did actually meet her father once at an event for our kids. He seemed nice. Down to earth. Level-headed. I did not spend a great deal of time with him. Those were just my impressions.

I guess about a year ago he started dating a woman and they have decided to move in together. My acquaintance is losing her shit about this. She’s ranting about how this woman is a gold digger who is taking advantage of her elderly father. The way she was carrying on, I was picturing some stripper in her mid to late 20s or something like that.

Nope. Her Dad is in his mid-60s. The woman is 15 years younger — she stressed this multiple times as if it was some horrible degenerate thing. That would make the woman around 50. She works for some kind of non-profit group.

I have a very expressive face and I had to struggle to keep the WTF expression off of it.

I thought for sure I had to be missing something, so I tried asking some questions about why the woman was a gold digger. Her belief had two origins. The woman is younger than her father, which apparently means that she is just waiting for him to die and she owns a condo, but they are planning to live together in his house and rent her condo out.

At this point, I was wondering if I should start looking around for cameras to see if I was being punked or something.

Mercifully, she had ranted for so long that my son was ready to leave, and I was able to get the hell out of there before I had to figure out some diplomatic way to suggest that maybe she was overreacting.

As my late boyfriend used to affectionately say, diplomacy is not my strong suit.