The Graying Search

Twenty-two swipes left today. Twenty-two faces gleaming under ring lights, duck lips pursed like they're blowing kisses at bank accounts. Dating at fifty is thumbs cramping over phone screens smudged with desperation.

The apps are meat markets dressed as salvation. Cleavage pushed up to chins, filters smoothing the rough edges off hard-lived lives. Profile after profile selling fantasy while I'm just looking for someone who knows Burroughs without Googling.

My bedroom bookshelf sags in the middle—a monument to words that saved me when relationships couldn't. But try putting "reads obscure poetry" in a dating profile and watch the desert of matches expand.

I want thick-framed glasses that slide down a nose buried in Plath. Want hands with paper cuts and ink stains. Want someone who falls asleep with spines cracked open across her chest.

Instead, it's an endless scroll of vacation photos: beaches, boats, yoga poses on mountains. No one advertising the quiet Sunday mornings with coffee rings on dog-eared pages.

At fifty, the stakes feel so much heavier. Not looking to waste the good years left. Not looking to explain why Kerouac matters to someone checking their face in the camera.

Tonight another app notification: "You've got new matches waiting!" Another round of women who've never tasted the sweet dust of old library books, never known the sanctuary of reading glasses left on a nightstand beside someone who loves the weight of their ideas.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​