What Does a Single, Gay, 50 Year Old Look Like?

So Michelle Obama has turned 48. It's kind of shocking to be older than the First Lady. I mean, Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan with their old lady hair seemed much more advanced in years. But the current occupants of the White House are practically peers. At this rate, in the next administration, I'll be complaining that the President and First Spouse are too young to have a clue about what they're doing and that in my day ...

You get the picture.

I have to admit that this last birthday rattled me. I'm now just one year away from the half-century mark. It's not that I'm afraid of death or being unattractive. I treasure each and every gray hair. It's more that I don’t know how I should act.

What does 50 look like? The image that first comes to mind is of active grandparents. But I'm not a grandparent, nor are there prospects for becoming one.

I sort through my mind's database of images for living as a nearly 50 year old single, childless, gay person: Eccentric uncle. Spinster aunt. Confirmed bachelor. Gay divorcee. Pathetic looser. Crazy cat lady. Hmm. The closest one that fits is crazy cat lady.

It's not about how I look to others, but rather how I see myself. There's a shortage of helpful role models for people of years, in general, let alone single ones. Add gay to the mix and, well, I might as well be the only one. 

The best older role model that comes to mind is Betty White. She's beloved, respected, active, funny, and she's 90. Doesn't help me much right now.

A role model for the unmarried, in my mind, is single gal Doris Day in the 1960's movie, Pillow Talk. She's strong, beautiful, busy with her career, and has a housekeeper. Of course, in spite of fiery independence, she settles down in the end with Rock Hudson. Needless to say, she's not old in the movie, and gay didn't exist on the screen then.

It's pretty gay that I use Pillow Talk as an example. It's pretty gay that I vividly remember Rock Hudson in the bathtub scene, but I digress.

I don't sit around and pine for a husband, like Sally Rogers on the Dick Van Dyke show (another fairly gay reference and dubious single role model), but neither do I commit eternally to my singleness, forever free from the bonds of husbandly attachment. I simply want to know how I'm supposed to act now that I'm approaching the AARP demographic.

This just in. Rosie O'Donnell, I'm observing as she talks to Piers Morgan, is exactly my age. She's gay. She's engaged, but single for now. She looks fabulous. Maybe I just need to look around a little more.

Third Wheels Provide Balance

As a pretty much confirmed single individual, I've had a lot experience as the third wheel. “Third wheel” is the designation usually given to that extra person society traditionally looks down upon because she or he is not attached to another.

Well I have news for society. Recent studies indicate that unmarried people are likely to be in the majority soon.

Only 51% of U.S. adults are currently married, an all time low (I don't remember where I heard the statistic - for all you know I just made it up). This is mostly due to people waiting until later in life to tie the knot, but I'm sure divorce and economic changes play a part – to say nothing of those who live as coupled without the legal sanction.

So for now, the norm continues to be going through life in pairs. Since my friends are way beyond trying to "fix me up" just to even out the number at dinner parties, this means that when we get together, I'm the odd one.

While society prefers couples and all the symmetry they bring, I relish my role as "extra." Third wheels provide balance. We keep couples from falling over.

With this power, of course, comes responsibility. When a couple seems about to topple over as a result of conflict over a minor item, such as whether to put cilantro in the salad, I'm often looked at to settle the disagreement. It's kind of like being Vice President, casting the deciding vote in the Senate.

During more significant arguments, such as in what religion to raise the children, I'm more cautious. Tempting as it is to blurt out what I know to be the correct answer, I make it a practice to never take sides in the biggies.

If you piss off one person in the couple, you've lost both friends. And most seriously, if the couple starts to break up, be careful. Now more than ever, do not take sides. They may reconcile and when they do, the pair will remember everything you said about the one you sided against and in a united front that only a newly reconciled pair can muster, the third wheel will be spun off to search of other couples to balance.