How do lonely people in an older age group meet? asks Ann Barrowclough.
It was very social in the aqua-jogging pool the other morning.
A lady in a very nice cover-you-up swimming costume was the only person there and soon got out, leaving me wondering how her costume would look on a skinny person, but as it didn't do much to cover skinny arms and legs, perhaps it's not for me.
A gentleman I had seen there before got in and as we were the only two there, he greeted me and introduced himself and I reciprocated, knowing his name rang a bell but being too shy to exchange biographies.
It was only in the car afterwards enjoying a coffee from the van serving the swimming champs that I asked the friend I go swimming with if this person had taught at a certain school.
He had, she told me, and his wife is so-and-so, whom I realised had a younger sister who had been a friend of one of my daughters.
Small world; our paths probably crossed many years ago.
In the pool I was introduced to the two gentlemen who arrived next and the lady who followed, all by first name only.
Ah, I thought, I seem to have been admitted to the 6.30 coterie.
It seemed strange that for quite a while there had been one female to three men, and this was at odds with conversations I had had at the weekend with a friend staying with me in Arrowtown who had been a hostel-mate in student days, both of our first marriages having failed.
I had remarried happily and was, sadly, alone now, my husband being in a rest-home, hating being on my own and longing for a companion my age.
Though one's children and grandchildren are wonderful, it's not the same.
"You'll have to get used to it,'' said my friend, "There's no-one out there in our age group.''
Our tidy-up job in the house required a trip to the Frankton recycling depot, allowing a cuppa with my old friends.
Imagine my surprise when the wife greeted me with: "Ann, we've got a man for you.''
"Bring him on'', I said, rubbing my hands in mock glee.
My Dunedin friend looked suitably shocked, but entered into the spirit.
"The poor chap even has to travel alone,'' my Frankton friend said.
"I would have gone with him,'' we both chorused.
"You'll have to meet him, Ann. Why don't you ring him and introduce yourself. He lives in Dunedin.''
"OK,'' I said facetiously, "I'll just phone him and tell him you two are trying to match-make us.''
"We haven't met him ourselves,'' they said.
"Our son and his son are good friends.''
This person, it transpired, was a former colleague and possibly a class-mate of my ex-husband at university and I certainly knew who he was and remembered him as a young man 50 years ago, but I doubted if he knew me from a bar of soap.
I couldn't help feeling a pang of warmth and admiration for his lovely son, whose concern for his widowed father had transmitted itself from the other end of the country through his friend to his friend's parents and now to me.
What are the protocols in these situations, I wondered.
My eldest daughter, a graduate of the home science school and sure to know, assured me that in this situation any introduction would have to come via the sons and no other way.
Definitely not.
Leaving me to contemplate, how do lonely people in our age group meet one another, especially the many of us whose loved ones are alive and in rest-homes?
There is no support group I know of.
Most of us would be either too computer illiterate or repulsed by the idea to go online.
No singles dances for the 70-year-olds.
Even if one did meet someone, what's the next step?
On what basis would one proceed?
Both of you are lonely, both dearly love(d) their life companion, both still have many years ahead to do those things planned and saved up for in retirement, when whammy, fate deals a nasty blow: one is gone, the other alone.
It happens all too often.
Our sons and daughters grieve for us; our friends do what they can, as did my Frankton friends.
But then what?
I feel that the ball is in my court, but alas, I do not know how to play it.
I don't even know if there is a ball.
But I rejoice that now I know the names of four fellow aqua-joggers.
● Ann Barrowclough is a Dunedin resident.
