Do Different Tastes Make for a Happy Boomer Couple?
The other day, I heard a comedienne tell a story about an experience that she had flying Delta, in coach. She said that the flight attendant walked through the aisle and asked if anyone wanted to read The Wall Street Journal. She remarked: “If I was the kind of person who read that paper, I’d be up front instead of back here!”
I consider myself to be educated and savvy, but, I gotta tell you, I would also prefer to know why those Aliens on the cover of World News Weekly were meeting with Obama at the White House, dictating defense strategy? Everyone knows that, because they are from outer space, they are suspect in their suggestions.
In any case, it’s clear that Boomers have very different tastes.
My wife and I, for example, subscribe to very different magazines.
Being a news, domestic bliss and rock n’ roll junkie, I get Time, Cooking Light, Cigar Aficionado, Wine Spectator, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Travel & Leisure, just to name a few.
Hope reads Science Times, Boston University Alumni News, Brooklyn Law School and the weekend editions of The Wall Street Journal.
She gets miffed on Tuesdays when I toss out the Science section of the New York Times before she reads it. It amazes me what piques her interest. I read about dishes to lower your cholesterol. She reads about doctors developing new arthroscopic surgery techniques to enhance your running and lifesaving methods for reducing the rate of heart attacks among men and women. Pretty Braniac-like, if you ask me.
Every Sunday, I toss out the sports section and read Arts & Leisure, lamenting that we need better theater and rock here in Arizona. She reads Sunday Styles to see who got married and if the shoes she bought last week at DSW will be laughed at on our trips back East or considered so trendy here in Scottsdale.
When it comes to TV, we have each staked our claim. I am a Dig, Justified, Person of Interest, Battle Creek and SNL kind of guy. For her, as a lawyer, it’s Broadchurch, The Good Wife, Empire and Law and Order.
She doesn’t watch comedy. I didn’t know that when we got married. She claims I did. Now, when I watch TV, she goes online – and when she watches TV, I do work outside.
We have 4 college degrees between us (ok… she has 3 out of the 4) but you would think we’d agree on something literary.
I love history and sociology. I read Jeff Greenfield’s “If JFK Had Lived” and Jeffrey Kluger’s “The “Sibling Effect” while she read Naomi Regan’s “The Covenant” and other books about Jewish history and the like. She is fascinated by them.
I was hoping that there would be a meeting of the minds when it comes to movies. No such luck.
She didn’t like “Birdman” and I got bored with “Gone Girl.”
I’m thinking Mad Libs. I can put in sophomoric nouns for parts of the body and she can insert a hilarious “writ of habeas corpus” as we’ll chuckle ourselves into a tizzy.
Well, at least we agree on travel, 100% of the time. That’s a start in this era of global peace talks. Now where did I put that Whoopee cushion?
Does your partner have similar tastes as you? Do you find that your differences bring you closer together? What do you think the secret is to maintaining a happy marriage after 50? Please join the conversation.
