Carole Lethbridge - Online Dating After Sixty: One womans journey of love, lust and losers

Online Dating After Sixty

Acknowledgements

Without my daughter Annika Thomas, Prof. Margaret Schnitzler and Dr Helen Wheeler, I would not have been around to write this book. Thank you.

Disclaimer

As this is a true story, in order to protect my family, my friends and the males in this book, all names, some places and some situations have been changed.

Published by Hybrid Publishers

Melbourne Victoria Australia

Carole Lethbridge 2013

This publication is copyright. Apart from any use
as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be
reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the
publisher. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction should be
addressed to The Publisher, Hybrid Publishers,
PO Box 52, Ormond, Vic 3204, Australia

www.hybridpublishers.com.au

First published 2013

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Lethbridge, Carole, author.
Online dating after sixty : one womans journey of love,
lust and losers / Carole Lethbridge.

9781925000054 (paperback)

9781742982939 (e-book)

Lethbridge, CaroleAnecdotes.
Online datingAustralia.
Man-woman relationships.

Dewey Number: 06.730285

Cover design by Gittus Graphics
Photo courtesy Carole Lethbridge

Contents

My formative years

I now often think I could be content with staying at home knitting and never having sex again for as long as I live.

So why arent I?

How different would my life have been if I had been born the boy my parents so desperately wanted? I arrived that warm first day of November 1943 in the front room of a tiny, timber workers cottage in Olive Street, Maitland, NSW, Australia. My parents were horribly disappointed, and never let me forget that Id come into the world as another useless girl.

No wonder I never felt part of my family. Most of my early childhood I lived in fear of being hit and locked out of the house for what my parents regarded as my defiant behaviour. I always knew what it felt like to be insecure and unsure of who I was. I thought, if not even my parents wanted me, who could ever want me? This rocky start resulted in my spending most of my adult life looking for the love and affection Id never had in those important formative years.

Some of my most vivid memories are from my early teenage years when boys first became the centre of my life. I was amazed when I realised males were prepared to give me the affection I so desperately craved. Little did I know then that I could have any amount of love and caring from men, if I was prepared to pay the price.

Lets go back to when I was around thirteen

It was 1957 and the night of our monthly church social. My sister Janet and I were really excited. It was a chance for us to have some fun and it meant we could escape home for several hours. I was thirteen and my sister was almost fifteen; this was one of the few occasions when we were allowed out. The social was held in the hall of our local Presbyterian church about five minutes walk from our house. We went there by ourselves, but our mother would send our father to pick us up at about 9 oclock.

We lived in Newcastle, at that time a small east coast industrial town. Our house had two bedrooms, and my sister and I shared one of them. We got on quite well until it came to our bedroom, where most of the drama took place. We had separate wardrobes but we shared the dressing table. The room had a halfway point marked on the floor, and my sister dared not venture onto my half or I onto hers.

My sister was already experimenting with smoking. The window was on my side of the room, and of course she wanted to come onto my side to blow her cigarette smoke out the window. I only allowed her onto my side of the room if she was smoking, and in return for giving her access to the window, she had to lend me her silver bracelet whenever I wanted it.

We had spent several days working out what we were going to wear to the social. We decided to put on our full swing skirts with layers of starched rope petticoats underneath. I was going to wear my lime-green skirt and my white peasant top with the elasticised neck and sleeves. I also wore my wide black elastic belt which I loved, because it had a wonderful gold buckle which locked by slipping three knobs through three holes.

At the social, we girls grouped in one corner to check out the boys. We always hoped that one of the local boys would bring a visiting city cousin, as this would give us more choice than the usual lot. Usually, we were meant to just stand there like dills against the wall, waiting for the boys to ask us to dance. Having boys make the choices didnt appeal to me even then, but saying No to Ya wanna dance? could mean standing against the wall all night, looking unpopular.

There were always more girls than boys at the social usually only about ten available boys for us twenty girls. Some of the boys had favourites and danced with the same girls every month. I was quite tall for my age; I found most of the local boys my age so short and I didnt like shorties. They made me feel like a giant.

We all took a plate with us. In those days a plate meant a plate with something on it, and the plate itself was also important. It was meant to be an impressive china plate, not an ordinary plate which was regarded with disdain. The one our mother used to send us with had a circle of painted pansies around the scalloped edge. We were always under threat to bring it back undamaged.

Favourite eats we took were pikelets, egg sandwiches, sponge cake, apple slice and lamingtons. At Christmas, the eats changed to the more special seasonal stuff like white Christmas slice, shortbread, chocolate crackles and mince pies.

When we were finally dressed it was time to leave. We pleaded with our mother to let us wear our flatties without socks and she agreed. At least we wouldnt have to take them off around the corner that night and stuff them in our clutch bags.

Our parents were already settled in, listening to the radio. The dominoes were set up on the green laminex kitchen table, ready for their nightly game. My mother Mavis was in her floral housecoat and her hair was in curlers, as it was every evening. My father Reg usually wore a singlet and a pair of khaki shorts around the house. Much to my embarrassment, hed be wearing these clothes when he picked us up after the social.

Hurry up, Carole, Im going, my sister Janet called from the hallway.

Stay together and behave yourselves, my mother shouted from the kitchen.

My father warned, Be outside at nine or else.

In those days, it was the norm for parents to hit their kids and I was usually the one who got hit. My mother kept a long piece of thick cane in the kitchen for the job. I felt very insecure because she always told me to get out when I was being difficult. Shed push me out into the backyard and lock the door. To cope, I would crawl under the house and cuddle Toby, our family dog, until I was allowed back inside. (Perhaps thats why I now surround myself with animals.) I spent many hours under the house.