It seems like most readers take the story as being about dementia, but I listen to a story like this and it sounds unrealistic. The idea that a young man and a woman could just encounter each other and make some kind of connection is completely outside my life experience. If I were the guy in the anecdote about how they met, the moment someone made eye contact with me, I’d be thinking about how to handle the eventual harassment complaint, who my witnesses would be for the legal case, how I’d handle the logistics of the upcoming legal battle, etc.

And these couples that stay together for decades on end. I know so many intelligent young professionals who would never even consider a long-term relationship, a fair number who are already divorced, and most of the ones with actual partners I think probably should be divorced. Romantic relationships, in my experience, are not available for young professionals in cosmopolitan areas; this sort of life is for extreme social conservatives who live in ethnically homogenous communities and are quasi-forced to get married by their religions. The apps don’t help the situation, but it was true well before apps were invented.

I’m a mere 38, but I gave up on the possibility of a life trajectory like the one this author describes decades ago.