Yesterday, we came up with 7 reasons you should bring your grandma along on a first date. And we were serious.

Coincidentally enough, yesterday The Frisky also ran a post also talking about Grandmas on dates — except they said it’s a dealbreaker. Who’s right? (Grandma would say that we are, of course.)

Maybe we should look to The Stir for a compromise: they say that Grandma can make the best wingman (wingma? Can this be a thing? Let’s make that happen). 24-year-old Kayli Stollack got her 76-year-old grandmother, Gail, to sign up for OKCupid with her, and the two “swap stories, lament about lame dates, cheer each other’s successes, and laugh about the commonalities in the dating world that seem to know no age.”

It’s true for me, too: My grandma is my number one wingman (wingma). A few years ago I reached that point where you’ve been single so long your grandmother starts worrying you’re a lesbian, so mine (that’s Joyce and me, above) found a boyfriend for me at Chicago O’Hare. This guy was walking around the terminal wearing a Steelers jersey and Grandma thought, wow he’s cute and he likes the Steelers (her standards are incredibly high). She went right up to him and asked him if he wanted to get a drink. What’s crazier is, he said yes, and next thing you know they’re eating nachos together at the Terminal B Chili’s Grill & Bar Restaurant and getting Margarita-drunk. That’s when I got a phone call.

Related: How to Pick Someone Up in An Airport Terminal
“He’s pretty freakin’ cute,” she whispered as if she was on a covert spy mission…except her whisper voice is louder than most people’s regular talking voices. Also, this guy was still sitting right next to her. “He lives in Beaver Falls, but he’s here visiting a girl in Chicago — it’s not his girlfriend, I asked.”

Related: 5 Reasons My Mom Wishes I Had a Boyfriend
This did not seem a match made in heaven, so when she offered to put him on the line I told her to give him my email address, which, I reminded her, was DesiDater@gmail.com (except, of course, it isn’t). But I appreciated Grandma’s effort, and it felt good to know that while I was crashing and burning on the New York City dating scene, I had a representative touring airport Chili’s to find me the perfect man.

Grandma’s got my back, and she always has. (She also hooked me up with a guy who I ended up making out with on a subway platform, who also ended up being semi-related to me. But that is another story.) Our lives, at the time, were surprisingly parallel. She was single in her small apartment in Western Pennsylvania, I was single in my even smaller apartment in New York City. On Sundays, a day single people often feel the most single, we would go see the same movie together and call each other to discuss. I’d make her famous spaghetti sauce recipe and open a bottle of wine (she would too) and we’d have a nice, quiet Sunday alone, together.

Related: Dating Advice From the Golden Girls
I’d tell her things I wouldn’t tell my parents. I never had to worry about her judging me or getting worried over nothing. I guess sometimes when people get old, they decide they are done worrying. And her life has been so much harder than mine, so my work or dating problems probably seem pretty tame compared to the problems she faced at my age — two kids, a divorce, welfare, taking care of younger siblings, working two jobs, etc.

So thanks for all the love advice, Grandma. You can be my wingma anytime.

 

Filed Under: