Gay son chronicles dad’s misadventures in the senior dating scene

Bob Morris

Almost invariably, one of your parents will outlive the other, sometimes by quite a few years. And it’s quite possible that this parent will want to have someone else in his or her life again. This thorny issue is bound to dredge up a lot of issues for adult children should they find themselves in this situation. But very few are likely to be asked by their 80-year-old father to help him in his quest for another lady love …

This is precisely what happened to columnist for The New York Times Bob Morris, several months after his mother died from a rare, and incurable blood condition. Because his father, Joe, refused to alter his routine of tennis and bridge games, it often fell to Bob and his older brother, Jeff, to look after their mother during her decade-long decline.

“So there’s an acrid, unspoken guilt we share now …. We shift on our feet, a father and son with everything to talk about and nothing to say to each other,” Morris observes.

Sometime later, after recovering from his father’s request, Morris calls his brother to discuss this development. “

Since when has Dad been appropriate?” is all Jeff can offer.

“Assisted Loving” is a shameless tribute to Joe Morris, a man “fully conversant with the idea of happiness, especially his own.” A natural-born complicator, he has a study somewhere beneath his mounds of paperwork, numerous food stains dotting his clothes, and a vehicle that’s more of a landfill on wheels than a car. Fortunately, he has an infectious joie de vivre, relatively good health, full mental faculties, and could easy pass for 70. So despite his misgivings, Morris agrees to help.

However, as father and son soon discover, dating doesn’t get any easier as you get older. To his fascinated horror, Morris soon learns far more about the senior dating scene than he ever cared to know.

“Who would love a poorly dressed, irascible, but sweet and well-meaning suburban Republican like [his dad]?” he wonders.

Plenty of ladies, it turns out. In that age bracket, women outnumber men three to one. Unfortunately, many of them come with more baggage than a 747, or are just looking for a “walker” — someone to escort them for the evening and nothing more.

“I’m not asking for superficial,” Joe sighs at one point. “Just pleasant. But pleasant is in very short supply around here.”

As Morris warms to the idea of playing matchmaker, he’s forced to take stock of his own dating situation — or lack thereof. A 44-year-old gay man who’s never been in a long-term relationship, he’s become accustomed to single life, but his cynicism can’t entirely mask his loneliness. Waiting in a bar for his date to show up, he wonders, “How many more years will I be holding a drink in my hand, staring into space, nodding my head to his monotonous music I hate?”

Then, to his astonishment, Morris meets — and clicks with — Ira, a younger man in the publishing industry. However, he instinctively draws back, and lets things cool off. To his surprise, his dad urges him to keep the relationship going.

“Listen, it’s a decision to see how wonderful someone is, flaws and all. That’s what it takes to find a match. Love is a decision, Bobby.”

And to his amazement, Morris discovers that “this man who isn’t who I thought I wanted is exactly what I needed.”

“Assisted Loving” is an utterly charming chronicle of a son forging a stronger, loving relationship with a father from whom he was largely estranged. He starts out regarding his dad as a middle-class annoyance and considers visits to him to be burdensome chores. But gradually, haltingly, their bond strengthens, especially after a few opportunistic ladies of a certain age try to latch their talons onto Joe. By the time he finds someone who “isn’t perfect, but [is] perfect for me,” only the most jaded of readers won’t feel a warm glow.

The book also disproves the stereotype that gay men don’t relate well to their fathers. Although Bob and his dad may squabble like “The Odd Couple” at times, their bickering underpins a genuine love between them. As Bob’s brother observes, “[Dad] loves me, he loves my family. But he is thrilled by you.”

Near the book’s end, Bob’s boyfriend Ira describes a weekend spent with Joe and his ladylove as “utterly banal and utterly uplifting at the same time.” The latter half of this assessment perfectly describes “Assisted Loving,” and its underlying messages that love and hope spring eternal, even if we don’t.

ODD COUPLE: Bob Morris, had the perfect gay life — until he started pimping for his elderly dad.

“Assisted Loving: True Tales of Double Dating with my Dad,” by Bob Morris. (Harper, May, 2008) 304 pp., $24.95.


This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 13, 2008.