Looking for Harrison Ford

 
It seemed like a harmless question. "Have you noticed so and so?" Almost anytime a group of men or women get together, it's bound to come up in one form or another. Well, this time, a young guy I knew was asking it of me.

"Are you kidding?" I answered, "She's smart, attractive, great personality -- if I were single, I'd have wasted no time asking her out."

"Aren't you a little old for her?" he responded, wide-eyed and breathless.

"Things visible to the eyes, are immaterial where the heart is concerned," I replied, adopting a professorial tone for emphasis.

"Yeah, but you're going to die sooner than me, right?" He then added, suddenly aware of what he'd just said, "Statistically-speaking, that is."

I looked at him, wondering what madness had possessed me to call us "friends" in the first place, and said, "Not necessarily. Young men die as surely as older ones, sometimes much sooner. As the ancient Greeks used to say, no one knows the length of the thread of his own life. Which would you prefer, to marry someone because you thought they had a statistically greater chance of long life or someone you truly loved?"

"You like asking the hard questions, don't you? I suppose I'd want to marry someone I loved, but if I thought they might die soon, I'd probably choose differently."

This is a hard question? Seems obvious to me, I thought. "You still don't get it, do you? No one knows how long they have, not even you. The issue isn't the quantity of years anyway, but their quality. I've seen how she relates to guys, what attracts her and what doesn't. She likes maturity and character. She's not interested in Brad Pitt, she's looking for Harrison Ford."

I could tell he was still unconvinced, but our conversation had ended and he walked away. Some things, I thought, just take time. Love isn't always predictable and what appeals to one may not another. We make choices that reflect who we are as persons, that honor our sense of what is truly important. For some, age is far less critical than character -- something my young friend will hopefully learn.

After a few years.

(Creative Commons image of Harrison Ford by J. Michael Miley via Flickr)