The writer Anne Lamott recently sat in the living room of her Fairfax, Calif., house, wearing her signature dreadlocks, a loose cotton shirt and baggy jeans (skinny jeans are definitely not her style). At 65, she was about to get married for the first time.
When asked why she stayed single so long, she replied that she was shy and introverted and hated leaving the house, particularly for parties.
“If I go to a party, I become a Roz Chast character with my arms hanging at my sides and I feel like I’m developing a tic,” said Ms. Lamott, who has published 18 memoirs and novels, many about being a recovering alcoholic, single mother, incessant worrier and late-in-life churchgoer.
Yet in recent years, she found herself admitting to friends and fans (otherwise known as “Annieholics”) that a good marriage was the one thing she wanted but had not achieved. So she joined OurTime, a matchmaking site for people over 50, and forced herself to go on dates and make small talk. “Then, I saw this really handsome, soulful guy on OurTime and he was like me,” she said. “He was hard-core left wing, an intellectual, spiritual seeker.”
His name was Neal Allen, and she contacted him in August 2016. He promptly wrote back: “You rejected me already!”
He reminded her that they had exchanged messages on the site a few months earlier, but she had stopped communicating with him after learning he was allergic to cats (she sleeps with hers, which could also explain why she hadn’t found a partner sooner). Mr. Allen, 63, had left his job as a vice president for marketing at the McKesson Corporation in San Francisco to become a writer. He lived alone in a house in the woods in Lagunitas, Calif., and he had a wide range of interests that included
Plato, bluegrass music, the New Testament and Vipassana meditation. He sounded much cooler than she remembered. “I said, ‘Take me back! Take me back!’” she said...READ MORE
