I'd like to share a short story of something that happened to me a couple months ago. Not directly but to be specific a former boss of mine died a couple months back. She was 75.

When I first started working at the company where I met her, she was around 48-49 and was my immediate manager. She wasn't exactly the most astute and knowledgeable person I'd met, one of those types that just got promoted to her position either by luck or reshuffled in some kind of reorg in the past. Despite that I will say that she wasn't what I'd classify as a typical corporate Karen, she actually tried to make a little bit of an effort to find time for her immediate subordinates (including myself) to knock off early on occasion or worked with other co-workers at her level to put on sort of small birthday parties for people in our groups. Overall I'd classify the work atmosphere she and her fellow co-managers created as definitely above average. I don't like rating people but for the sake of making a point later, I'd rate her about a 3. You'll understand later why I bring this up.

This woman was married to a man who also worked at the same place just in a different area. I think this guy was actually a couple years younger than her. I don't know if they met at that company or someplace else but they were already married when I started there. Objectively I'd give the guy about a 4 - again you'll understand why later. I never really got to know the guy one-on-one much but he did occasionally stop by our work area for small talk. Things in the area where I worked with the woman and her co-managers eventually got so good that I got invited to a private party they were throwing at their home a number of months later. Myself and a handful of other people from work were there but I really appreciated that they tried to keep a relaxed atmosphere and made a solid effort to help make everyone feel welcome. It was a definite change from what I'd experienced prior to that in my career and it helped deal with the stress at work too.

These two hung out with another woman at that same company outside of work. She was in a pretty high director level position too and was also married but that woman's husband did not work there. Speeding up the story a little, my manager's husband and this woman began having an affair which after a few years finally led to a divorce and that guy and this woman ended up getting married. Why? My guess is that this guy looked at both of them and found this other lady more attractive and all of them being around the same age range and he figured if he's going to spend the rest of his life with one of them he was gonna go with this director lady instead.

So I also moved on to a different area within that company and my now former manager was single. She did the typical stuff that divorced women do, make new friends with women to go and hang out with of course the reason is to socialize and hopefully meet men.

By now you're asking what's the point of this post.....The point is that she never remarried. I'm sure she dated occasionally but to the best of my knowledge and the gossip network that sorta naturally occurs at places you work at if you're there long enough, never really managed to find another serious relationship. I believe she also died alone. Between the time she actually died and the time someone found her body at her home and called a coroner was around 10 days. After she divorced she didn't really work on herself in terms of physical fitness or trying out a new hairstyle or new fashions of clothes, nothing really. Just continued being herself as she had always been. It's a little sad I suppose simply because I knew her, but also it's a reality for many that a lot of people don't want to admit. Had she worked on herself after the divorce she probably could have improved herself to about a 4. I typically think that it's often within most people's capability of improving their looks by a whole number usually by a combination of a fitness program, diet, clothing choices, and some type of a makeover for your face like a new hairstyle or skincare regimen for example.

This sort of thing IS reality for some people. I still see tiktoks and youtube videos of women in their late 50s holding out for some GQ model doctor. I expect that this will happen more often over the next 10-20 years.