I was over at the library a couple of months ago looking for a good book to read when I happened to notice one of my daughter’s old boyfriends sitting all by himself at one of the tables. He was surrounded by books, magazines, and newspaper articles, and appeared to be doing some kind of research work. Just when I had decided that he looked much too busy to bother, he glanced up from what he was doing and spotted me. “Hi, Mr. Fisher,” he said with a warm smile. “How have you been?”
I strolled over to him and said, “Just fine. How about you?”
“Well,” he said with a deep sigh, “I was doing pretty good until I decided to take this stupid death and dying class this semester.”
“Death and dying?” I asked him, unaware that such a college class even existed.
“Yeah, it’s a psychology class out at Sacramento State,” he explained. “I thought it’d be an easy `A’, but boy was I wrong! And if I don’t get a good grade on this last assignment, I’ll be lucky if I even get a `C’ in the darn class.”
“What kind of class is it?” I asked with interest. “I mean, it sounds a little depressing.”
“Oh, it’s definitely that,” he said with emphasis. “The teacher is really nice though, and he’s always bringing in all these guest speakers who have had really terrible things happen to them, and a couple of weeks ago we even had to go on a field trip to a morgue.”
“Now that sure doesn’t sound like much fun.” I said.
“Well, at least they kept the sheets on the bodies.”
“Anyway,” I said, hoping to change the subject, “what kind of report are you working on here?”
“It’s a research paper about how women outlive men by about eight years on average,” he said. “My assignment is to try and figure out why.”
“I didn’t know that women live that much longer than men,” I said with surprise. “Are you sure? Eight years sounds like a pretty high number.”
“Oh, no,” he assured me, “it’s definitely eight years. And for every man who lives to be 70, two women do it.”
“Really?”
“And according to everything I’ve been reading,” he continued, “there’s not a whole lot men can do about it, either. I mean, we can try to eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, quit smoking and go easy on the alcohol, stuff like that, but that’s about it…. except for one other thing.”
“And what’s that?” I asked with interest.
“Well,” he said with obvious reluctance, “we can get married.”
“Really? Is that right?”
“I’m afraid so,” he said, obviously less than thrilled. “Just listen to some of this stuff.” He pulled out a page from his report and began to read. “Marriage has a beneficial effect for both men and women, but the effect is much, much stronger for men. In fact, a good marriage is almost like a wonder drug for men. Married men end up with a three-to-four year advantage in life span over single men….and even though married men gain more weight as a result of getting married, they still easily outlast confirmed bachelors.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked as he slowly shook his head from side to side and pushed away the page of his report he had been reading.
“Well,” he said. “I’m a confirmed bachelor.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “I think my daughter mentioned that to me once or twice back when you two used to date. If I remember right, that was actually one of the things she liked about you.”
“By the way,” he asked, “how is Carrie?”
“Just fine,” I said.
“I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“I’ll tell her that I ran into you.”
“I’d appreciate that,” he said. “And by the way, what does Carrie think about marriage now that she’s a little older?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m afraid nothing has really changed. The last I heard; she still thinks getting married is something no woman in her right mind would do.”
He shook his head again and said, “You know, it’s just not fair.”
“What’s not fair?” I asked.
“Well, your daughter and I think the exact same way when it comes to marriage, but if you add up the eight extra years she gets for just being a woman, and the four years I’m going to lose by staying single, and she’s going to end up living 12 years longer than I do.”