At least you'll never have to go through menopause

Twice in the past 3 days, the topic of menopause has come up. The first came up on a date the other night, the second was yesterday at work.

"How is the New Year going?"

"Not too bad...I'm just trying to stay warm."

She leans in.

"At least you'll never have to go through menopause."

I proceed to tell her that I had my share of hot flashes when I started on a new hormone regimen several years ago. Every afternoon I was having hot flashes that lasted about 30 minutes to an hour. My endo finally bumped up my hormone dose and I felt fine.

I ask her how often she is having hot flashes and she says a few times a day.

So, my menopause was more of an abbreviated one compared to the actual, but I still face the consequences of both a female and male menopause as I age.

Well, I opened this blog entry with a teaser that I had a date. I met this girl off a dating website and had dinner with her before the holidays. Now that I am back in town, we got together to play a little pool. (She demolished me in the first game, she lost the second game, and I finally won the third...which she may have let me win.)

As we are sharing a small pizza, she mentions that she thinks she is starting to go through the initial stages of menopause. She's 5 days older than me. I tell her that I've already been through some of it...that I can't have kids...that I was born without ovaries or a uterus, and that I was born male.

Sometimes I wish I didn't pass as well, so that the shock of the statements above didn't hit so hard...or that I was simply more open and dated a person that knew up front.

The hard reality is that things change when a person goes from not knowing to knowing. It's a big lever and you can hear it go wham into the electrical contacts of the other side.

She said it was a lot to ingest, and that it took time.

Perhaps that is why I won the third match, I'd shocked her enough to throw her off her game. She still asked for a kiss before we departed, though, so perhaps she just needed a little time to let things sink in. I guess time will only tell.