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Would You Date a Man with Painted Toenails?

And other reasons women end relationships

Bebe Nicholson
Middle-Pause

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When my friend Jenny’s husband died, she was devastated. She was also lonely, and several months later, she decided she wanted to be in a relationship.

But at sixty-five, meeting men was hard. She contacted an old flame she had dated decades earlier, they went out a couple of times, then he ghosted her.

“How do you meet someone?” She lamented after he didn’t return her fifth text message. “This relationship is going nowhere, and everybody on Match.com is crazy.”

“I know somebody,” said a friend from church. “Let me see what I can do.” The friend fixed her up with a nice, church-going man whose wife had died. They hit it off right away, and he seemed as smitten as she was.

Until they went to the beach, he took his shoes off, and she noticed his toenails were red.

“I can’t do this,” she said later to the friend who fixed them up. “I can’t date a man who paints his toenails!”

The matchmaking friend and many other church ladies agreed. How could anybody date a man with painted toenails?

I’m also a church lady, but I thought they were being ridiculous. “What difference does it make? Who cares?” I asked. “He’s funny, thoughtful…

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