A Second Chance at 45

I was 44, freshly divorced, and absolutely terrified of dating apps. My daughter set up my CupidMsg profile for me. She picked my photos ("Dad, not the fishing one"), wrote my bio ("You're funny, let me make you sound funny"), and told me to just be honest in the prompts.

For "The way to win me over is..." I wrote: "Tell me something you're passionate about and watch me become genuinely interested in it, even if it's competitive bird watching."

She messaged me first. Her opening line was: "I'm into competitive bird watching. Your move." I laughed so hard I almost dropped my phone.

Turns out she was 43, also divorced, also terrified. We bonded over the absurdity of dating in our 40s, the joy of having adult-ish children, and a shared love of terrible puns.

Our first date was a hike. Our second was a cooking class where we both burned the risotto. Our third was meeting each other's kids, who immediately formed an alliance against us.

I'm 46 now. We're not rushing anything. But every morning I wake up grateful that my daughter made me download that app, and that somewhere out there, a woman who loves bad puns and burned risotto was looking for exactly someone like me.