Dating in middle-age occasionally comes to a beastly end. My friend Sherene is in her late 50s, single, content, yet in an act of bravery went on a date arranged on the Internet. It was her first one and there may not be another one. He was a nice fellow, but in an act of questionable romance sent her photographs of cows taken during a golf round.

"I'm like, OK," Sherene grins down the phone line, "this is not my thing." Not the golf, not the cows, not anything else. There was, absent any feuding, as much common ground here as the Montagues had with the Capulets. This man just didn't fully fit, so she flew.