The Meaning of “What Did You Wear?”

My Great-Aunt May had a love affair when she was in her 70’s. Obese, balding, her hands and legs mishappen by arthritis, she did not fit the stereotype of a woman romatically loved. But she was — by a man, also in his seventies, who lived in a nursing home but occasionally spent weekends with her in her apartment. In trying to tell me what this relationship meant to her, my aunt told me of a conversation. One evening she had dinner at the home of friends. When she returned to her home that evening, her man friend called. In the course of their conversation, he asked her, “What did you wear?” When she told me this, she began to cry: “Do you know how many years it’s been since anyone asked me what I wore?