We’re No. 1. At least when it comes to amore.
A recent study by Bert Sperling of Sperling’s BestPlaces, reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says the Pittsburgh area is the best place in the entire United States for Baby Boomers in search of true love. Eat your heart out, Paris, Rome and Niagara Falls. Based at least on lower than average divorce rates and higher than average marriage rates, Pittsburgh is the place to be if you are between the ages of 45 and 65 and are weary of looking for love in all the wrong places. What are we to make of this latest distinction for our home town? Since the article provided the results of the research but no hint as to their cause, we are left only to speculate. For the half-glass-full crowd among us, it could be said that this speaks to the stability of our region, where people marry for all the right reasons, cherish their wedding vows, and learn the value of sticking together through good times and bad. Of course, there could be another-glass-half-empty-way to look at this, with the answer to be found in the heavens. Or, more exactly, the clouds. As in those gray ones that seem to cover our region all the time. Collectively, Pittsburghers boast a number of positive traits: we’re hardworking, loyal, honest, and friendly. Not unlike really good basset hounds. But one glaring fault we seem to share is that we’ve resigned ourselves to certain events or situations with nary a whimper: we’re resigned to a pro baseball team that likely has seen its last world series; we’re resigned to dodging orange barrels and endless road repairs; we’re resigned to losing corporate headquarters and nonstop flights out of town. And, most assuredly, we’re resigned to looking up at the sky and basking in cloud cover approximately six days out of every seven (or so it seems.) So except for a lucky few of us who find their trophy spouse early and find the irritations of marriage minor when measured against the joys (and yes, she does occasionally read this column), marriage can be yet another thing to which Pittsburghers resign ourselves. I’m thinking that in places like California or Florida, the population walks around singing, “The sun will come up tomorrow .” (Most of us, by contrast, slump back and forth to work with Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” rolling around in our brains.) And, for good or ill, that attitude permeates everything else they do. So getting married, or staying married, are just two of the many options they entertain throughout their lives. Forty-five and not married? No big deal. Fifty-five and in a marriage grown stale?Let’s split our assets and call it quits. After all, the sun will come up tomorrow.
But whether our assent to the top of this particular mountain of love was due to stability or resignation, I say: who cares? I suggest we use it to launch a marketing campaign to replace those population numbers we reportedly have lost over the past few decades with single Baby Boomers who now surf the e-Harmony Web site in search of true love. This will foster a whole new romance industry locally: his and her Steelers shirts, gondola rides on the Mon, candlelight dinners at Primanti’s the potential is limitless.
And the best part is, whereas other regions are feverishly trying to lure twenty-somethings, we’ll have the middle-age crowd to ourselves. Given our current demographics, the end result will still be a dramatic drop in the average age of our population.
