50 and Dating-What Do Jerry Springer and Dating Baggage have in Common for the Mature Dater after 50?

Well it seems the ‘King of Entertainment’ is delivering his audience a new show called “Baggage” on Cable TV’s Game Show Network. Three women vie for the attention of a single man. The only criteria is whether or not he can accept her baggage which has been symbolically placed in varying sized suitcases in front of each woman.

In every round, the women share a piece of their baggage while the man gets to decide whether it’s too heavy for him. If it is, one of the women leaves the game and he continues pursuing the remaining contestants.

We all know everyone comes with baggage when they enter a relationship yet it feels like the older we get, the more of it we seem to accumulate. Think about this- when you were young and getting married for the first time, about the only extra weight you carried came from your youth. Your baggage probably fit into a small carrying case that included a couple of high school and college sweethearts along with whatever issues you might have had with your parents.

Let’s move forward 20 years- you may have experienced a divorce or two so the baggage you now have has grown from a small suitcase to a steam trunk that gets carried into your next relationship. You could have children, grandchildren, aging parents, in laws you’re still close with, shared friends, houses, and debt just to name a few of the items you’re carrying with you.

We all have baggage and it definitely influences our lives. As I write this blog, I am leaving my current boyfriend to go see my children and granddaughter from my first marriage. Just last week, I went to a baby shower for one of his four children with his first wife and last fall he spent 6 weeks with his children out west. Our baggage affects every relationship you’ll be in.

The thing is we can’t just start dumping possible dates for their baggage. We all have it. The key is to be able to integrate into a relationship all the different bags we bring with us. It’s difficult to do but it can be done. In my second marriage, we worked hard at blending our family and friends. It was one of the best things we did together but it took a lot of effort plus compromise and acceptance on all our parts.

Of course there is some baggage men will carry that we should stay away from, as they are super-sized steam trunks a little too cumbersome for us to deal with. And it’s important to recognize your own baggage so you know what you’re bringing with you. If it’s a matching super-sized trunk, it may be worth waiting to date while figuring out how you can deal with some of its contents.

In the last minutes of Jerry’s show, the male contestant gets to choose which woman carries the piece of baggage he thinks he can live with. After the audience applauds his choice, she gets to hear what baggage the man brings to the table. She then, has the opportunity to see whether or not she can accept the past he carries with him and whether or not he’s worthy of having a date with her.

Very much like real life isn’t it? No one is perfect and everyone comes with baggage. It’s just a matter of figuring out what it is you can live and deal with in a potential partner.

By the way, I met Jerry Springer as a young kid in high school. He was campaigning to be mayor of my hometown. The man was handsome, brilliant and charismatic even back then. But as many politicians do, he made some big mistakes, which created a luggage store of steam trunks that have followed him throughout his career and life much like our accumulated baggage travels from relationship to relationship with us.

Catch this show if you can. It’s on Cable TV’s Game Network. If anything, it will help you understand your own baggage and how it affects men you date in the future. Thanks Jerry for giving us another one of your crazy shows that we can relate to.