Greetings. I keep my eye on the Yahoo personals. I'm not sure why, because I really don't have any intention of dating again as I approach my sixth decade of life.

Many of the men's ad say that they don't want a woman with "baggage." I find this confusing.

Who the devil lives for four or five or six decades and has no "baggage"? We have many people in high school and their twenties here who have seen enough of life to have plenty of "baggage" at these ages!

I interpret baggage to mean "life experience" which means we have experienced good and bad, happy and sad. We have allowed ourselves to be vulnerable and probably got hurt.

To me the request for a date who comes without baggage is like saying you want to date a Stepford Wife. It is unrealistic and suggests a vacuous approach to life and experience. In fact, I find the request darned annoying.

Am I looking at this the wrong way?