Henry is (almost) everything I want in a man. When he e-mailed me through Advanced Degrees Singles, he asked me whether I wanted to meet a “Nice Jewish Boy from Brooklyn.” Well, New York men, especially those from Brooklyn, are my favorite. I was excited.

Right away, I could see that Henry was different from the other men I had been meeting. He’s not just an “ordinary” Jewish Doctor; he’s an M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neurosurgery, brain surgeon, and tumor specialist. My grandmother would be kvelling. More importantly, when we spoke, it was clear that he was quite eager to meet me. Immediately following the “How are you’s?” he suggested that we meet for dinner. What a refreshing change from the men on JDate who “Hot List” me, or who look at my profile nearly every day, but don’t have the chutzpah to ask me out.

Henry did everything right. At the end of our first date, during which he took notes about my marital history on his placemat, he asked to see me the next day. We took a three-hour walk on the beach, during which we got to know each other. I found Henry to be highly intelligent (a slight understatement), warm, and to have an incredible sense of humor. He is quite the Woody Allen aficionado and appears to have memorized all of Woody’s great lines, especially those from the existential “Love and Death.” As if this weren’t enough (dayenu), he cooked me dinner that night.

Did I mention that Henry is 18 years older than I am? He is 66; I am 48.

When I am with him, I don’t feel the age difference, perhaps because he is so vital. He could put men half his age to shame (wink). When he has meetings at UCLA, he flies his own plane to the Santa Monica airport. If he has errands to run, he either walks or goes by motorcycle. It’s a struggle to keep up with him in tennis or on long bike rides.

I also revel in the age difference and how it connects me to my past. To him, I am a shayna maideleh and always will be. Last week, after he finished Grand Rounds, he came home and cooked me kasha varnishkas. And when he kisses me good night and says, ever so tenderly, “gay schluffin,” I feel as if my grandmother has sent him to watch over me.

When I am not with him, however, I am always “doing the math.” In another 18 years, he will be 84 and I will be 66. And while the common wisdom is that age matters less as you get older, I can see that when you get a lot older, it does matter, a lot. I dream of growing old with the man I love, not of his growing old first. And I shudder at the thought of being a widow for 25 years, instead of the statistical 7 years. I contemplate love and I contemplate death.

To complicate matters (as if they weren’t already), Henry has a major life decision to make. For the past four years, he has been spending six months at a time in Irvine, doing research on brain tumors, and the other six months as a practicing neurosurgeon in Oslo, where he has been living for the past 30 years. Over three years ago, he ended an 18-year relationship with a Norwegian woman who, by the way, is only two days older than I am.

Henry, too, is contemplating love and perhaps death. He has come to recognize that, to have another long-term relationship, which has become a priority, he needs to choose between Oslo and Irvine. And while he has a wonderful life in Norway, which has the highest standard of living of any country in the world, being with me has rekindled in him the joy of our shared heritage. He is tending toward Irvine and is hoping for a reason to remain here.

Meanwhile, I continue to contemplate love and death, but my time is running out. Henry is scheduled to return to Oslo on March 26. For how long, neither of us knows. Soon, I will have to make a decision. Yiddish wisdom tells us, Mit ein hintn zitst men nit oif tsvei ferd. You can’t sit on two horses with one tuchas.

For now, however, I will sleep on it. Gay schluffin.