Okay, there comes a point in every Toyman’s life…
Remember that? Me sat on a beach almost three years ago pondering the onset of an unfulfilled future, well romantically anyway. And look what went on to happen next; the quest for a third way, a Hamletesque guilt trip over shags I should or should not be having, worrying over my Loo Test and what to confess, being labelled ‘dangerous’ at Joe’s wedding, a green-eyed Dane and, lately, a part-time lecturer I met in Oxford tugging at my emotional stability as I pontificate over what it is I’m supposed to want now.
Thing is, it really all can get a bit much. And when you suddenly realize, having just hit thirty-six, that you’ve still got a bit of metaphorical elbow room left before the big you know what appears on your birthday cards, then you’re faced – if you’re me that is – with two choices.
The first is to carry with on with where my thoughts have been going of late; the road I’ve chosen these last few months whose destination is the mythical town of ‘Trying to find some meaning to it all’.
But you know what. You know really what. I almost miss the straightforward BD stuff; the escapades (married or otherwise), the surprises and the morning after grins. Sure they were criticized by some, and they did get me thinking. And heck I’ve given those attempts to change into something else a damn good try. But hey, maybe I was only ever meant to make one change. A change that got me a better pay cheque and a better sex life. So why chuck that all in (well the latter part anyway)?
Put it this way, recently I bumped into that other guy in who shares my profession, the one I’ve referred to (and nay even envied in some ways) before who’s a bit older and supposedly a bit more chilled than I am. Anyway he was telling me over a drink about a recent f*** up on the female front that, as he puts it, was ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other,’ but he still looks fairly miserable for it, in his own philosophical way. Well I can’t be arsed with all that. Not yet. I made a deal years ago when I let Jane walk away that if I couldn’t have her then I’d at least have some fun. I’m suddenly remembering, having seen his bemused and somber expression going over and over on whatever it was that occurred, just why I made it.
And hey, I must get on my soapbox again about how some of you older women do still write off the thirty-something chap as too old to play this game. If thirty is the new twenty, then hell I’m only twenty-six (why, very much the younger man) and as long as I feel that spring in my step and sparkle in my eye, don’t press delete just yet. I mean I might be even more ‘dangerous’ now. Imagine that. Lock up your mothers!
By the way I say play not in the ‘player’ sense. I think I originally thought about changing again as I started to worry about where that epithet was being applied. But I’m no a player. I can’t quite detach myself emotionally for that, even if I do a pretty good shutdown nonetheless where some are concerned. That’s all about the learning curve though. Part of the new deal is to ‘play’ with the like-minded, the independent thinkers who know the score and travel light. And maybe I just need to get a little better at detecting who those are.
Look, as I’ve told you all before, I invented BD online one night almost seven years ago to give myself a break. And boy did it work. Then I bought him a suit and it worked even better offline, as an American acquaintance at the time might hopefully attest. Now it’s time to get that suit out the cupboard while there’s still a few tricks left in this not so old after all dog. If the clock’s ticking then as Morgan Freeman likes to say down at Shawshank, we either ‘Get busy living or get busy dying’.
I think I’m going to enjoy this relaunch…
By Bastian Dash
