Jaded?
Oh dear. Naughty me, I’ve slept with a client again. But I guess if I’m back to playing the game I find easiest to play, that was bound to happen sooner or later. Still how and why and where is not really the tale I want or have to tell…
It’s more about the conversation we had afterwards. Post-coital intercourse rather than sleepy introspection this time. But this can be fun, depending on the subject matter that is – I mean remember that lawyer? I got myself into a little bit of hot water with my assumptive assumptions during that episode; and look how that turned out in the end.
Luckily there was no repeat of that this time. We both knew the score; which in a way sparked off my point to begin with.
You see there we were, getting our breath back, me in my ‘middling’ mid-thirties, she comparatively and sexily older (but not by much), and it struck me that when the mutual frame of reference closes in, convention suggests we’re supposed to be less casual in these situations. In other words the threat of certain emotions is supposedly lurking in the metaphoric shadows whose intent is to complicate future occurrences of a similar nature. And yet, even though there was a relatively minor age gap between us, it struck me we both really did know the score. I guess it was another shake hands moment, but with a difference; the difference being given what I’d postulated, weren’t we both supposed to want more?
“No offence but I don’t,” she said, adding. “Does that surprise you?” I shook my head. It didn’t. Weirdly, really weirdly, it felt reassuring. Why? Well not because here was the dream woman for any guy out for a quick shag with no repercussions, but because it challenged a view I’ve been hearing elsewhere, and which I was starting to find a little patronising. The view being as follows; that some older women think that ‘relations’ with any man over a certain age lose that frivolity they’re looking for. Again the aforementioned theory: it’s potentially too dangerously serious. In other words fling about with a much younger man and you don’t have to think about anything because he’s not clued up enough to wrong foot you, but don’t fling about with a chap gradually closing in on forty because you’re not going to be in control any more.
So what does that mean? Younger men are emotionally immature and the maturing (but not older) man is way, way too serious a consideration to just have some fun with. So that just like society wags its finger at older women saying they should know better than to pursue these youthful dalliances, these same voices who want to buck such trends nonetheless frown upon a ‘maturing’ man who is supposedly getting too old to play anymore. In other words it’s yet a further example one new rule for one, but not for the other.
A slight case of hypocrisy wouldn’t you say? I mean this century is supposed to be about truly leveling the playing field, not tipping in the other direction.
Comfortingly my bedfellow agreed.
Having said that, she did point out that nonetheless her behaviour would surely be the more frowned upon in the realms of convention (let’s just say she currently preferred the indiscriminate to the committed for the moment, and age wasn’t really an issue in terms of bedfellow, but rather whether you could cut the mustard so to speak). “To be honest I don’t see what you’re getting all worked up about,” she teased. “Never mind all this men reasserting themselves stuff, it’s still worse for me because do you know who it is that judges people like me the most? Other women…”
She had a point too. I mean when it came to cantering upon high horses, I suspected it was indeed some of her contemporaries who’d be saddled on the highest. “I should have been married by now, had kids, or be a divorcee at least,” she went on. “But I’ve done none of those things. It just didn’t work out that way. Meanwhile, I guess this always has because it’s what I seem to prefer.”
Which to me didn’t matter; I mean it doesn’t matter who you are, as long as nobody else is getting hurt. I just have this thing about being written off too soon just because I’m a guy, which maybe comes from having only just ‘found’ myself a relatively short time ago; meaning why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy it rather than get categorised. And that’s exactly what she was saying too, without dictating that women’s emancipation from the sexual status quo has to be coupled with rather outmoded opinions about us chaps (although let’s be fair, we chaps will each century continue to perpetuate said clichés irrespective of being written off or not won’t we, which is a cliché in itself; but that’s not the issue).
I don’t know why but suddenly I started talking about Jane. Well actually, what I started talking about, without giving too much away, was how I’d changed from innocent idealist who never really had much luck with engineering scenarios like these to where I was and we were (quite literally) now. She didn’t need to know how it all happened. I was merely trying to explain how my fling with Jane could have gone one way but instead didn’t, and it had been the same for me (occasional conscience and/or self-induced emotional dilemmas aside) ever since. You could say it just worked better that way for me too.
“Aaaw, that’s ‘cos you’re now jaded,” she feigned sadness. “What a shame that you’ve lost all that lovely innocence. Don’t you think?” I looked at her curiously across the pillows; I mean this ran a little bit against the tide of what we’d just been talking about and agreeing upon. She clocked my baffled expression and added, “It’s the same for me too. I’m jaded. Maybe that’s the price we pay for living the way we want. We understand reality all too well.”
Casual ties or casualties; you’ve heard that before. But I mean, during the gasps and sighs that followed this line of exposition I felt anything but jaded. And I’d rather believe we did this knowing we could have more if we wanted one day (although not necessarily between us), rather than because we couldn’t; that we were choosing not settling for.
But in the cold light of day you always wonder if maybe…
By Bastian Dash, Toyboy/ Toyman about Town
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