A long time ago, when I started appreciating the benefits of being with a younger man, a very interesting thing was said to me. “I’ve never been out with a woman where I’ve felt invisible”. This intrigued me and on further investigation he revealed what had caused that feeling. It was to do with the how the bar staff, the waiting staff and later the door staff who let us into the private bar that we didn’t really have any right to use, all responded to me. They didn’t do the stereotypical thing of assuming the man takes the lead, they reacted to something about me.
After consideration I concluded that all it was was confidence. We all know, don’t we ladies, that confidence gets you a long way. We all know that, apparently, one of the most important qualities that younger men appreciate in an older woman is confidence. There is a huge difference, however, between the inherent confidence born of experience and the false, alcohol induced confidence born of inexperience. I would never mix alcohol with pleasure, I’ve always thought it deadens it (except for one particular use of champagne….) after all, it’s not like I have any inhibitions I need to lose.
So what is it about inherent confidence that makes it so alluring. I think, in part, it’s a mask over any weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Don’t be fooled, they are still there but they don’t appear to need dealing with. The result is a strong resilient woman who is comfortable in her own skin and that is appealing.
Let’s go a bit deeper with it and speculate why this appeals. If I were to play devil’s advocate in this debate, I might suggest that the attraction lies in the fact that this woman seems so self contained and sorted that she requires little or no emotional effort. You may have noticed as have I, the decline in emotional connection. Increasingly used as a self protective mechanism, its absence leaves just the physical and intellectual connections. Both much less complicated.
Of course it’s an illusion. The emotional connection is the one that binds a man to a woman. Without it, it’s all just superficial. The thing is, a vacuous relationship is a transient one. It seems that more and more, it is the no strings relationship that is raising its head. It’s a bit of a cop-out isn’t it?
Let’s look again at the confident woman. She knows who she is and where she is. She knows her strengths and weaknesses, what she likes and what she doesn’t. She knows how to have a passionate emotionally connected affair with a man who is interested enough to explore not only her being but equally his own. For him, that in itself requires a degree of confidence but oh, the journey.
Perhaps, for me, the trick is to find a man who is equal in visibility, who is every bit the man to my woman. Someone who has confidence in himself and the intellect to understand vulnerability and the emotional capacity to risk connection…..there is somebody!!
by Three Wishes
