Thirty-Five
I’m thirty-five. I’ve been saying this very slowly for the past couple of weeks or so. Thirty-Five. You know come this August six years ago BD didn’t even exist. He wasn’t yet even a glint in the eye of my “Before”. Still, Tempus fugit huh…
Thing is though, I want to approach this admittedly “stops an’ makes you fink dunnit” kind of milestone from a slightly different angle to perhaps the way I’ve dwelt upon one’s inward tick tocking in the more recentish past. And so, tanned healthily from my hol with Sammie and seemingly in the clear from that ill-advised dalliance I managed to mess up (I say “seemingly somewhat guardedly; I watch the shadows), I now feel inclined to offer myself a more positive take on all this “what’s it all about Alfie (or rather BD)” stuff.
I guess what also got me thinking this way came after a fleeting exchange with that lovely but just “too young” office manager I told you about the other week. It’s amazing isn’t it how some of those mere twentysomethings (of either gender) will always need to pretentiously bemoan how “old” they are, and it was during one such third act of a Greek Tragedy that I reminded her (perhaps rather patronisingly) how she was still a good few years off even the “start” of her prime. I have to say she immediately took to this notion like it was some kind of biblical revelation and has been repeating it in mantra form ever since!
And that’s the point. You see here’s me trying to force further change upon myself and yet all the while, change has been surreptitiously sneaking up on me anyway. Because fact is I’m starting to find more and more younger women attractive. But when I say “younger”, I mean those maybe hitting their early thirties now, that “start” of their prime I just mentioned – okay I know my pal Sammie falls into that category too, but I explained last time how it works between us so don’t even go there.
Have I lost my toyboy, or rather toyman status then? Hang on. Weren’t you listening to my observations by the pool? Didn’t I admit how an older woman in chic shades steals the show every time? All I’m now saying is that my head’s turning towards the slightly younger woman too. But keep hanging on, as I just clarified, I’m saying “younger” for what most of you toychaps out there would still class as the older woman anyway (which is why so many of you are still ogling Sammie every chance you get).
I mean take that Bobby Goldsboro song “Summer, The First Time”, pretty much the ultimate Toyboy song. Well our protagonist in that sexy little ditty is only seventeen but his seducer who helps him to “see the sun rise as a man” is only thirty-one. Not your stereotypically “older” Mrs. Robinson type there then. And yet the song conveys her to have a sexual maturity that basically gets him hot under his angst teen collar once she offers to “chase the boy in you away”. So you see, as I’ve been saying all along, it’s just relative.
Why this metaphorical glance a touch downwards pour moi? Well you can’t fight biology I guess. And you know it used to sometimes annoy me when I’d hear/read older women almost pessimistically convey how their toyboy relationships were regarded as inevitably transient things because in the grandest tradition of stereotyping, younger guys naturally lose interest at some point as “other priorities” begin to supposedly supersede their involvement with said older women. However maybe I can now see where they’re coming from. Although I still don’t entirely agree. You just can’t generalise how an individual might feel about anything, however accurate a cliché might seemingly be. But I do take the point because I’m feeling that change. I mean remember when I was struggling over where I was “fitting in” amongst my peers. Well all of a sudden, without realising it, I’m finding myself a little clearer on that. All that bardish soliloquying, musing over loo tests, meeting that engaged fellow recruiter and even my latest guilt trip aside; little did I know that search for a clearer third way has been progressing without me really forcing it – although that doesn’t mean I suddenly feel “old” myself. I don’t. Just different!
But wait a sec! As I just said, surely I’m merely beginning to accept that all I’ve ever really been attracted to was “maturity”, however casual my interaction with that maturity I’ve encountered these last few years was or wasn’t (and it probably did start out more as sexual fantasy at the outset). I mean Jane was only about the age I am now when we first met and yet at the time she was to me very much an “older woman” so I guess all I’m doing here is ditching some of the numbers; “older is bolder” but they don’t have to be older than me any more.
Having said that you’ll notice how despite the fact I actually met Sammie when she was in her earlier twenties and held her in the highest regard even then, I’m still overly generalising about that twentysomething girlie brigade ain’t I, so I can hardly get any holier than thou on stereotyping. Although I have a case here. Take the other eve for instance where on a now rarer boys night with Joe and Tony, we allowed a gaggle of tight tones and tighter skirts to share our table as space was at a premium and, fuelled by cocktail bravado, naturally dipped into their conversation only to wish we hadn’t due to its sheer twee reality TV banality. Still one of them was at least shrewd enough to whisper to her pal that it’d be a good idea to capitalise on our apparent interest (or rather Tony’s ogling to be fair) by milking us for a few more drinks (or words to that effect); at which point I commented (having sneakily overheard this exploitative plot) that considering we were all “older geezers” (nearly forty and balding in some cases, although not mine, yet…) we certainly hadn’t a chance of pulling them so why on earth should they expect refreshments! They left soon after, leaving Tony scowling at me for the rest of the evening. Still, some years ago I wouldn’t have been so brave (or scathingly generalising), would have been more than happy with such pseudo-attention and would have thus been unnecessarily poorer as a result (you know, I never did tell you about that pole-dancer Zoe and my credit card scare did I).
Anyway, I know where this is all going though. Having been unavoidably dropped right smack bang into middle of my mid thirties I find myself mulling over more and more of these “other priorities”.
What might they be? Just for the moment I’ll leave that for you to work out…
By Bastian Dash. Read his blog on your personal home page on TBW Xtra
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