Reflections over a bowl of pho

The cute boy at work and I had lunch again today, and while I've known for quite a while that there is nothing in it but friendship, looking at him today across the table, I finally realized what I'm missing always dating older men.

Well, first I have to admit that's not exactly true...there are lots of things I'm missing by dating only older men, and I knew about them before today. Of note:

1. The near-insurmountable emotional baggage. Failed relationships form an invisible pile of bodies one must climb over to see the man himself; you've got to grope your way through the invisible corpses of his ex-girlfriends, and that without becoming unpleasantly associated with any of them, or worse, becoming one of them yourself. Elliot had spent so much of his life learning how to hide his true feelings from girlfriends who would use the feelings against him, that when I first met him, I couldn't tell if he actually any feelings at all, about anything, ever. He was the original owner of the "plastic heart," and he absolutely bewildered me. The words "I love you," which he likely said in his youthful days as soon he felt them to be true, had become words of such terrifying importance and power by the time he met me that it took him forever to work up the courage to choke them out.

One could argue that quantity or even severity of heartbreak is at work here, rather than longevity. Perhaps there is some truth to that, but in most cases, it seems that time is what it takes to build up one's defenses. And my dear older men have had more time than I have to withdraw into themselves and live as emotional hermits, peeking out from behind their eyes with suspicion and mistrust. Loving them can be like beating your head against a wall.

2. The "I am who I am, deal with it" factor. I think the more popular spin usually put on this quirk of older men is "they really know who they are." On the one hand, this is absolutely true, and it's what attracts me to them, at least initially. Older men come off as more confident, more sure of themselves and their personalities, than the wandering, aimless, nervous young bucks of my own generation...and the aimlessness of my own faltering self. It's part envy, of course, and I think inherent in the idea of envy is the fervid desire to possess, and to absorb some of the power you don't possess by drinking the blood, as it were, of the stronger one. Envy and love for me have always been hopelessly inextricable, and I suppose that plays well into my older man fetish (if it does not directly cause it, even). Lorne and Jeff both loomed in my mind like great men of adventure returned from far-away lands with fantastic stories of epic loves, narrow escapes, unfathomable tragedies, and incredible rebirths. I loved them for all the life they had led before me, all the things and places they had seen. They seemed so much more complete than my college-aged contemporaries, if that makes any sense. Que hombres!

And then there's the other hand: the maddening, unrelenting, obstinate, and perverse resistance to change. They are who they are, and there's not a goddamned thing I can say about it. Elliot's fastidious routines and schedules were unbearable, but my attempts to deviate from them with any spontaneity were met with derision and scorn. Any argument with Jeff left me characterized in his mind as a raving lunatic-bitch who wanted nothing more than to make him be, say, or do something he didn't want. And Lorne never had anything to learn from me, God forbid. Who the hell was I?

And that's really it, I think. I felt I had so much to learn from them, and they seemed to have nothing to learn from me. Whether or not they were right about that is in the mind of the beholder, I suppose, but what did they get out of the relationship if that were true? If the person you love doesn't change you, doesn't make you see things in a new way, what's left to excite you about them after the newness has worn off the relationship? Nothing is the obvious answer, given that all of us are alone now, even Elliot, who's married.

And those great stories they have? They lead me to my next point:

3. The twilight of their great adventures. This one is the most specific to my experience, I suppose, since I'm sure many men in their mid-to-late thirties are still living life to the fullest. I just haven't had the pleasure of dating any of them.

"Sure, at one time, I lived, I breathed, I traveled the world, I came close to death, I cried, I loved, I lived in Dionysian excess, terrifyingly near to madness, drinking, dropping acid, smoking pot, running from the cops, sleeping in the woods, fucking in the back of cars and alleys, anywhere, anytime, joining the Air Force, dodging bullets, driving all night, making shit-tons of money and losing it, begging, stealing, crying, laughing 'til my sides ached, watching the sun rise, running into the ocean, following a silly dream, meeting incredible people, wrecking a car, jumping out of a plane, and so on...but now with you it's just going to be here in the house, in the bed, climate-controlled, doors locked, movie rentals and video games, early-to-bed early-to-rise, heavy important books, dull drunkenness, beer heavy in the belly, dinner parties, idiotic television shows, dried apricots for dessert, smugness and obstinacy, tedious relationship conversations, dry kisses, don't break my glasses, don't knock over the vase, careful, careful, careful, answering machines, flossing, delays, fruitless plans, unfinished projects, budgets, bills, and boxer shorts. But at least I was cool when I was in my twenties!"

The irony! I can catch the best ones, but only in their denouement. I want to be crazy with them, I want to have adventures, too. But they're done with all that, and I rush out into the rain fully clothed while they stand in the doorway, slightly bemused. It's very lonely out there, I can tell you.

But I digress. We began this entry at lunch with a cute boy, just my age, not long out of college and at the beginning of adulthood, just like me. I looked at him and imagined what our life might be like as a couple. I think it would all seem so new, so strangely innocent, to be in love while both people were still in that delicious stage of who-will-I-be, what-will-I-do. And that's really what I've been missing with my (admittedly, wonderful, fascinating, intelligent, and sexy) older men: the chance to discover yourself with another person at the same moment in both your lives. Sitting with that sweet, beautiful boy today, I caught a glimpse of the lightness, the giddiness, of a love with more Tomorrow than Yesterday. God knows they had it, so they probably wouldn't begrudge me a little taste, too.

"There is something very satisfactory about being in the middle of something." -Marilyn Hacker