Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Younger Men
I once loved dating younger men.
I loved how amazed they were by my confidence and accomplishments. I loved how open and innocent they were to my experienced manipulations. I loved how eager they were to spend an entire night rolling around in bed and still be able to get up at 8 am for an early brunch. But then-somewhere between 30 and now-I began hating the sports bars, the ‘dinner-and-a-movie’ dates, the sweat pants on a Sunday and the expectation that I plan any possible romantic moments in the relationship. I began craving men with experience and the ability to offer more to the relationship than just, well….really, really liking me.
So, I’m often disappointed when I discover a man's age. Drawn in by his charms and then shattered when the age card is layed on the table. I don’t have time for it.
Take for example, the young man I met this past weekend. There I was, all 32 years of me standing awkwardly in a sea of bachelor and bachelorette parties being yelled at by the bar maids of Red Rocks. The reality that I was suddenly way too old for this scene washed over me with the same reluctance as the day I looked at my thighs in the mirror and realized I could never wear a miniskirt again.
My friend from work had dragged me here and I was uncomfortably hugging a diet coke to my chest and praying I wouldn’t be thrown up on the bar to dance next to one of the adorable little girls wearing a tube top, sporting bare legs and flailing pre-middle-age toned arms in the air. An aggressive man jockeying for a better view pushed me out of his way and sent my nose into the rock hard chest of the man behind me. I apologized, but lingered, made witty comments and before you knew it-I had broken through the protective barrier of his guy friends and he had taken my hand and moved the group along to some over-hyped and over-crowded dance club in the meat-packing district.
He was charming and kind. Turns out he is an investment banker and lives on the Upper East Side. Upon hearing this, I bet him twenty dollars that he had both a J.Crew and a Bannana Republic card and I asked him to produce his wallet for inspection. In reality, I knew I was going to be locking lips with this guy at the end of the night and -I had already forgotten his name. I coyly scanned his driver license for his name... and then, there it was. He was born in 1978.
1978 was the year I started Kindergarten and ate play-dough for the first time.
Disspointment registered on my face as I thought of the hours I might waste getting to know this guy at baseball games while he ate chicken wings and drank beer by the pitcher.
Maybe he would be different.
He seemed confident. I didn’t think it was the alcohol that boosted his ego enough to playfully offer that we “just stop by” his Upper East side apartment. I declined because I live about two blocks from the bar and because I only fuck men that can put out the effort to get me to a fourth date. Maybe JR would surprise me and be one of those men.
He asked me for dinner and we made-out in my doorway. He left me at my door and as I fell asleep on Friday night, my phone registered a new text message. “Sweet dreams.” A girl can dream, right?
Dream dashed when I got the Sunday text: “What R U doin?”
I texted back that I was brunching with girlfriends. “What about you?” I wrote.
“Watching football. Going to the gym later.”
“How manly!” I teased.
I didn’t hear back.
Tuesday night I got a similar text: “What’s up sexy?”
I texted back with a witty comment. We engaged in stupid texting banter over the course of the next hour.
Why can’t he just pick up the phone? Scared? Too much of a commitment? By the time his last text arrived with still no actual invitation to the dinner he had promised, I gave up and went to bed.
Does he expect me to ask him out, pick the restaurant and arrange the details?? This is the problem with young men, I have to do all the work. They just want to ‘hang-out’.
Well, I just can’t date little boys anymore. I refuse to initiate all the fun dates like concerts or street fairs or nights of bowling and days in Coney Island. I wont talk for four hours on the telephone about my last three serious relationships. I can not text back and forth all night when we are both just sitting at home in our pajamas. I can’t watch another man sit on the bar stool drinking himself into oblivion and yelling at the Red Socks.
Dear Lord, please send me a grown-up with sophisticated taste, cultured interests, a job and really hard abs.
AMEN
I loved how amazed they were by my confidence and accomplishments. I loved how open and innocent they were to my experienced manipulations. I loved how eager they were to spend an entire night rolling around in bed and still be able to get up at 8 am for an early brunch. But then-somewhere between 30 and now-I began hating the sports bars, the ‘dinner-and-a-movie’ dates, the sweat pants on a Sunday and the expectation that I plan any possible romantic moments in the relationship. I began craving men with experience and the ability to offer more to the relationship than just, well….really, really liking me.
So, I’m often disappointed when I discover a man's age. Drawn in by his charms and then shattered when the age card is layed on the table. I don’t have time for it.
Take for example, the young man I met this past weekend. There I was, all 32 years of me standing awkwardly in a sea of bachelor and bachelorette parties being yelled at by the bar maids of Red Rocks. The reality that I was suddenly way too old for this scene washed over me with the same reluctance as the day I looked at my thighs in the mirror and realized I could never wear a miniskirt again.
My friend from work had dragged me here and I was uncomfortably hugging a diet coke to my chest and praying I wouldn’t be thrown up on the bar to dance next to one of the adorable little girls wearing a tube top, sporting bare legs and flailing pre-middle-age toned arms in the air. An aggressive man jockeying for a better view pushed me out of his way and sent my nose into the rock hard chest of the man behind me. I apologized, but lingered, made witty comments and before you knew it-I had broken through the protective barrier of his guy friends and he had taken my hand and moved the group along to some over-hyped and over-crowded dance club in the meat-packing district.
He was charming and kind. Turns out he is an investment banker and lives on the Upper East Side. Upon hearing this, I bet him twenty dollars that he had both a J.Crew and a Bannana Republic card and I asked him to produce his wallet for inspection. In reality, I knew I was going to be locking lips with this guy at the end of the night and -I had already forgotten his name. I coyly scanned his driver license for his name... and then, there it was. He was born in 1978.
1978 was the year I started Kindergarten and ate play-dough for the first time.
Disspointment registered on my face as I thought of the hours I might waste getting to know this guy at baseball games while he ate chicken wings and drank beer by the pitcher.
Maybe he would be different.
He seemed confident. I didn’t think it was the alcohol that boosted his ego enough to playfully offer that we “just stop by” his Upper East side apartment. I declined because I live about two blocks from the bar and because I only fuck men that can put out the effort to get me to a fourth date. Maybe JR would surprise me and be one of those men.
He asked me for dinner and we made-out in my doorway. He left me at my door and as I fell asleep on Friday night, my phone registered a new text message. “Sweet dreams.” A girl can dream, right?
Dream dashed when I got the Sunday text: “What R U doin?”
I texted back that I was brunching with girlfriends. “What about you?” I wrote.
“Watching football. Going to the gym later.”
“How manly!” I teased.
I didn’t hear back.
Tuesday night I got a similar text: “What’s up sexy?”
I texted back with a witty comment. We engaged in stupid texting banter over the course of the next hour.
Why can’t he just pick up the phone? Scared? Too much of a commitment? By the time his last text arrived with still no actual invitation to the dinner he had promised, I gave up and went to bed.
Does he expect me to ask him out, pick the restaurant and arrange the details?? This is the problem with young men, I have to do all the work. They just want to ‘hang-out’.
Well, I just can’t date little boys anymore. I refuse to initiate all the fun dates like concerts or street fairs or nights of bowling and days in Coney Island. I wont talk for four hours on the telephone about my last three serious relationships. I can not text back and forth all night when we are both just sitting at home in our pajamas. I can’t watch another man sit on the bar stool drinking himself into oblivion and yelling at the Red Socks.
Dear Lord, please send me a grown-up with sophisticated taste, cultured interests, a job and really hard abs.
AMEN
Labels: Boy Stories, Pop Culture Casualty, Sober
