There are many things decent people don't want to be made to think about and the sex life of people over about forty-five is pretty close to the proverbial one about how sausages get made. So since that's what I'm going to talk about, you may want to move right along now.
I'm not exactly sure when my libido decided to go to sleep, but it did. How do I know this? Because when I look at pretty girls or attractive women these days I never experience that urge to action, or the pain that comes when you know you're going to let another one get away. Everything still works. It's just that I don't get as motivated anymore.
Well, I am fifty-five and I do have grey hair and my face has got a little soft in the way that mens' faces do when the testosterone level drops. I look better for my age than most women my age do - I look better for my age than the majority of men ten years younger do for their age - but I don't think I look attractive to women any more. At least not the women I'd like to look attractive to. Some of it is about confidence.
Some of it is about having been in a long-term-relationship in which, for one reason or another, we never quite got round to having sex anymore, and even stopped sleeping together because my snoring was getting too loud. I had operations for the snoring but it made not enough difference. My girlfriend started getting self-conscious about her appearance - she wasn't svelte as she was when we started going out - and what with the work situation - one or other of us was always worried that we were about to lose our job, or I was out of work, or we were having hell with our bosses - the sex just vanished. I think it was when she bought a new single bed for her place - we never lived together - that I started trying not to see the writing on the wall.
I look at pretty girls and attractive women and I see things like "high-maintenance", "married", "looking for a husband", "too much energy for me to keep up", "um, I would be twenty years too old for her", "bonkers", "needy", "looking to be paid for", "late thirties and no ring? Lezzy or damaged?", and so on. See what's happening? I'm seeing the downside straightaway. I've forgotten there's an upside.
That upside isn't sex, by the way. I was always better at that than my partners were and there was only ever one I could make love with and know I was going to finish in a satisfactory way. Making love otherwise was a lot more inconclusive. So maybe I've lost motivation: why would I chase after something that actually isn't that satisfying and maybe never was? Or maybe there's nothing like a long-term-relationship that fizzles out over a long time to disabuse a guy of the one thing he's got to believe to make the whole thing worthwhile: that women are magic.
I know, how romantic (dumb) is that? But if women aren't magic, then the whole thing is about economics: how much time and money do you invest chasing after her and what do you get in return? Remember, it's not me who has the fun in the sack - it's mostly her. So if women aren't magic, they are just work.
Or friends. But that's not what we're talking about here.
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