The Age Thing

My youngest kid broke up with another boyfriend a couple of weeks ago and is adjusting to single status very well.

At 21, he seems to have mastered the art of the breakup very well --- you don't just stop calling or shut off relations. You talk it over with the guy and say something like "This isn't working. Nothing specific. Here's your two weeks notice. Let's make a cordial transition. And have a nice life."

It's sure a nicer way to do things than the "When are you moving out?!!" questions I used to get from my ex toward the end of our relationship.

LOL. Ha.

My kid, who is 21 --- notice how I was a respectful parent and didn't say "ONLY 21" --- is handling this latest breakup very well, in my opinion, and so is the nice young man he was with. They seem to be staying in touch --- just not as often and with as much intensity as when they were going at it hot and heavy like a pair of gay rabbits on cocaine. I've even exchanged a nice "it was good meeting you one time" e-mail with my kid's ex and he sent back a very kind note that proved his mama raised him right.

And my son is not walking around reciting his usual litany of "Men are pigs. I hate men. I'm renouncing love forever!" chants, which I think is a good sign. He seems contemplative, a little sadder but wiser, but not wallowing in misery. He's disappointed that it didn't work out, but understands the reasons why, which mostly have to do with two young men needing to take care of other things in their lives before they can allow themselves the luxury of falling in love.

They left their options open --- smart kids. And I don't feel the need the go around singing Burt Bacharach songs, just to make my kid Get Over It:

What get when you fall in love/You only get lies and pain and sorrow/So for at least, until tomorrow/I'll Never Fall in Love Again ...

Ah, youth. A time for first feeling the intensity of emotions and when people, full of the self-discovery that they can have Serious Thoughts, make world-weary pronouncements about themselves and vows about how they will live their lives.

Things like:

"I have to be a success by the time I'm thirty."

And:

"I could never date any man older than 25. OK, 30. Well, maybe 35, but that's it, and only if I'm desperate."

And my personal favorite:

"I feel so OLD!!!!!"

And they wonder why some of us grab young men, put ballgags in their mouths and chain them naked in the basement for a week. It isn't about the sex. It isn't about the pain. It's just about making them SHUT UP for a while.

In someone's blog today, I read where the author confessed to being jn his forties, and that he was OK with that, actually happy. He didn't say anything about "feeling young for my age" or "having a second chance at life." He just sounded glad to be where he was. It made him sound kind of hot, actually.

Young men get all pissy about those of us, who, having passed the midlife mark --- contrary to popular belief, midlife, in gay years, does NOT occur at age 25 and after that, we all become sweet old Aunt Sissies, playing our Judy Garland records and saying, "Oh, Mary." We may do it a little more discreetly, but we still flirt with each other, strip off our clothes and try to do the same things we used to do, albeit it takes a little more creativity when our pot bellies get in the way and our arthritic knees protest. But we do it, because we still CAN and still WANT TO and because we probably are more knowledgable about the give-and-take of relationships.

When I was in my early stages of open experimentation with gay sex, I had an older lover, who explained the stages of same-sex love to me.

"Everybody has to start somewhere," he said, watching me wince and utter a muffled moan as he removed the last clamp from my left nipple. "In some primitive societies, all young men were instructed in the art of gay love by an older man. Hmm, that's going to leave a mark. Sorry about that."

Later, as we were cleaning up the dishes and putting away the handcuffs, he continued:

"Men would reach adulthood with experience in the physical acts of love with each other and if they were lucky, they found a partner-lover, someone who shared their maturity level and could identify with their life experiences up till that point. Can you help me remove this harness? My back is a little stiff ..."

And later that evening, when we were under the covers cuddling, he gently traced his finger across one of the veins in my arm, which was tied above my head to the headboard.

"In later life, they would take on the role of the elder, passing on the wisdom of lovemaking that was given to them as a gift by an older man when they were young. Are you still having that sinus problem or can you sleep with your mouth duct-taped tonight?"

I was always grateful to my former lover for sharing what he had learned with me. I know he was proud of me, if a little uncomfortable, when I walked up his basement stairs and out of his life, leaving him in the stocks staring at the key just out of his reach.

My point is, we do evolve in our lives. We remain the same person we always are; we just add new layers of wisdom like fresh coats of paint. One of the wisdoms is that there's always more to learn --- when we older guys get together and chat with younger friends, we often let them do the talking. It's partly because they're usually pretty and lively and that's fun to watch. And it's also because they remind us of ourselves at the same age --- full of the excitement of new knowledge gained every day and anxious to tell someone that we've learned something new.

And yes, we're laughing at them, too, for their pretensions and bravado, because they remind us of the way we were at that age. Back then, we thought the idea of being older than 20-something was a death sentence, just like they do. We couldn't imagine having sex with someone with a receding hairline, a thick waist, or gray chest and shoulder hairs, either, let alone two men of that description wanting to do it with each other.

And most importantly --- like them, we couldn't imagine anyone PREFERRING an older man instead of someone pretty and young like ourselves.

But it happens. Some of us do. And that's why we don't take offense when someone with an unlined face says, "I don't think I could date someone older than 35. They'd just be too old."

One of the lessons of maturity is that it's better to be a kind person than a cruel one. That's why we don't say things like, "You're just too young for me" in response.

We let it slide, and smile. Your time will come.