Older Men
S'been awhile since I've blogged. I haven't been feeling too talkative lately, I guess. I'm less interested in being active right now and more interested in being passive. But today I feel talkative. Well, not so much right now, but earlier I was.
I met a nice guy today, who was hitting on me and such. I'll call him The Talker, 'cause he was certainly blessed with the gift of gab, and was not shy about using it. He reminded me of the kind of guys you see on infomercials, with their standard-accent speech patterns and snappy, hypnotic catch-phrases (which was much less annoying than it sounds, and though I didn't let on, he was actually really entertaining). I was very attracted to him, and I really enjoyed hanging out with him. The problem? He's almost 40 years old (and he lives on the other side of the country, but to me that's almost a plus). That's 13 years older than me. That doesn't work, not for building a real relationship; however, in this situation in particular it actually works just fine, and isn't going to cause any problems, because he's only in town for a week, and only comes into town around once a year, so he's not looking for anything beyond someone to hang out with and maybe mess around with a few times. The problem is really more of what it reminds me of: my inability to get along with people my own age. I've had this problem ever since I was a little kid, and it kind of sucks. Always hanging out with people older than me puts me into a position of constant inequality: regardless of the real relative experience and maturity of the two individuals, folks tend to see people younger than them as less experienced, less wise, and generally just slightly inferior to them (not in the sense of being worse than them, but just not exactly equal). This wouldn't be so bad if it were only a few of my friends who were older than me, but because they all are I get the overall sense that I'm just slightly inferior to everyone (all of my friends, except The Activist, back in Minneapolis, are age 30 or over. I'm only 26, which isn't so very far from 30, but still...). When I have any power at all in a friendship of this kind, it almost always feel to me as though the other person is allowing me to have power simply out of good-will, or because they're humouring me. In general, I feel like it's just assumed that the other person is the one with the power, and I can like it or leave it, but not change it.
I just wish that someone my own age would come up to me at a bar or a coffee house and start talking to me sometime. Because I'm always invariably being hit on by someone quite a bit older than me, and that people my own age never seem to be interested, I tend to get the feeling that the only thing that is attractive about me is my youth. My thought process is that if I were simply attractive in a general, abstract way, than people my own age would be attracted to me as well as older guys; I would be generaly held to be attractive by the population in general, with exceptions being due to personal idiosyncracy, not on how attractive I am. In reality only older guys are attracted to me (usually from their late 30's on). Because it is only a small, well-defined, subsect of the gay population that is attracted to me (older men) I assume that there is something very specific that they are attracted to, something beyond generic attractiveness (which I have already established I don't have). Assuming that that which is less attinable and more exotic is deemed more attractive, I ask myself "what do I have that would be considered less attainable and more exotic to a group of older men? What do they not have, that I do have?" The answer, I believe, is my youth (rapiding fading youth, but still youth nonetheless). This is very depressing to me, because I won't have my youth for much longer, and then what? What will I have going for me then?
And why the hell is it so important to me to be attractive anyway?
And just because I wrote just a few entires ago that I was being hit on by a younger guy, don't take that as a sign that I'm blowing this whole "older guy" thing out of porportion or anything. That guy just wanted to jerk off in a public restroom with me, and, in general, once a guy has gotten to the desperate point of having sex in public restrooms they're not too picky about attractiveness and such; it was problaby a choice between me and someone who was drooling, and a hunchback, and smelled like nasty gourmet cheeses.
I met a nice guy today, who was hitting on me and such. I'll call him The Talker, 'cause he was certainly blessed with the gift of gab, and was not shy about using it. He reminded me of the kind of guys you see on infomercials, with their standard-accent speech patterns and snappy, hypnotic catch-phrases (which was much less annoying than it sounds, and though I didn't let on, he was actually really entertaining). I was very attracted to him, and I really enjoyed hanging out with him. The problem? He's almost 40 years old (and he lives on the other side of the country, but to me that's almost a plus). That's 13 years older than me. That doesn't work, not for building a real relationship; however, in this situation in particular it actually works just fine, and isn't going to cause any problems, because he's only in town for a week, and only comes into town around once a year, so he's not looking for anything beyond someone to hang out with and maybe mess around with a few times. The problem is really more of what it reminds me of: my inability to get along with people my own age. I've had this problem ever since I was a little kid, and it kind of sucks. Always hanging out with people older than me puts me into a position of constant inequality: regardless of the real relative experience and maturity of the two individuals, folks tend to see people younger than them as less experienced, less wise, and generally just slightly inferior to them (not in the sense of being worse than them, but just not exactly equal). This wouldn't be so bad if it were only a few of my friends who were older than me, but because they all are I get the overall sense that I'm just slightly inferior to everyone (all of my friends, except The Activist, back in Minneapolis, are age 30 or over. I'm only 26, which isn't so very far from 30, but still...). When I have any power at all in a friendship of this kind, it almost always feel to me as though the other person is allowing me to have power simply out of good-will, or because they're humouring me. In general, I feel like it's just assumed that the other person is the one with the power, and I can like it or leave it, but not change it.
I just wish that someone my own age would come up to me at a bar or a coffee house and start talking to me sometime. Because I'm always invariably being hit on by someone quite a bit older than me, and that people my own age never seem to be interested, I tend to get the feeling that the only thing that is attractive about me is my youth. My thought process is that if I were simply attractive in a general, abstract way, than people my own age would be attracted to me as well as older guys; I would be generaly held to be attractive by the population in general, with exceptions being due to personal idiosyncracy, not on how attractive I am. In reality only older guys are attracted to me (usually from their late 30's on). Because it is only a small, well-defined, subsect of the gay population that is attracted to me (older men) I assume that there is something very specific that they are attracted to, something beyond generic attractiveness (which I have already established I don't have). Assuming that that which is less attinable and more exotic is deemed more attractive, I ask myself "what do I have that would be considered less attainable and more exotic to a group of older men? What do they not have, that I do have?" The answer, I believe, is my youth (rapiding fading youth, but still youth nonetheless). This is very depressing to me, because I won't have my youth for much longer, and then what? What will I have going for me then?
And why the hell is it so important to me to be attractive anyway?
And just because I wrote just a few entires ago that I was being hit on by a younger guy, don't take that as a sign that I'm blowing this whole "older guy" thing out of porportion or anything. That guy just wanted to jerk off in a public restroom with me, and, in general, once a guy has gotten to the desperate point of having sex in public restrooms they're not too picky about attractiveness and such; it was problaby a choice between me and someone who was drooling, and a hunchback, and smelled like nasty gourmet cheeses.
posted by nearfalse | 8:00 PM
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