For a while, I become a nervous wreck. Evidently, I am terrible in bed. Even though I love sex. Even though sex makes me happy. My girlfriends rallied round. Of course you’re not terrible in bed, they protested, eyeing each other and trying not to laugh. Why did I say that I seemed to have a boyfriend? What I’d really had was an extended audition. Different thing. Or maybe not. All dates are auditions, essentially, after all.
Chief Sensible Friend said it only looked that way in retrospect. She thought Marc went into it in good faith and with high hopes, just like I did, but then … Because I am terrible in bed! I interjected. Even though I love sex. Even though sex makes me happy. (This is what happens. I get repetitive on the second bottle of wine.)
It was obvious to you, too, she said, that it was a mistake. You were already detaching yourself, once you’d been to his flat and saw that he had no books and that he listens to club anthems. It’s your basic inescapable culture clash. He sounds like one of those perpetual boys, she said. Converse sneakers, man bag, clubbing and drugs: yawn.
Maybe, but he’s still only 42, I told her. Some 42-year-olds still think they’re in their 30s. They cling on to youth. I’ve given up the clinging. I’m ready to embrace middle age. I like cosy sex with a lot of chat and laughter in it. I resist being coached. I long for cosy again, like I had with my ex, before he had his head turned by the blonde and went off with her. (It’s possible the blonde was offering something other than cosy marital coupling). “Do you know what I blame?” Chief Sensible Friend said, “porn: that’s what I blame. Men have got over-visual about sex. They do sex more with their eyes now, when they used to do it with their hands.”
Well, if they do it with their eyes we’re all stuffed, I said, and we laughed, in a sad, knowing way. The trouble is, I added, I’ve become visually aware of myself too. I saw myself via an out-of-body experience when I was in bed with Marc, and that was paralysing. You didn’t fit, she said. He’s never been married, for a start. His adult life has been divided into six, eight-year relationships, one after another. He’s a classic operator of the seven-year itch. You don’t want to get into that.
After this chat, I was prey to dark thoughts. Perhaps 42-year-old men who have no wish to be married or to have children (encumbered, was Marc’s word) are attracted, as a good many 25-year-olds are, by the idea of someone who isn’t going to push for those things, and that’s why they choose women just beyond child-bearing age. Perhaps that was part of it.
Whatever the case, Marc turned out to be hastily judgmental. I was right to be afraid of the sex. At the same time, being afraid of the sex was part of the reason it failed. It’s a vicious circle I need to give some thought to. What’s already obvious is that he used the culture clash as an excuse, when it was really the sex, and I used sex as an excuse when it was really the culture clash.
My pal Jack reacted as anticipated. First sex with a new lover should be passionate and exciting, he said. It should make you blush, the next day, when you’re walking to work and you have flashbacks. It should make you laugh, remembering how naughty it was. You can’t expect to have cosy sex with a new boyfriend. Everything hinges on the sex.
But that can’t be true for everyone. It isn’t. I know of middle-aged people who have shacked up with other midlifers, both happy to under-achieve in bed. In dating site terms, it’s another obstacle, another filter, one I need to consider. Perhaps there should be another field to fill in on the dating profile. What kind of sex do you like? Hairless or hairy? Theatrics or cosy? Gymnastic or chatty? Performance or easy? Noisy and demonstrative, or Married-a-long-time style?
Yesterday, I saw Marc on the street. I wasn’t looking where I was going and almost bumped into him. He nodded at me, a wary nod of acknowledgement, as we passed each other. I grinned back. I found I didn’t actually mind. It wouldn’t have worked. It’s actually mutual. It’s actually OK.
Stella Grey is a pseudonym
