Eventually, I do want to write a post here about ... sex. It's just taking some time to put my thoughts together.
Anyway, this morning the old Mick Jagger song has been going through my mind, based on an experience I had last night. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it because alternately I keep laughing or scratching my head in wonderment. This experience is liking falling down the rabbit hole.
Here's the story:
Last night I went out for dinner with a guy I've been sort of dating.. still in the "maybe" stages.. but since it was his birthday, it seemed important to go and try to make it as nice for him as possible. I wrote him a little birthday card and we went off to the restaurant. I even toned down the Ultra-Thai look because I wanted him to be comfortable.
It was going pretty well. He was a gentleman and we had a nice (if too large) dinner. We talked about a variety of topics and shared views on many things.
The evening began to come to an end. We'd gone out to a local place to see if they had some live music. They did not ~ so it was time to come home.
He pulled up to my circular driveway and we sat in his truck, having a final cigarette.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he says "I guess I'm not going to get laid for my birthday."
I have a poker face. Truly. I do not show my reactions externally until I am ready to do so. Inside though, I wanted to break out laughing. It took everything I had to keep a straight face. Reaction of any kind would only give him what he wanted. At that point, I had no interest in giving him the time of day.. let alone.. um.. that! That kind of crude presentation is something I haven't heard since high school. Next I expected him to say, "If you really loved me, you'd do what I want..."
He finished by saying that since I would not come and spend the night with him that he would wake up in the morning alone, spend the day alone and go to bed tonight, knowing he would just get up and go to work and do it all over again.
Life's tough sometimes. You know? Sometimes it's a royal bitch! Then you die.
I sat quietly and finally said, "I don't even know what to say to that.... "
As if a whining man is really going to be an aphrodisiac!
(These italicized statements are are the thoughts running through my head.)
He replied that if I'd already made up my mind, I could say goodnight and go inside.
That is exactly what I did after thanking him for the meal. I closed the door to the truck and came inside.
Does anyone else find it odd that a 55-year-old woman would be having such experiences? What would you have said or done in similar circumstances?
I'm still laughing. Really. I'm not in the least upset about it but would like to hear from others on the topic. It's simply hard for me to comprehend that any person over 50 could be so immature as to think such a thing, let alone say it out loud.
Peace,
~Chani
Sunday, February 11, 2007
You Can't Always Get What You Want...
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26 comments:
I can see why you are laughing! That kind of thing didn't work in high school, why on earth would he think it would at this stage in life?
I haven't had that happen to me since college, but I know that if it had, I wouldn't have been able to control my laughter!
Um-ok. I was trying to put myself in the same situation and for a second I thought I was back in highschool. Good thing you have a better sense of humor than I do.
That was so rude of him-I'm actually surprised at how indignant I am on your behalf! Who the hell does he think he is? I mean my goodness if he was just trying to get some hot birthday action the least he could try is sweet-talk! Even then! :o)
When i read that, i just sat there with my mouth hanging open. He really said that? How crude, and ultimately indirect. Like you owed him sex because it was his birthday. Honestly!
One suggested response; "You should let your right hand know it's your birthday because that's all the action you're going to get tonight!"
You said :"he was a gentleman." So I suppose he was shy and maladroit, and he didn't find the right words for his proposition...And I suppose that you had no feeling for him at all, otherwise you would have not minded...
I am puzzled by the word "whining" that I can find here and there. I think that each time someone doesn't care for one other 's feeling, this one is qualified as "whining".
A hug and 'I've had a great evening, I've enjoyed your company' and he'd have found out whether you might have responded. It would have been gracious and friendly, whatever had happened next. And it would have left the door open for another day.
My response? It would have depended on how he said it - with humour or petulantly (you suggest the latter) and on how much I liked him as a person but he certainly wouldn't have 'got laid' (ew, how unseductive can you get?) that night. I think your answer was dignified and didn't belittle him and that was kind of you.
Two years ago, my 75 year old aunt-placed an ad in one of those "golden age" magazines. She was somewhat over her divorce- her husband left her the summer she turned seventy-and she was ready for some companionship. So she placed a tasteful ad in the mag and pretty much forgot about it and left for a two-week vacation in the tropics. The day she came back I got a call " Carol lynn, you have to come over and listen to this " She had 69 messages on her answering machine. I kid you not. We roared listening to some of them. So I helped her make a selection and the following Monday she began meeting the gentleman at a local coffee shop. All of them were over 70, and all of them wanted some action. All of them. It was hilarious, straight out of the Golden Girls. One of them even asked her if she wears G-strings! We figure she must have gone on about 25 of these dates. ( I was always there in the background, you know, to make sure she was o.k. Man it was fun! ) They all went home crestfallen, like why wouldn't she want to bed the likes of me? She eventually gave up but we still laugh about it...
Um...I would have busted out laughing. Desperation, in all its forms, is a major turn-off.
He basically said what he was thinking (what all men probably would be thinking) without censoring. The fatal flaw.
I am liberal as you know; I don't think that sex should be treated differently from any other natural aspect of our life, like laughing or crying. So the guy spoke out loud his mind, I don't think it is immature, because he spoke it out and didn't try to manipulate you to get something out of you that you might not want to give. I would give him credit for that.
I guess many men confuse companionship with sex. He might have been thinking about wanting to have someone next to him in the morning but all he could utter was "getting laid"! Habitual thinking maybe?
From the comments I read of your female friends above, I can see that I could be grilled for my comment and be labeled “just another man”. But the truth is, we all make much more out of the term “having sex” than should be there.
I would interpret what he said as an indicator of where he thought your relationship was going, or where it had got to. He expected sex. How he reached that conclusion without any discussion from you is a mystery. Maybe he got some signals crossed, or let his desire get ahead of his good sense, or who knows. His attempt to guilt you into having sex - the waking up alone bit - was pathetic. to cut him a break, maybe his disappointment got the better of his good manners.
in any case, major faux pas.
Laurie, it was definitely the childishness of it that made me want to laugh. I definitely have very little tolerance for adolescent behavior in grown people. It just annoys me.
~*
MsPea, thanks for your indignance. :) I also found it rude and crass.
The thing that annoyed me even more was his reaction to my saying no... He handled his disappointment like a child.
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Meno, wish I'd thought of that response. LOL
I have known that guy for less than a full month!
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Genevieve, he was a gentleman because I'd told him on previous occasions that if he ever pawed at me again that I wouldn't see him again. He also has a tendency to hound me (or whoever) about what he wants, after he's already gotten an answer. I don't stay the night with men I've known for less than a month. I was very, very direct and honest with him about it. Still, he continued to bring it up. I was irritated by that.
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Z, he was petulant and self-pitying which only served to totally alienate me. There was no graciousness or maturity in his actions. He was being manipulative in that he was trying to get sympathy sex. I don't do sympathy sex. LOL
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Caro, I don't blame you for still laughing. That seems to be the one area where men don't grow up. They always behave like 14-year-olds apparently. That doesn't give me much hope. LOL
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KC, desperation.. exactly. It is really distasteful. Maybe he should buy a good peice of steak and call it a night.
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Gobody, yes, it is a normal part of life and all that. I agree. However, predatory or manipulative behavior attached to it is totally unacceptable ~ at least to me. His stating that in such a crude way was disrespectful. You know, the point at which I want to be with someone that way, he'll know it and won't have to negotiate it. There's a normal "flow" to things that leads there. Laughing and crying, indeed. One doesn't laugh at a funeral or cry at a comedy. It's inappropriate.
All he really did was show that he completely lacks class.
At least I can say for certain that I won't be seeing him again. Yecht!
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Thanks, all :)
Peace,
~Chani
I am glad to read men'comments. Depends on the relationship, and the degree of intimacy,of course, but I don't find shocking, but rather cute that a man asks:"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?"
That men want sex ( and women as well) at any age is not hilarious, neither of a monster's behavior I think.
OK, if you had told him before that you had no interest, that is different..
the sad thing is that, at 55 and over, there are still a lot of adolecent men out there. It is such a bad line that it IS funny. And insensitive.
"Yes, you are! You're being laid to rest, buddy."
What a loser.
Wow.
My Mom dated off and on in her fiftys. I heard a lot of cheap garbage from the men that would come around to see her, sniffing like the dogs they were in highschool.. it didn't surprise me that they were single.
I would imagine that the part that sucks most about dating when you are older is that the men that are left are either divorced (for a reason) or still single (for bigger reasons). I feel for you.
But, at least you got some comedy out of it.
Sorry, me again: am trying to understand, and Penny says:"I would imagine that the part that sucks most about dating when you are older is that the men that are left are either divorced (for a reason) or still single (for bigger reasons" What about the women "left" then?
G, I can't speak for Penny but I'm going to hazard a wild guess on this.
Some of it is culture-specific. North American culture is shallow and many men leave their wives and kids when they no longer fit a certain profile. The women who are "left" have been "left" because there was a newer, younger woman available ~ or the man just got tired of the responsibility of family life. People are quite disposable in this culture. There is not a lot of emphasis on honor. It is acceptable for a man to leave his family here if they are no longer "convenient" or if the family no longer meets the man's "needs" as he perceives them. There is a low tolerance for boredom or mundanity.
That's not to say that some women don't do the same thing but statistically, the numbers are much lower.
I would be curious to hear from you about French culture and how these things are there.
It is supposed to be the same in France: most of the times, men leave, but in my circle of friends, it's fifty fifty.
The rate of divorces is 1/2 in Paris and 1/3 elsewhere.
But there is a change since 2001: the rate of divorces is diminishing, while the rate of marriages increases. I think because people are older and older when they get married, and almost all of them have lived together before marrying.
G, that sounds very similar to here statistically. There does seem to be an underlying desire in people to be married now. Security seems to be more important. The unfortunate thing is that very few people have the skills to maintain a long-term relationship. Those who do have the skills are married and have remained married. I can guarantee that I certainly didn't have the skills when I was married the first time. That's why I'm divorced. :)
Peace,
~C
Oh uh errr
Seriously?
Wow.
No, I'm not too surprised. Shocked, sure, but not too surprised.
Definitely have learned not everyone grows up.
At least you saw it for the ridiculousness it was.
Sheesh.
I think you can refer to him as Lou (go see Lotta's post today). ;)
I don't believe at all in "skills" or working out one's marriage (or LTR) by some efforts. I think it is all the fruit of random, plus laziness and the desire to not leave a comfortable life.
I believe that intuition makes you "choose" the right guy, and later, after storms, betrayals both sides, there is a consensus, a statu quo which makes you continue to live together. I may look cynical, but, frankly, I don't believe at all that any effort can succeed in making a marriage or a LTR continue..
What a story. I agree with Meno. "Crude" is exactly the word. How disgusting. I see a case of a man with very low self-esteem.
When I was single, I went out with a 50 year old man who, on the third date, suddenly planted a lot of dry little pecks on my cheek and then said, "Would you like to go to bed now?"
I said, "Well, I like to know someone a lot better first."
"I'm not promiscuous," he said. Which wasn't exactly the point.
If that was his idea of foreplay, it didn't sound very promising, and I declined. Apparently, he had a timetable, and thankfully, never called me again.
May a guy belatedly say a word?
I think Kc nailed it. Some men don't know the difference between interior monologue and exterior dialogue.
Some guys our age have been out of this situation for many years and revert to high school -- college in my case: girls were largely hypothetical beings in my all-boys Catholic high school; one knew they existed, but one didn't chance to see one very often.
Of course all men think of sex, from about the age of 15 to about ... 70 (really? I hope so)! The language that men and women speak together is sexual, whether it is a look or a night twisting around in bed together.
But as with every other language, there's an etiquette and a protocol, a grammar and a usage. Women, who are more articulate in other languages, seem to be more fluent at this one, too.
It was a stupid thing to say: I want to believe that he kicked himself the minute the words came out of his mouth.
Oh god Chani - all the people posting that women want it just as bad as men, yes, we do, but this guy was just a JERK!
For many years, I considered myself "selectively easy". I selected who I would be easy for :) There is nothing wrong with expecting kindness and politeness from a person who is about to be handling your private parts, if that is your bag. Don't let any posters on here make you think otherwise. Guilt is what you feel when you walk into a confessional, not before sex!
What a dolt.
Thanks for a great post! I cracked up over this. It reminded me of a date I had w-a-y back when I was a teen. Of course that was decades ago. I guess the "I've fed you and it's a 'special' night so I get sex" thing is still in vogue!
I'm a guy. When I read that I felt like I had to spit. The kind of things that you women go through like this is amazing to me. I don't have any feel for it - because I'm a guy and I do what I do - and I've never said anything remotely similar to this, or what other guys seem to do to gain access to your panties. Over the years I've heard strange things like this - and it's quite odd to me that guys actually resort to saying stupid stuff like this! It's really amazing! Anyway, I'm reading some of your articles. The Thai dance video was awesome. I'm moving back to Isaan in the next couple months just to get back to the Thai culture... dancing, friendly people, easy-going traffic... I wonder what Thai guys say to get laid... I'm no expert, but I think they'd resort to this - I'm lonely on my birthday shite too... probably works here quite a bit... lol - ok, take care Shani!
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