We start with something from the ‘Big Book of Jokes for Eight Year Olds’:
“Why didn’t the skeleton go to the dance? He had no-body to go with.”
Thank you very much. I’m here all week. There are times though, when I feel like that. Not in a bad, old joke kind of way (although Mrs. D might disagree) but I am sure that my body is not the one I’m supposed to have. Mine is young, fit and full of energy, not this thing that carries me around. For example, getting my hair cut has become particularly traumatic.
Not because of the increasing follicle free areas or greyness but because I have to sit in front of a mirror for half an hour and look at myself. As I can perform my morning ablutions with my eyes closed, I am spared this on a daily basis but whilst what’s left of my thatch is tidied up, I see this person much older than me staring back.
Some say that men become more distinguished with age. Bollocks. All that’s happening in my case is that I am going soft round the edges whilst gravity pulls my face to my knees. If I were a lion, I would be banished from the pride with a younger one taking my place as ‘Alpha Male’.
Mrs. D is not helping my increasing level of insecurity. She has transformed herself (and now others) with an exercise and fitness regime that has seen her lose weight, firm up and give herself the body of a woman half her age. She still turns heads when she walks into a room and when I pointed out to her the other day that she could trade me in for a younger, richer, better looking model, her answer was chilling:
“Why would I release you from your life of purgatory?”
Sounds like she is, has been and will continue to be my mid-life crisis.
D2 is now as tall as me. Not difficult perhaps but this means that the Daring household now has two women at either end of their ‘womanhood’. In sync too, if you know what I mean. There are days when I find it better not to say a word as whatever I do will be more wrong than it normally is. It could make a brilliant video game, more scary and real than anything else that can be found on a PS3 or Xbox.
Called ‘Hormone Wars’, you play as a mild-mannered man who is thrust into a world that makes no sense. Points are awarded for each hour you survive without causing tears, how you respond to irrational arguments and your ability to avoid flying crockery. I haven’t worked out how you actually win because I am not sure you can.
Women go through distinct physiological stages in their lives with lots of help and advice available. Each one is well understood in terms of what is happening chemically and physically inside the body and their potential effects on behaviour. There appears to be no recognised equivalent for men although our hormones change too.
For example testosterone, a key ingredient of ‘libido’, decreases in men as we get older but it also increases in women, especially after menopause. Hence all those old aunts with prickly chins, which as a child made you cringe when you had to give them a kiss. Assuming that you are in a heterosexual relationship, there may be benefit to this at some point in the future.
I don’t mean sharing a razor. When your wife can grow a better beard than you can, it may be time to think about something else anyway; take up bowls perhaps. No – there should come a point where the testosterone levels drive the same ‘urges’ in equal amounts. In mathematical terms, Desire(a) = Desire(b), where (a) is the man and (b) is the uncontrollable bundle of emotions.
It will be just like being 18 again and you need to recognise it when it happens and go away for a week to prove the equation. Now, I can just imagine any younger readers being violently ill. “…Old people ‘doing it’…Ewwww”. But while there’s fuel in the tank, you gotta’ go for a drive right?
Once you’re past that point though, us poor men are left to try and vainly cling to our glory days. Maybe buy a sports car. Get that Harley. Go to the gym. Date someone twenty-five years younger. Although a large bank balance and a yacht would definitely help in that case. Not sure that being squidgy does though.
Maybe that’s why male baldness is increasing throughout the world. If you don’t go to the barbers, you don’t have to look in a mirror. You will always be the man you think you were. Brilliant!
I wonder if I could grow a ponytail…