Vivre La Difference… Maybe

You know the old saying, “Some of my best friends are ….” It sounds trite, but since I was a little pre-school tike, some of my best friends were boys or men. So, despite how this rant of sorts sounds, I am not a man-hater.

I am a 72-year-old widow who can look in the mirror and say, “Not too bad, for an old broad; not fantastic, not perfect, but not too bad.” I’m a bit too fluffy, some things have started to sag, and I cannot imagine where my waist wandered off to, but I can still clean up fairly well.

So, that’s all well and good. Don’t we all want to be attractive? But, putting on fresh clothes, clean shiny hair, and some makeup does not constitute a neon sign for men to read, “I am desperate for sex! Please come and service me!”

As a teenager, I was both virginal and a terrible flirt. I had no clue what was going on inside the minds (or pants) of the boys hanging around me. I never had a thought about “sex.” I was dreaming of “romance,” not the same thing. I built my upper body strength pushing my dates off of me. I loved to dance. Lingering romantic phone calls on a school night were to die for. Kissing could be quite nice, but keep your hands off my private parts!

Eventually, I went to college and when my hormones ultimately surfaced, I believed I had to marry the guy I was with at that moment. Somehow, no one was around to correct that notion, or my life would have been monumentally different.

Skip forward to my early forties when as a recently divorced woman I cautiously started to venture out into the world of dances and dating. A man would approach and ask, “May I have this dance?” The next thing I knew, I’d be heading off the dance floor grumbling, “You asked for a dance, not a GROPE!” Or I’d accept a dinner date and spend the evening explaining that I was not ready for anything heavy and nowhere near ready to consider any kind of an intimate relationship. And yet, before the evening was out, this guy would say to me, “I don’t understand why we aren’t in the bedroom burning up the sheets!” Fortunately, I almost always drove my own car rather than being picked up, so I could leave whenever I was ready.

Thank God, I was rescued from that scene by the most loving and patient man who was truly my soulmate. We were happily married for about sixteen years. At one point, having watched the movie, American Pie, about guys determined to lose their virginity in high school, whatever it took, I turned to him and asked, “Are ALL teenage boys like that?”

I cried for every teenage girl who’d ever walked the Earth when he replied, “Pretty much so, yeah.”

Now, somehow, even in my seventies, although I’ve barely stepped out to try and enjoy some semblance of a social life, I’ve already been barraged by men, older than I am, who for some reason imagine that I just can’t wait to become entangled with them in the most private and personal manner. I’m talking about men who have invested about twelve minutes trying to get to know me!

What is WRONG with these guys? How desperate do they imagine I am? Do boys never grow up to become human beings?