THE TRUTH ABOUT OLD MEN - Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Now and then, old men get lonely. They try not to think about the decades they squandered working two jobs so mama could stay home with the kids. It’s painful to remember mama’s words on the day he retired with visions of the travel they’d enjoy, the long, lazy days sailing or dabbling a baited hook he‘d been looking forward to. Her words will forever echo in his atrophied brain. “You’ve kept me chattel in the kitchen all these years. It‘s your fault I had no career. Now, it‘s time for ME.”

“But, honey,” he says, “I thought we agreed this was the life we wanted.”

“That’s because you are completely incapable of reading between the lines.”

The divorce has come and gone now. The kids are on their own, not that it would be possible to recognize them as his own. Suspenders would help. The old man has even passed through the return to single life, abbreviated by the second marriage and the resounding sock on the snout dealt him by wife number two, who was from another planet. Now he’s just hanging out on the dating sites, hoping that somewhere there is still a sane individual wearing a skirt who can understand him.

He posts a profile on Hook Me Up dot com. In the section designed to describe himself he talks about being a man with his own agenda, a man who knows where he’s going, a man of self-determination and inner strength. He thinks this is the sort of fellow a woman will respect, admire and, perhaps, grow to love. He gets back unsolicited hate mail, branding him as a control freak. In the section asking about his sexual propensities he tries to make it clear he is not a deviate. Using his own pedestrian parlance, he explains that he is accustomed to mounting the female. He considers this a selling point. He gets back e-mail from women who presume him to be a “master”. They are hoping to be chained and gagged, whipped with pretend instruments of torture and humiliated by a “dom” to whom they will play “sub” in titillating adventures called “role playing.” What he once viewed as commonplace male deportment is now characterized as the perverse, sadistic machinations of a savage reprobate.

He tries again. This time he makes it clear he respects women. A good woman belongs on a pedestal, he writes. Now he gets mail that opens with the line, Hi, Pantyboy and goes on to describe the wardrobe of frilly things he will wear when he becomes her love monkey.

Finally, a resonating chord is struck, and he meets a potential love interest for dinner. Less combative conflict has been waged in war zones. By the end of the salad it’s clear this is a contest to determine who is smartest, most accomplished, more erudite and less afflicted by damaging past relationships. By the end of the entrée he understands it will be his obligation to pay for every indiscretion committed by every man to whom she has been married. He wonders how these men managed to get away with the ignominious sin of being born male, but he envies them for managing to get away. When the check comes, she pulls out her wallet, but is quick to put it away if he just insists on being a gentleman. Paying the check is how the term “gentleman” is defined now. It was, after all, the reason he responded to her profile on Hook Me Up dot com -- the part where she described her ambition as a search for a man who knows how to treat a lady like a lady.

Now the lady would like to go home and be laid. “What’s that,” she says. “You have no Viagra? It would be bad for your heart?”

He tries to explain the comical irony that the only people who need Viagra are those most likely to suffer from a heart condition, but she’s not in a humorous mood. Next week, he’ll see her new profile on Hook Me Up dot com. She’s looking for a man between the ages of 12 and 20 who knows how to treat a lady like a lady.