I have an older male acquaintance I met several years ago through a business friend. At the time we met it was a few years after my husband had passed, and a year or two after he had separated from his wife. Our mutual friends told me that he had some ongoing issues with his wife because he was fishing too close to home – after the split, he had been dating a woman half his age who was involved in the local community so his wife was confronted with her regularly. You can imagine how much fun that must’ve been. But still our mutual acquaintance was quick to state that he had been loyal to his wife while they were together and that she had left him. I don’t know the circumstances of their split but I have an inkling as to why his wife may have come to this decision even if his friends were right and he wasn’t acting on his impulses while they were together… this is a man I have seen walk into a business event with his posse of young women around him. A walking “mid-life crisis” cliché.
I think my business friend thought that introducing us might have resulted in a more positive relationship for him. But since this guy was seeing much younger women and obviously getting his more basic needs met there, a sort of consulting friendship developed between us. We saw each other at events and he texted me for lunch or dinner on occasions when he happened to be in my geographic area for a meeting or other reason. So I give him a little credit for wanting to have an actual conversation with a more intellectually and emotionally developed female once in a while, but I’m still shaking my head at this conversation:
He was talking about some time he had just spent with his teenage sons. They had recently been on a trip together and he was telling me how much fun the boys had, but wanted me to know that he encouraged them to be safe in their exploits – to the extent that he kept a bowl full of condoms on the counter in his kitchen for himself and his boys to dip into before they left the house.
A bowl full of condoms. Well, okay, he’s encouraging safe sex behavior, but what else is he and his behavior encouraging in his young sons… The idea that as long as they wear condoms they can do whatever, whenever with whomever? The age-old male belief that young women are objects to use for a moment of fun and are disposable? The more the merrier? That relationships with women are only about safe sex?
I’m usually overly critical as it pertains to writing. However, your sources are great.
Will share this post on facebook when I get home. On my iPhone at the moment. Great post.
Hello! Cool post, amazing!!!
Thanks for another informative site. Where else could I get that type of information written in such a perfect way? I’ve a project that I’m just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such information.