August Newsletter

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to come.” Robert Browning

It’s my birthday this month and, no, I won’t be doing anything special. Next year at 75 there will be, I suspect, the big surprise party when I will do my best to act surprised. When I turned 70, romance was the last thing on my mind. Like it or not, old age was staring at me in the face. Time to join the retired golfers, except I don’t play golf. Goodbye Sex – Hello Netflix.

My friends accused me of laziness. You mustn’t give up on sex, they urged. It’s very good for you. So and so is 83 and just remarried. Bully for him. They pointed to Mick Jagger and Rupert Murdoch. who recently remarried at 93. How much of that is ego as opposed to libido? One can only surmise. 

Englishmen have never been in the top ten of sexy nationalities. Until Hugh Grant came along, we weren’t even in the top thirty. You had Al Pacino when we still had Benny Hill. Sex scenes on film we cautiously delegated to the Italians and the French.  

There are all those 1940s British war films where the Major is in bed in striped pajamas with Mrs Major, a book in his hand and a magazine in hers. He is off to Dunkirk the next morning at break of dawn. Will she ever see him again? Regardless, he closes the book, leans over and gives her an affectionate peck on the cheek before turning the bedside light out. “Goodnight old thing,” he murmurs affectionately.  Off to war and possibly off to paw. But we’re not shown that bit and it always looks unlikely.

Love in the Twilight Zone needs careful handling.  When subtly alluded to on Yellowstone or the Hallmark Channel, the oldies always have perfect gleaming dentures and misty eyes. A hug, a cuddle and fade out. Who wants to see Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in delectus coitus?

Since I retired from actually having to run a restaurant, I’ve had more time on my hands. Last month I went on my first date in I don’t know how many years. I think it went well. She certainly laughed a lot. I felt invigorated. Netflix could wait at least another hour.

You might imagine restaurant owners have it easier in regard to meeting members of the opposite sex. This is an urban myth that one should not buy into. I have always maintained middle aged men go into the restaurant business for all the wrong reasons. If they are foodies, they will always be advising the chef what ingredient to add to this or that dish. Good chefs are hard to keep anyway. One should never interfere with their cooking. Some men love wine, often too much. That never ends well if they buy a restaurant. But the most common reason middle aged men open restaurants is to meet women. This is a recipe for disaster. The young lady in question may be polite, but will never return.

My friend Omar, who is barely out of his thirties, assures me women adore older men, the hot older guy. He singles out George Clooney, Barack Obama and Bobby Kennedy as examples. “But they all have oodles of money, Omar.” I point out. Not an accomplishment I am known for. 

In my sixties I could pass as mildly sexy still, especially with the English accent. Now I’m cast as the kindly uncle, sexless and harmless. The older gentleman with the good-looking son who waits tables. Or is it his grandson? 

Entering one’s seventh decade isn’t all bad. It wakes you up. It gives you an awareness of the preciousness of time, an appreciation of what you have. The falling away of vanity is liberating. Seventy isn’t the new fifty, however much AI lies to you, but it beats eighty. As Clint Eastwood put it “I don’t let the old man in.”  Time to propose the second date perhaps? Never say never.