My dream life is haunting me at the moment. Visions of quirky isolation and flight.

A handsome tall blond young guy leads me by the hand to his bedroom, late at night, and we lie together. He quietly excuses himself, and then it gradually dawns on me that he’s gone, he’s left the house. It’s a family home – and I’m in his bed, sleepless, mortified, listening to the house creak, waiting, hollow inside. My vacuum envelops the room, the house, the world. Sheepishly, in the morning, I tiptoe down, introduce myself to the family in the kitchen and apologise that they appear to have a missing son on their hands. They are blasé about it, as if it happens all the time, and start showing me proudly around the house, pointing out its architectural features and the design of their espresso cups. Your man turns up in time for breakfast, nonchalant. I feel like I’m the mad one, for being concerned. For noticing his absence, for being the only one to think it mattered. For having wanted to be with him so much.
That’s the feeling I wake up with – the empty arms syndrome, bafflement, the sight of the young face looking blankly at me, not getting me. I can’t tell if he looks guilty or not. I do not know if I’m crazy or not.
In real life, continuity in sexual/ romantic relationship persistently escapes me. This watched kettle is not even above lukewarm. In sex, jagged departures no longer rip me apart, my edges have become smooth, like tumbled pebbles on the shore. I’m polite, charming, humorous with the men I meet. I am most emphatically, most assuredly, most definitely the opposite of human velcro. I know what spoils the game. We are emotionally absent, in order to be present with each other. As a dear friend said to me about 20 years ago – the most yearned for is the most elusive: the conscious kiss. Frenzied, lustful, fast and furious snogging with a hot guy, who takes your breath away? Check. Knowing someone in all their complexity and absurdity and fear, and tasting his lips with your lips as testament to the affection you have for him? Cheque, please. Got to run. Is that the time?
Or is it that I have the knack of picking guys who only want to play the sport of sex? Is my unconscious pitting me repeatedly against the archetype of Teflon Man to teach me the meaning of Buddhist non-attachment? Gee, thanks.
If one has learned the rules of pleasant non-committal exchange, avoiding intimacy and maximising stimulus, can they be unlearned? If it’s quiet, calm intimacy that I really want, then what am I doing in the middle of the playing field? The easy answer, one that many guys use, is: “what else am I to do while I’m waiting for Mr Right?” I know there’s a more difficult, more honest answer, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I cannot command intimacy, I cannot conjure up a friend. I know of no working recipe to bake a long-term lover – I imagine there’s an algorithm sometimes, like time x opportunity/ acceptance x kindness = interested party – but I’ve heard so many different stories of how people met their lovers, there is no right or wrong way. It’s either going to happen or it’s not. I meet people in all sorts of different ways, and try to keep in touch with as many of them I like as possible. It’s a shame that none seems to have had an interest in me romantically or sexually for a long time – but I value their friendship nonetheless, and we have a lot of fun.
I’ve got used to the transition from first tentative dates, where anything is possible, to the “let’s have coffee sometime” text, after the decision has been made. I can honestly say, though, that I’ve no regrets – I’ve never let someone big-hearted slip away, for want of attention or perseverance. Faint heart never won fair, erm, maid. Having got a new dinner table in my living room recently, I’m planning to do a very grown up thing and invite people to dinner parties, with people I don’t know that well. And ask them to bring friends, etc. etc. etc.
I bounce back and keep on trying. It’s what I do. It’s what I have to do.
I don’t remember the last time I woke up with someone and brought them coffee, it’s last year sometime. At night, in that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep, I still hear myself mutter the name of the last man I loved, which I’m sure would surprise the hell out of him now, all these years later. It surprises me, too – for I never consciously think of him, I don’t miss him at all during the day. But my body, at night, remembers that lost pleasure of his smooth chunky body, and calls out for that warmth, that comfort.
I’ve discovered, at 40, as if for the first time in history, the horrific truth about age – that, in essence, nothing changes on the inside, as you change on the outside. I’m still the same curious intense adolescent exploring the world that I ever was; still just as sexual, still just as sensitive, still just as uncertain, still just as in need of attention and physical affection. I would have thought things would change. I am more solid, though, and more resilient, and I don’t do things I don’t want to do anymore, and have a greater capacity to find things funny.
But I remember what I thought of older guys when I was a teenager or in my early twenties – I remember their kind sad eyes and warm faces, bewitched by my youth. And I remember that they didn’t do a thing for me. I liked them, but they didn’t appear at all on my radar screen of potential partners. Now that I’m their age, and similarly astonished by the openness and warmth of youth, the wheel turns full circle.
Like all good parents of the ’60s, mine told me that it didn’t matter what I did in life, as long as I was happy. I’ve done some interesting and worthwhile things in my life, and hope to do many more – but their prime directive has eluded me in the past few years. Happiness, for them, is a loving marriage, of over 41 years now. It’s a tough act to follow.
It’s out of my control.