The perils of responsibility.

My little handshake faux pas has clearly spelled the end of any interaction with my unfortunate date. Even though I’d since texted him to apologise and invited him to my house for dinner, his responses have not been forthcoming ever since he sent me a message to say that he’s had a sudden influx of work and will be in touch when things settle down. I wouldn’t be surprised if work never does ease up for him. Xerxes* suspects that the handshake alone would not have put the guy off so comprehensively. Clearly, it must’ve been combined with some repellent facet of my personality. A shame, because I got the impression that the guy was a straight talker like myself.

Still, I could be wrong. It’s not that I’m terribly sad about never seeing the guy again; it’s more my feeling bad about potentially crushing the guy’s ego with one thoughtless gesture. “What’s wrong with you, you social retard?!” hisses a voice in my head. "Get over yourself," Gabriel* tells me.

Not long ago, I had a conversation with Harun Al-Rashid* about whether or not it was okay to have sex with a) underage parties and b) with teenagers who have reached the legal age of 18, but who happen to attend the school where you teach. I was convinced that legally, b) was okay, if frowned upon, but was assured that it’s still illegal, as teachers are responsible for all the students, whether they personally teach them or not.
“It’s a good thing you’re not a teacher,” I was told, my friend being well aware of my tendency to creatively interpret social norms/ rules to suit whichever situation I happen to be embroiled in.

I do have a tendency to question absolute rules because I dwell on the exceptions. The age of consent in this country may be sixteen, yet some people are ready for it earlier, physically and psychologically, whereas others will never reach a certain emotional maturity and won’t be ready even by the age of thirty, so if I were the type to be tempted by innocence, youth and firm bodies, I would probably review each potential candidate on a case-by-case basis. I knew when I was ready, which is why I wouldn’t outright dismiss a teenager’s claim to know their own mind (and body). It just so happens that I find it far more appealing to explore human geography shaped by a long and eventful life, where each scar, each wrinkle adds to the rich tapestry of their skin. Making love is not unlike travelling to a new and exciting country and I make a very enthusiastic explorer.

When I was doing volunteer work in Jamaica several years ago and was propositioned by a not unattractive 15-year old lad, I was against the idea, but not because I questioned his maturity. In Jamaica, fatherhood at the age of eleven is not unknown, never mind sex. Joe* made it very clear that he’d be perfectly happy to mess around with an attractive 24-year old girl (yours truly):

“I’ll be sixteen in two months’ time!” he told me earnestly.
“I’m old enough to be your mother,” I responded. A very, very young mother who was unusually fertile at the age of eight. That didn’t go down well.

I felt responsible for him. Unlike typical Jamaican lads his age, Joe* had no experience whatsoever, due to his parents keeping him under lock and key, and I’ve never had any desire to initiate novices into the pleasures of the flesh. Too much pressure and responsibility. If you screw up their first time, they may be scarred for life! When approached by a male friend about helping him to lose his virginity, what with my being the non-judgemental and understanding kind, I gave it a week’s serious consideration, thinking “I’ve done a lot worse,” before coming to the conclusion that still, the first time should be between two people who are really into each other, and we completely lacked any sexual chemistry. That, and I was put off by “That way, when I do it for real, I’ll know what to do.” I wasn’t about to be anybody’s ‘practise run’.

When I was fourteen, Sappho*, who was going out with an ‘older man’ (seventeen), painted me a really unappealing picture of what sex was like: “You kind of just lie there and make noises at the right time and hope that his mum won’t hear the floorboards creaking.” It sounded terrible and took her years to get over that. With a woman, things are much better, she tells me.

Now that Joe* has had plenty of experience (with girls and boys), perhaps I’ll be differently inclined if I see him again, but back then, I felt that he should lose his virginity with someone who wasn’t old and worldly and tainted. To complicate matters, I was already embroiled in an incestuous tangle, being pursued by Hector*, a not unattractive fellow intern, and having a clandestine fling with Steve, another intern with whom I’d gotten together after going to unusual lengths to protect him from the amorous advances of a camp gay British Airways crew member after we both ended up drunk on rum punches in his hotel bed. Never again do I want to see one man give another man head another in close proximity to myself. But that’s another story…

I didn’t manage to deflect Joe’s* affections without hurting his feelings and I couldn’t make him understand that I wasn’t questioning his maturity. I was questioning my own ability to handle a situation where all the responsibility rested squarely on my shoulders.

One of the advantages of going out with older men, quite apart from, well, you know, benefiting from their greater life experience, in-depth carnal knowledge (in some cases, anyway), their confidence and their having less to prove than some young insecure whipper-snapper, is the complete freedom from responsibility. If things go pear-shaped, it’s invariably the older party that ‘should’ve known better.’ I go to great lengths to avoid feeling any responsibility.

I’m lying, of course.

I, personally, don’t think it’s at all fair that whenever a large age gap in concerned, society often heaps most of the responsibility and blame on the older party. Many younger parties know exactly what they’re doing and I have been known to take responsibility for the other party’s feelings. Every single time, in fact.

When Xerxes* and I lived together, he eventually banned me from talking about Forrest, my troubled kind of boyfriend, if I didn’t really want his advice and just wanted to talk for the sake of talking. I’m perfectly happy to listen to sensible advice, only to disregard it completely because the only way I learn is from my own mistakes. Since I’m not terribly bright, sometimes I have to make the same mistake several times before it in.

Mine and Forrest’s story was that of addiction, disappointment, brief euphoria, delusion and the triumph of hope over experience. Yet even when it finally hit me, randomly, two years ago while I was cruising through the fjords of southern Chile, that it was finally over and I didn’t want to see him again, even then a part of me wondered how on earth the poor chap was going to survive without me, contrary to all evidence that he coped just fine (kind of) before he met me. I felt obliged to call him ‘to make sure he was okay’, and to write him an extended letter, explaining the reasoning behind my decision. I felt that it would’ve been unkind to just disappear without a word, to just drop him like a hot potato, even though Forrest would never have thought to extend the same courtesy to me.

I wonder now whether the letter was more an opportunity for me to air my grievances and to justify the action to myself, rather than for Forrest’s benefit, which in turn makes me wonder just how many of my ‘concerns’ about my various exes have, in fact been, cunning disguises for my own need to feel good about myself by justifying my actions to myself. If that makes sense. I’m beginning to confuse myself now.

Things are changing. Though I owed him nothing, I still emailed Vlad* the upstart Transylvanian to tell him that I won’t be meeting him again, rather than disappear without a word. I didn’t go into detail though, because it wasn’t a difficult decision and because I didn’t sufficiently care about justifying myself to a stranger. I guess the same applies to my recent date; he was a nice, decent guy, but I didn’t know him for long enough to have any emotional stake in the outcome of the situation, and while I cannot take back my handshake, I did my best to rectify the situation. Regardless of success or failure, I shall dwell on it no longer.