Is There Still Sex in the City?

by Candace Bushnell

  And through the whole thing you could see the kid was happy. He was laughing, joking. He was having fun.

  And there was Max. Dear old Max. He was having a great time, too, standing with his hands proudly on his hips as the boy rode the bike all the way down the street for the first time without training wheels.

  I wondered if the kid would remember me. Probably not. But if he does, I’ll be that weird lady whose house he stayed in during that summer when he learned to ride a bike.

  Who doesn’t need that person in their life?

  I titled the file with the boy’s name—Dagmar—and hit Save.

  chapter eight

  The Boyfriend Experience

  Marilyn and I have boyfriends!

  It’s kind of a miracle. Up until we got our MNBs (my new boyfriends) we considered ourselves diehard single girls. We couldn’t imagine being with a man and praised ourselves for not needing one. Sure, sometimes we’d get a little bummed out—are we really going to go to bed alone for the rest of our lives—but then, like good, sensible women, we’d remind ourselves of how lucky we were to have a bed.

  And not just a bed but a room of our own in a house of our own.

  Since we weren’t counting on a man to come into our future, we weren’t looking. We’d said no to fix ups and didn’t go to bars or restaurants where we could meet men. Mostly we hung out at Kitty’s, entertaining ourselves with stories of how we would renovate our houses if we ever got the money.

  Meaning, we had lowered our chances of meeting someone to just about zero.

  And that was okay. I’d done a bit of research on the kinds of men who were available, and they didn’t look promising. Especially when it came to age-appropriate men. The problem seemed to be that unlike the cubs, middle-aged men were often still of the mindset that women over fifty weren’t all that appealing. Especially when it was so easy for them to find not just younger women, but women who were eager to begin the reproductive lifestyle all over again with them.

  The Hot-Drop

  Take, for instance, the “hot-drop.” Unlike men who initiate the sectionorce and often have another relationship teed up, the hot-drop guy finds himself unintentionally single. It could be that his wife has died. Or his wife may have cheated or fallen in love with someone else. She may have simply become bored with him and couldn’t picture spending another day much less another thirty years listening to the same jokes. In any case, he’s single or about to become single, and he won’t be for long.

  You see, there is really nothing wrong with the hot-drop. Indeed, it’s the opposite: there is, perhaps, too much right with him. This is what Kitty discovered when she ran into Harold at an art opening.

  She hadn’t seen him for years but recognized him immediately. He had a cool downtown haircut, now sprinkled with gray, but his face had hardly aged. And he still had a big job in the art world. When he mentioned that he was sectionorced as well—or about to be—Kitty couldn’t believe her luck. She’d had a little crush on him years ago when they used to be part of the same circle, but had lost touch. And now here they were again.

  This time displaying photographs of their children to each other on their phones. Kitty’s daughter was over thirty and married, but Harold’s daughter was a real child, an adorable ten-year-old girl named Agnes. Kitty suddenly felt maternal. She realized she wouldn’t mind remothering such a gorgeous child who was clearly full of personality.

  As they left the opening to go have a drink somewhere else, Kitty wondered if her luck was about to change.

  Harold certainly seemed interested. At the bar, he kept touching her hand with his fingers when he wanted to make a point and when they kissed goodnight, he gave her an actual kiss on the lips.

  That night, as Kitty lay in bed, she had a fantasy that she and Harold would fall in love and get married and that somehow, by doing so, she would be able to leapfrog all of the issues of MAM. Why shouldn’t she be the lucky one? The one who gets through this middle-aged dating thing unscathed by sliding into an even better relationship?

  Kitty never heard from Harold, although she texted him three times and called him twice. Six months later, she ran into him again at another art opening. But this time he was with a woman. She, too, had a cool downtown haircut. But she looked young. She didn’t have a line on her face. Kitty decided she couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

  And so, when she looked from Harold to the young woman, the words just slipped out of her mouth. “And how do you two know each other?” she asked. “Are you related?” Perhaps, she suggested, Harold was the young woman’s uncle.

  The young woman gave her a look of disgust. “We’re engaged,” she said.

  When she walked away, Harold reassured Kitty that it was okay. Although his fiancée looked like a teenager she was actually almost forty. And then he gave Kitty a beaming smile and informed her that he was about to become a father again.

  And this is the problem with the hot-drop. No matter how age appropriate he is and no matter how great you are, in less time than it takes to get a blow-dry he has not just a new relationship but a whole new family.

  The He’s as Old as Your Father Guy

  The reality of the hot-drop odds can cause some women to try to game the odds in their favor by “playing” the game, i.e., dating a man who is fifteen, twenty, even twenty-five years older. Which means, given the fact that you are now middle-aged yourself, a man who is seventy? Seventy-five? Eighty?

  You wouldn’t think there would be a large contingent of men around that age who are “dating.” But when you think about demographics and how so many of the boomers are now in their later years, it makes sense that there’s a crop of sixty-, seventy-, and even eightysomething men out there acting like they are thirty-five.

  I encountered one of these men at a party given by a married couple in their early sixties. There were lots of fifty­something single women and two or three of these senior-age players, or SAPs. These are older single men of means, meaning they have enough money to add it to their list of attributes and are often still employed in a lesser version of the high-powered career they once had. At some point during the party I must have talked to one of these men, because a few days later, Ron, the host of the party, contacted me to let me know that a fellow named Arnold was interested in taking me out.

  Ron was very excited about this. And impressed. He said Arnold was a big deal and he really admired the guy. He’d played Ivy League football and he was once an oilman and a newspaper magnate and all the Park Avenue hostesses were always inviting him to their parties. He was sought after.

  I thought I remembered the guy: a tall, thick battle-ax type who was definitely older—too old for me I’d decided.

  “How old is he?” I asked.

  “He’s a little bit older than I am,” Ron said. “Sixty-eight?”

  These guys often lie about their ages. They fudge, somehow forgetting about that truth-telling device called the internet. Sure enough, when I googled him, Arnold turned out to be seventy-five.

  That made him much closer to my father’s age than mine. My father was eighty-three; Arnold was just eight years younger. They couldn’t have been more different though. My father is very conservative. Arnold apparently is not. According to Ron, Arnold used to be somewhat of a notorious wild man who went to Studio 54. Even to this day, Arnold still has much younger girlfriends, the last one being forty-five.

  “I don’t know how he does it,” Ron said.

  I wanted to tell Ron that I didn’t want to be the one to find out.

  And so I tried to say no. Peer pressure, however, is one of the things I hadn’t counted on in middle age. And when it came to dating, it turns out there was a lot of it.

  My friends kept reminding me that it was good to go out and it was really good that someone had actually asked me out. When was the last time that had happened? Of course I should g
o. What was the harm in it? And besides, you never know.

  Of course, the problem with “you never know” is that so often you actually do know.

  I knew—or I was convinced I knew—that I was not going to date a seventy-five-year-old man no matter how wonderful he was. What if he fell down? I didn’t spend my life working this hard to end up taking care of a strange old person.

  But every time I tried to explain this, I realized how ageist and judgy and anti–love hopeful I sounded.

  Because I didn’t know, did I? I didn’t know what was going to happen. What if I fell in love with him? In which case, his age wouldn’t matter, right? Plus, I didn’t want to be that woman—you know, that shallow creature who cares more about practicality than the blind illusions of love.

  Plus, as Ron reminded me, I must feel so honored that a man “as powerful as Arnold” wanted to spend time with me.

  In preparation for the date, I went to Sassy’s house and we looked at photographs of Arnold on the internet. His photos went back about thirty years. He’d been a big man and rather handsome.

  “Oh honey,” Sassy said. “He could turn out to be absolutely wonderful. You must keep an open mind.”

  And so arrangements for a date were negotiated. We could have gone to a restaurant in my town, but Arnold really wanted me to see his house, which was in another town about fifteen minutes away. He could pick me up and take me to his town and then I could always spend the night at his house if I needed to and he could drive me back to my house in the morning.

  A sleepover? With a seventy-five-year-old man I didn’t know?

  I don’t think so.

  I was finally able to negotiate that I would drive my car to his house and we would walk to the restaurant and then back to his house. And then I would drive home.

  Or spend the night he suggested again, in a friendly manner.

  Sassy scolded me over these arrangements. “Why didn’t you demand that he pick you up?”

  “Because he doesn’t drive at night. Which means if he picks me up, I’m trapped. I’m on his schedule. At least if I have my car I can get away if I have to.”

  As it was, I was making him start the date much earlier than he would have liked, at 6:00 p.m. He wanted to start it at 8:00, which meant the date might go on until 11:00. I didn’t want to be with Arnold at an hour that could be construed as “bedtime.”

  When I pulled into Arnold’s driveway, he was waiting for me outside. I thought that was sweet of him, but mostly he wanted to show me where to park my car so it wouldn’t get towed and the neighbors wouldn’t complain.

  We went inside the house. Arnold shut the door and locked it.

  I hoped Arnold would not turn out to be a psycho killer.

  This reminded me of what Emma had said about the men online: “Just don’t be a psycho killer.” It was extraordinary how this sentiment still crossed all demographics, dating methods, and ages.

  If Arnold were a seventy-five-year-old killer though, he’d have to be pretty stupid to murder me. Everyone knew about our date and he’d be the first suspect.

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be nice.

  I wasn’t feeling nice. I was feeling uncomfortable and a little bit loaded for bear. I was angry for allowing myself to be put in this situation even though it was only for three hours and it was one meal and what was wrong with me?

  I reminded myself of what Ron had said, of what society would say to women like me: I should be grateful to have a date with a man like Arnold.

  And so I did the usual: I admired his contemporary art, which he’d bought years ago when he owned a gallery and had hung out with artists. I oohed and ahhed over his rare book collection. When he offered to take me on a tour of the house, I agreed. The rooms were masculinized modern spaces with lots of windows, metal, and glass. There was no clutter. Everything was in its place, a place, I sensed, that had been its place for a very long time.

  Despite the airy spaces, the house wasn’t particularly large. Within seconds of the tour, we were in his bedroom.

  A wall of windows framed an expansive vista of lawn and gardens. I admired the view.

  The scenery, however, was not the best part of the bedroom.

  Did I want to know what the best part of the bedroom was Arnold asked.

  “Sure,” I said gamely.

  He grinned. “The bed. I’ve had it for twenty years,” he said proudly. “This bed has brought me good luck. I’ve had a lot of great sex on that bed.” He paused and looked at me meaningfully. “And I hope to have a lot more in the future.”

  I took a better look at the bed. The sheets were slightly rumpled, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Arnold had been having some kind of “go” at it before I’d arrived. I pictured him naked on the sheets, his great white belly sluicing from side to side.

  “Well, bully for you,” I said. I suggested that I needed a drink.

  An open bottle of red wine and two glasses sat on the counter in the kitchen. It had that sort of dusty, neglected air that kitchens get when no one uses them.

  I apologized and said I didn’t drink red wine. Only white or rosé.

  “But Ron told me you drink red wine. I asked him and he said you drank red and so I went out and got us a nice bottle.”

  I wanted to point out that Ron didn’t know a thing about me and so it was illogical to ask Ron what kind of wine I preferred. I didn’t say it, of course. Instead, I attempted to negotiate.

  “I’d prefer white if you have it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want the red? It’s a really good bottle. And don’t worry about drinking. You can always spend the night here.”

  “Hahahaha.” My sarcastic laugh hid a head rush of hot annoyance. I thought about making some excuse and leaving, but I couldn’t think of one that would warrant such a response without making me look crazy and causing a furor among the social set who had condoned this pairing.

  In other words, I wasn’t yet ready to be socially ostracized in order to get away from Arnold.

  He showed me his pool next. It was small and kidney shaped. “Do you want to go swimming?” he asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t have my bathing suit.”

  “You can swim naked,” he said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to come here anytime you want and swim,” he said, with what seemed to be a generous smile that was yet completely oblivious to my raging discomfort.

  “Arnold.” I sighed. “I’m never going to come here and swim in your pool.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “It’s too small. I like to swim laps. I’m sorry but your pool is basically a bath tub.”

  Arnold laughed suggestively. The good thing about men like Arnold is that you can say pretty much anything you want to them and they won’t be insulted. They’re so arrogant and sure of themselves it never crosses their mind that a woman could be insulting them.

  * * *

  * * *

  We strolled, slowly, to the restaurant.

  “You look young and spry,” Arnold said. “You must exercise. How old are you?”

  “I’m nearly sixty.”

  Arnold looked taken aback.

  Apparently Ron had lied not just about Arnold’s age to me but also about my age to Arnold. The difference was, I knew enough to google, and Arnold did not.

  “Well that’s terrific,” he said. “So we’re in the same place. We’re both looking for companionship.”

  Of all the micro- and macroaggressions of aging, the worst one is when you discover you’ve crossed the bridge from wanting a relationship, with all that entails, to having to settle for its lesser cousin: companionship.

  A relationship implies a dynamic partnership where people are g
oing to get something done. Companionship implies the opposite: people are going to keep each other company while they mostly just sit there.

  Of course, men like Arnold don’t have to settle for anything.

  After years of having hot young girlfriends—he could still get girls as young as twenty-five if he wanted he explained—he had an epiphany. He was with a woman who was thirty-five and it was all going great when it hit him: he didn’t have anything to say to her. It turned out this wasn’t a fluke. He no longer had anything to say to any woman who was under thirty-five. They were just too young. And so, reluctantly, he’d had to rethink his requirements and decided to up his age group. He would now consider dating women who were thirty-five to possibly fifty.

  I took a good, long look at Arnold. Some men do look younger than their years, and there are plenty of attractive seventy-five-year-old guys, but Arnold was not one of them. His glory days on the Ivy League football fields were long gone. It was impossible to imagine him as any kind of a sexual draw. On the other hand, society colludes to tell men they’re a little bit better than they actually are while it tells women they’re a little bit worse.

  I, however, was not society.

  “Listen Arnold,” I said. “You cannot believe that these twenty-five- and thirty-five- and even forty-five-year-old women with whom you are supposedly having sex are actually attracted to you.”

  Arnold considered this, and then, strangely, he agreed. Even if the women weren’t per se attracted to him, he explained, the system still worked in his favor. And the reason for it was that women were greedy.