I was drinking with a friend and colleague. She’s 20 years younger than I am. She’s brilliant, accomplished, creative. And in trouble. (Also, perhaps not incidentally, beautiful.) Let’s call her “J.”
Her trouble is gendered: she said some things in a conversation with three men – one of whom was me – that led at least one of the other two, a gay man with a history of drama whom we will call “A” – to appoint himself a narc, and to report her to the (ir)relevant authorities – a (straight) man twenty years my senior, who himself has a complicated history with the younger women. Which history is, to my knowledge, unbeknownst to A. And is beknownst, in spades, to me.
Complicating things? What A reported were sins of which J may or may not have been guilty, but to which she most definitely did not confess in our highly lubricated conversation. I, on the other hand, did indeed confess to at least one of the sins for which he reported her.
A, I believe, fears me. I have big dick energy. I have friends. I’m not, by any definition, powerless in this context. J, on the other hand? She’s a bit more vulnerable. Younger. Female. Less well connected. His decision to report her – and not to report me – has led more than one person to wonder whether “pussy” or “scrotum” is more fitting as an appellation for him.
There’s lots to say about this story, but I want to focus on one particular part of it: J turned to me, and to one other (similarly situated, similarly aged) male for support and advice. He and I? Close friends. He is single. I’m not. Though I am, as you know, on the sexual marketplace. As he and J both know.
As J and I sat and chatted, we discussed how creepy is the queer narc, how creepy is the older authority, how our mutual male friend also has been read by some as creepy. “You know you’re in trouble,” I said to J, “when I’m the least creepy guy in a story.”
She didn’t immediately leap to my defense. I wasn’t wounded. Or surprised. But I would’ve liked it….
As the conversation continued, she gave me at least a bit of the reassurance for which I had hoped – not with an assertion (“Don’t be silly! You’re not creepy!”), but with a question: “How are you creepy?!?” The punctuation, I imagined, was in her tone. It reassured me, at least a little.
“I’m old!” I said. “I spend a lot of time with much younger, very attractive women. If I so much as share the basic facts of my existence – I’m happily married, in an open relationship, and on the prowl – with any of those women, that’s creepy.”
She nodded. “I see what you mean.”
“But I’m trapped,” I said. “If I let them believe otherwise, that I’m monogamous, I’m both misleading them and, in many instances, implicitly being seductive, as many women idealize/fetishize unavailable Daddy types.”
She agreed. I wasn’t wrong. There are more aspects of this context that strengthen my case, but they aren’t necessary. Point is, I’m in a bind: tell a hot chick I’m available, and I’m creepy; allow her to believe I’m not, and I’m deceptive, and maybe even seductive.
Life is hard!