this weekend for the second time in as many weeks I found myself on a date with a fit attractive, engaging man who (part way through the date) announced that he'd lied to me about his age.
now before I go off on one - and you know I'm going to ;) - lets get one thing clear: I have no problem whatsoever with older men, in fact almost all my relationships have been with guys who were at least a couple of years older than me... in both the recent 'pants on fire' cases I already knew that each of them was older than me and I was OK with that, what I wasn't OK with was finding out that they weren't OK with just how much older they each were.
You might say that from the lofty heights of my 25 years I'm not really in a position to judge? that as a young man I couldn't possibly understand the social pressures of this youth obsessed culture we live in? well you'd be right as far as the specific circumstance goes - it naturally isn't part of my own direct experience, but lying about an aspect of myself is, as I expect it is for almost every gay or bisexual man or woman on the planet.
I understand all too well what it's like to feel that some part of yourself is going to repel people, or change the way they see you, and I understand better still that that feeling is something you grow out of: it's perfectly understandable to be chronicaly insecure about your identity as an adolescent, but as an adult?
I've owned every aspect of myself to a greater or lesser degree for years, and long since discovered that the people who really matter to me, the ones who actually love me for who I am, don't give a damn about incidental details like who I'm sexually attracted to, or how many years since I was born. The idea of lying about myself to someone I was hoping to form such a relationship with is baffling. I'm not expecting total disclosure, I don't need to know everything about someone before getting into a relationship, and I appreciate that some things take time to be comfortable sharing, but your age really should not be one of them.
bah.
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