Q: My partner is 31 years older than I am. I know the math: He’ll be 60 when I’m 29. But that isn’t the problem. The issue is he’s been a lifelong bachelor and never been monogamous. He’s fucked hundreds of women and is close friends with a lot of his former fuck buddies. Because of our four-year friendship before we hooked up, I know a lot about his sex life. The problem isn’t jealousy — and it isn’t knowing he’s fucked every woman he’s friends with or that he fucked someone else after declaring his love for me. It’s that I know too much. We both feel vulnerable at times — him because I’m still in contact with one ex, and me because I feel like I’m fighting his past preference for no-strings-attached relationships. He tells me this relationship is different and he loves me in a way he hasn’t loved anyone before. But I still feel like because of how many people he’s been with, and how many of these amazing, beautiful, young fuck buddies are still in his life, I’ll never attain any sort of primacy. — Notable Age Gap Gets In Newbie’s Grill
A: At some point in the future, your partner is going to be 60 and you’re going to be 29, NAGGING, which means you’re somewhere in your 20s and he’s somewhere in his 50s, right? (Math is hard!) And since you two were friends for four years before he realized you were the only woman he wanted to stick his dick in for the rest of his life — pay no attention to the woman he dicked during the brief interlude between telling you he loved you and the aforementioned realization — that means … um …
Math is hard, like Barbie says, especially when you don’t have all the relevant data. The same goes for giving advice. Essentially, you’re asking me to game out the odds for both long-term success and monogamous success (and, yes, those are two different things), and that’s hard to do without knowing your ages and how long you’ve been together. Because I would definitely give your relationship slimmer odds of long-term success if your partner were the kind of middle-aged man who befriends and eventually beds high school students.
Conversely, I would give your relationship fatter odds of long-term success if you were three years into it and your partner had been successfully monogamous all that time. That said, NAGGING, cheating and breakups regularly happen in the absence of significant age gaps and friendship networks composed exclusively of ex–fuck buddies. There are no guarantees.
Oh, shit — blah blah blah, I haven’t answered your question. You’ll obtain primacy — or realize you’ve already attained it — after a significant chunk of time has passed. So give it more time. Either it will work out or it won’t. But even if this relationship isn’t a long-term success, it can still be a short-term success. Good luck.
Q: I’m 62 and happily married for 20 years to a sweet guy who doesn’t seem particularly interested in sex any longer. We are open to allowing each other freedom, with full disclosure, and have occasionally done this. I don’t necessarily discriminate on the basis of age — or gender, color, etc.—and if a cute guy or gal in my age group came on to me, I’d consider the offer. But what I’d really like is a young man who finds me attractive and would be interested in seducing, or being seduced by, yours truly, even though I’m old enough to be his grandma. — Wicked Older Woman
A: A study you’re not going to want to read and that I’m not going to cite — because it lumps people who are sexually attracted to the elderly together with people who are sexually attracted to prepubescent children — puts the percentage of people attracted to senior citizens at .15 percent of the population. That means there are more than 11 million gerontophiles of all ages out there. We’ve already established that math is hard, WOW, so I’m not going to try to figure out how many gerontophiles are in their 20s and 30s. But there should be lots. And there are probably a few non-gerontophile guys (and gals) out there who are willing to take a walk on the postmenopausal side. Get online and advertise for what you want (clearly and explicitly), and get out of the house (you never know who you’ll meet). Then seize — safely — the opportunities that come your way.
