He loves me, he loves me not�
7:54 p.m.
I love my husband. I have no desire to sleep with other men and I have had to put some of my (middleaged) male friends in their places when they got a little too �familiar� with me. Having said that, though, I do like male attention, especially from young, good-looking men who find me attractive, even though I am literally old enough to have borne them. Such a group is the crowd my daughter hangs out with, and I have often said that I am going to enjoy the next three years because after that I won�t have the excuse to be friends with these kids when she graduates and moves on. They include her boyfriend, who has told her he thinks I�m cool, my Latin buddy who plays keyboards and congas in her band, the drummer in the band who is also a student of mine, and the singer, who is not a student of mine but I wish he were (that�s another story).
There is another young man whom I have befriended this year, the one I went skating with last Sunday and whom I invited for potato latkes erev Chanukah. He is a first-year music student, having done two years in engineering and decided he hated it, a jazz guitarist whom I�m told by his teacher is really a beginner, but who is doing very well in all his courses so far. His family situation is a nightmare, which is one reason why he came here to school instead of staying at home, he�s cute, and I find him to be good company. Last Sunday we went skating, and when my ankles could take no more punishment I took him out for a hot chocolate at Java and we played backgammon and chatted. I feel rather motherly towards him, and he surely sees in me a friendly middleaged woman who happens to be the wife of the chair of the department and his music composition professor. In other words, there is no room for foul play here.
My husband, on the other hand, really finds this very disturbing, which I suppose is understandable. He wouldn�t mind me hanging out with student-age young women (I do that too), but the fact that I went out with this particular student skating and to the caf� on a �date� really bothers him, as though I am looking to undermine our marriage somehow. He likens it to the hypothetical situation of him pursuing relationships with young women. How would I feel about that? he asks.
As an attractive university professor, he has been come onto by female students, and while he avers that he has never succumbed to their charms, he is an easy target for this kind of thing. I, on the other hand, am a woman, obviously getting older, with no power (such as he has) and in a very stable marriage which I am not about to jeopardize. I have very few friends my own age because I find people at this stage of life to be rather dull. They are all planning for their retirement, worried about their pensions, and the sheen of youthful anticipation has been replaced by the matte finish of accomplishment and disillusion. The kids I�ve been hanging around with are still excited about the prospect of learning and living in the future, their professors have all been there and done that. There�s no contest in my mind.
So I promised my husband that I would not go on any more �dates� with young men because it disturbed hiim. But I am disturbed that he trusts me so little, that he understands me so little, and I am afraid that I will come to resent him because he attempts to curtail my social life. He thinks my behaviour is inappropriate, so for the sake of appearances I will be more discrete. But I still feel bad about all this. After all, it�s happening to me, and it�s different than watching someone else�s middleaged wife flirting with young students. Just because my husband still finds me attractive and sexy doesn�t mean these 20-somethings do.
Anyway, this has been on my mind a lot recently, so I thought I�d get it off my chest.
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