What I'm Missing

When you have been married for 30 plus years, you get used to having a man around. You get used to having someone to talk to, someone to share the chores, someone to hug, someone warm to spoon against in bed. When you get dumped you lose all of that. Even when the relationship has gone bad, you still miss the dream of having it. You adjust to being alone, but you have lost what used to be your best friend and you long for someone to light up when you appear. I miss the "maleness".



That doesn't mean that I am going to rush out and get involved in a relationship right away. I am not dating and I don't want to date right now. I think I have trust issues and if someone ever wanted to date me, (a)I would question their motives; and (b) think that they have lost their mind because my self-esteem is such that I wouldn't feel like I would be relationship material.

The reality is that having a relationship with a guy is difficult. They may have emotional needs that are sometimes unmet no matter what you do, they sometimes have difficulty expressing their feelings and they hurt you even if they love you. They also may not pick up after themselves, fall down on personal hygiene habits and be overly in love with sports that you have no interest in.

The weird consequence to having no relationship in my life after 30 plus years of marriage that I find myself checking out good looking athletic guys in spandex. Especially good-looking guys that you can see that well--that they are guys. The photo of the cyclists in red shorts was probably photo-shopped for humor, but it is funny as hell. The top photo probably is not "re-touched", but I think it is funny anyway. Those ITU uniforms are tight and sometimes the body parts have no where to go.

I think it's funny because human body is humorous as well as elegant. Muscled legs and arms are beautiful, but there is also the soft, floppy stuff. If you wear skin-tight clothes with no underwear, something is bound to show. And no one who rides a bike wants to wear underwear with their shorts and get chaffed.


Of course not everyone in spandex looks good wearing it. Most of the non-athletic world probably wishes it didn't exist. Spandex is not kind to body imperfections. There is a huge "ICK" factor, especially when you see what you really don't want to see. But like a car accident, it is hard to look away. You don't want to look, but the horrible fascination draws you do so anyway.

So while I am still in my lonely state of mind, I will probably take a gander at the better male bodies in spandex, but not look too hard (unless it's a photo).