Age and Not Consenting

Hello my blog game hunters,

It might amaze you to learn that I am actually a real person and not just the fifth monkey along on my row of primates, eternally bashing out golden blog nuggets for my readers (both) to peck over like the evil, callous brutes that you clearly are. I am not an animal, I am a real living boy with thoughts and feelings and dribble and pus and all the other redeeming features of mankind. You know; boredom, antipathy, murderous midnight bloodlust and a fondness for Wagon Wheels.

So it might surprise you still further to learn that I am approaching the business end of my twenties and starting to wonder what I have learnt over my years on this hideous green ball called Earth. There's the obvious things that we all learn like bullying the weak, the best price of cheap vodka and that the secret of comedy is turning a calculator upside down so that it says 'BOOBS', but what else? What is it that makes a man?

Sitting on the train the other day, I realised that my hands were pretty cold, so I tucked them snugly under my knees to try to get the blood flowing again. I've done this since I was little, but looking around the train at the other male passengers, I noticed that I couldn't imagine any one of them doing likewise. They were all MEN. Grisly, dispassionate, Paul Smith underpanted, leather walleted, laptop snuggling, hair lipped MEN. Should I be like them and stop humming along with my iPod to Squeeze? Should I start wearing clothes like they have been loosely arranged on a mannequin made of angles? Should I pluck things, or grow a chiseled jaw, or wear boots? Do I want to?

The Bible (...no, me neither, I just found it on Google) says "when I became a man I put away childish things". I didn't get this at first, because it didn't contain a dick or fart joke, but I'm pretty sure it's saying "Grow up you big twat". Problem is that I'm not exactly sure I know what that means.

I read magazines telling me that the latest hotshots in business are all nano foetuses sloshing back white wine and being kooky while I imagine lining up cross hairs over their dispassionate Ray Ban wearing visages. The fashions are made up of jeans hanging off the arses of arses, band T-shirts and funny hats. They're all worn by people ten years younger than me and ten times better looking. I'm getting so old that I can't imagine sleeping with people off Hollyoaks anymore, because they are too young to remember the 90's and should bloody well put some clothes on before they catch a chill. I'm much more likely to be found lamenting the decline of music since The Cure rather than rating the popularity of some new young thing (that said and regardless of anything you may think, I can assure you that N-Dubs are, at best, repugnant mentally deficient tossbowls. Listening to their music, their voices or even their names makes me drift off into a dreamy fantasy where I force feed them insect repellent until they vomit up their own thoraxes).

Rather than it just being 'culture' (i.e. because I am youth) it's suddenly 'youth culture' (i.e. because I frigging well am not) and suddenly I am aware that the gravy train has departed with me still waking up in the bed of the Travelodge trying to find my watch. But despite my confusion and feelings of inferiority, many of my peers seem to have it all figured out and danced effortlessly into their late twenties, picking up wives, children, divorces, another couple of wives and a selection of fine cheeses from around the globe, while I'm still picking my bum and trying to remember what I was doing on millennium eve.

Back on the train, I chanced to look at the other men who I was silently sharing my carriage with. Through the mask of civility I noticed the twinkling glimpse of despair in all of them. I noticed the bags under the eyes of the man in his suit and tie, the loose skin under the neck, the sweat dripping from his temple as he struggled to tap something intelligible into his laptop before he arrived at the big board meeting, where all the suits would flop their laptops out onto the table and compare sizes.

I suppose that there is an imagined status that goes with MEN of a certain age, but you know what, I'm perfectly happy being a man who knows the value of warm hands and Squeeze without having to flop anything out on a table. You never know where it's been.

Takecareloveyoubye xx