The night I met Eliot, a man young enough to be my son, I felt reckless. Although my marriage had ended more than a year ago, I was still not divorced. In fact, technically we weren’t even separated.
Six months after our separation, my husband had returned to claim our house, so we lived unhappily together in the family home in London with our three children and a cockapoo. My ex had rented the attic room and we alternated nights in and out of housework like a pair of cats fighting.
Neither of us had started dating other people, although I had had a meeting on a dating app where the man had bored me to tears with a monotonous story of French cycling and I had been too polite (and clueless ) to leave.
That particular night I was not in the mood to go out but my friend had persuaded me with the help of a lot of wine. It was summer and, at a certain time, the bar where we had been drinking became a dance venue. While I was dancing, I wasn’t worried about the status of my divorce. Everyone on the dance floor was younger than me, but in the dim light I thought I could pass for younger than my almost half century. And even if I couldn’t, I tried not to care.
The writer Annabel Bond, a mother of three in her 40s, tells of her date with a much younger man of 27 that ended in a passionate embrace by the river.
Annabel Bond met her much younger date, Eliot, under the London Eye in London before going for a drink at a riverside pub.
There, in the gloom, was Eliot, celebrating his friend’s 27th birthday. He had a handsome face and his colorful shirt was open to reveal a pair of abs that wouldn’t look out of place on a Greek statue. He held out his hand and we moved closer to each other, dancing together for the rest of the night. At some point he said, ‘Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you! He used to play soccer semi-professionally.
I laughed. I had forgotten to tell him almost everything about my life, answering his question: ‘Do you live alone?’ with a vague shake of the head. She promised to meet again and took my number. I laughed again.
It’s never going to happen, I thought. I was 48 years old, more than 20 years older than him. I know that dating a much younger man is almost a rite of passage for a 40-something divorced person these days, but it felt like I was doing something innovative and terrifying.
When we finally agreed to meet under the London Eye a few weeks later, I felt as if I were preparing to give a public speech, with the same terror of being discovered as a fraud. That said, I didn’t know exactly what I was hiding except my age, and honestly, shouldn’t reaching middle age be a triumph?
Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft in the 1967 film The Graduate, in which Benjamin, a young college dropout, is seduced by Mrs. Robinson, a friend of his parents.
Writer Annabel Bond describes her much younger date, Eliot, as having abs that wouldn’t look out of place on a Greek statue.
The last time I went on a date with a man I really liked was with my husband, 16 years earlier. Back then, my 32-year-old belly was flat, my neck was smooth, and my cellulite had reduced significantly.
Yet here I was at the appointed time, under the Ferris wheel, in my carefully chosen jeans and silver sandals, and a Disney Band-Aid hastily wrapped around my toe.
Eliot would deduce that I was a crazy Frozen fan or had a young daughter, but it was the only cast in the house.
I was worried I wouldn’t recognize Eliot. It was dark in the bar and I wasn’t wearing glasses when we kissed goodbye.
But when he reached out and lightly touched my shoulder, he was dazzling. His eyes were a striking greenish hazel color that he would later embarrassingly describe to her as stones washed by the river. His face was as fresh as a Listerine mint; He looked even younger than his 27 years.
He took my hand and we walked to a pub by the river. She ordered a bottle of wine and we drank it quickly. He was nervous but excited. I talked too much, I drank too much, and when night fell I sat astride him on a bench overlooking the Thames.
I can’t believe I was so brazen, but for the first time in a long time I felt young and alive. Men have enjoyed this feeling for years, dating younger women; I thought now it was my turn.
I leaned forward and kissed him. Kissing has always been one of my favorite things. It had certainly disappeared in my marriage: kissing just for its own sake, not as the first step toward sex. For me, it’s as intimate as sex, all that exchange of pheromones and triggered serotonin.
You can tell a lot about a man by the way he kisses. Eliot was excellent at that. Many men are not; They tend to push out too much tongue, not enough lips. Eliot had full, soft lips and, for someone so strong, he was very gentle. He kissed me like he was a peach.
At one point I stopped to say, in a drunken confession: ‘I have to tell you something. I have children!’
‘How many?’ she asked.
‘Three! And a dog.
He took it without blinking. He later admitted that he had Googled me the first night we met, after I typed my full name into his phone. Alcohol had dulled my age-gap insecurities, but it hadn’t extinguished them. He was drunk enough to point out, quite obviously, “You know I’m a lot older than you.”
“Yesssss,” he said.
‘And you agree with that?’ In this case, I showed unusual restraint and managed not to list all my physical insecurities by name, only adding: “You could catch anyone.” I mean, anyone younger.
“You’re hot,” he said.
So it was clear that he was not fulfilling his Mrs. Robinson fantasies. She had told me before that she thought I was in my 30s on the dance floor.
We kissed some more. She could feel the hardness of his chest under her shirt. I unbuttoned it. He couldn’t forget the hard muscles of her and the softness of her skin. The width of her arms as she wrapped them around my neck.
At this point I no longer cared about passersby, although he did, and he stopped me before we reached the point of no return.
‘Are we going to get a hotel?’ she asked.
‘Can’t! “Not tonight,” I said. The children were waiting for me back.
“Then next weekend,” he said.
I agreed, of course; It was impossible not to do it. But there was really no way I could bare the body of my 40-something mother of three in front of such a perfect physical specimen. The idea was ridiculous. However, I hugged myself the entire way home. I would cancel it tomorrow.
The names have been changed.