“I want a blonde too!” – Why men around 50 dream of cheating

“I want a blonde too!”
Why men around 50 dream of cheating

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Why do men in their 50s cheat? Why do you suddenly want to run a marathon or sail around the world? Insights into an abyss

by Thomas Friemel

Recently I was a guest at a party. One of the kind you’d better wear a jacket. It was very late when a good friend came up to me and whispered: “I did it.” He told me that he – in his early 50s, married, children – was having an affair with a woman in her mid-thirties. I – a smooth 50, married, children – hung on his lips like a snake on the flute of its conjurer. I breathed back, heavy with wine: “Another 30-year-old …” And then we neighed a consensual “Yahahahahaaaaa” and slapped our hands on our thighs.

I wasn’t sure whether to be happy or ashamed for him. But what I definitely felt was a stab. Again. It wasn’t the first time. Not that we get ourselves wrong: I like my life. I love my wife, I love my children (despite puberty), I like my job, my apartment, my neighborhood, my friends. Yes, and I even like myself. Most of the time.

More evidence of my mediocrity

But as the years go by, the stitches that poke more and more piercingly into me pile up. I look for minutes at the photo of a young Catalan woman on Spiegel Online, long blonde hair, low neckline, dream of me by her side as Che Guevara of the Catalan independence movement – and it stings.

Touchingly enough, my son creates a profile for me on the Playstation at “FIFA”, integrates me into the virtual soccer team and lets me kick around with the Ronaldos of this world in the Bernabéu as if I were fit 23 spades! A friend tells me that he bought a house in Austria from part of his Dagobert Duck money, the luxury version of Heidi’s Alm-Öhi-Hütte. Double spades. All small blows, proof of my failure, my own mediocrity.

For a long time, my life has been a steady development from “It’s kind of okay” to “Wow, really cool”. In my childhood a sports-bum-bäm-cannon, in my youth a swarm of girls: Silke, Renate, Gudrun. Later school, university, good job, conquered the best woman in the world, had two children. Every success was one more point in my crown.

And then – nothing happened. At some point my life went sideways. Since then I have lived in a phase of stagnation. The big successes are missing. The deeply satisfying feeling of taking the next step, creating something great, meaningful: over. Today I’m a panting hamster with rings under my eyes. Like most of the others out there. Gray. Interchangeable. I am a middle-aged man, they say. That sounds like musty and what-else-wants-to-want ?! My life is a series of routine and small failures. A whiner blues in D minor.

I could surrender now. Get a stomach and grow together with the sofa – like so many others. Or fight me. Battle. One last time!

Time is running out

I can understand that my brother-in-law recently got a Ducati under his ass. I can understand that this is the first time a friend is training for a marathon. I can understand that a colleague is learning to sail in order to circle the world again. And I don’t care if our women laugh about it – I used to laugh myself to pieces at these cliché types. But now I also want a racing machine, an alpine hut and my jaguar body back. And yes, dear, the blonde too. It’s not about them at all. It’s about me. Exclusively. We men hear the hourglass trickle deep within us. Each grain a spade. Time is running out.

So, bear with us, roll your eyes, blaspheme us, shake your head. But damn it, shut up. Only conquer again, win again, be successful again. Because the 60 is already glimmering on the horizon.

And she yells: CARPE THE FUCKING DIEM!

Barbara

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