So Many Men

 

It happened twice. I would have written off the first incident as a random wandering of my mind, but when it happened again I paid more attention.

I sat at a concert with my boyfriend of 8 months and my mind wandered around the room noticing each and every man. Most of them were around my age or a bit older. I assessed each one and imagined what their online dating profile would be like since I have been online for about three years looking for love. Without the benefit of actually reading a profile, it was hard to judge if they were single. I had done this at the concert we attended two weeks prior, as well.

Having met the man who would become my husband of 31 years when I was 16, and only started “dating” when we separated when I was 52, I often wondered what it would be like to be with other men, both sexually and socially. I’ve been happy with my latest boyfriend with whom I attended these concerts, yet my mind still wandered the room.

I wonder if he’s married/has a girlfriend? I wonder what he smells like? I wonder what his “story” is? I wonder what he’s like in bed? I wonder how he sounds in bed. What kind of childhood did he have? What does he do for a living? Does he have kids? My mind rambled on aimlessly. A symptom of a lifetime of monogamy.

And there were musicians. I have always been a sucker for them. The headliner at the first concert was hot, and he played guitar and a bunch of other instruments. He also wrote songs, and I was drawn to his creative writer persona. At the next concert, there was more than one performer I was drawn to. I suppose most people fantasize about others with regularity, and I wondered if my boyfriend was having similar thoughts about the women in the room as he sat next to me.

The title I chose for this piece may have seemed like a reference to promiscuity. I absolutely did not mean to imply that. It was a catchy phrase derived from the title of a 1983 disco hit recorded by Miquel Brown that was reputedly written in the middle of the AIDS crisis when so many gay men actually had “so little time”. Unlike them, I seem to have lots of time.