Forty-Year-Old Midnight Liaisons

a gentleman looks at sixty

In a conversation with men I’ve known for a tragically long time, I jokingly said someone was “The Best Kisser at Millsaps.” I immediately regretted it. The ethics of bringing up forty-year-old midnight liaisons are remarkably complicated.

Contrary to popular belief, most gentlemen do, in fact, kiss and tell. They insist on it. Some do it to mark their territory. Some do it for the same reason men leave their flag on the summit of Mt. Everest, saying, “I was there.” The only time a gentleman won’t kiss and tell is when he hopes to do it again and he genuinely cares about whether he ever does it again.

When I write, I can change enough of the details so that even the person I’m writing about often can’t tell it’s them. There have been times when I was accused of writing about one person and had to explain that I was writing about somebody completely different. Then, I got in trouble for never mentioning my previous experiences with the other person. Talking to women is complicated.

Almost a year and a half ago, I was talking to a woman I hadn’t talked to in a while. At several points in our conversations, she asked, “How can you remember so much?” After thirty-five years, I suppose that kind of detail is sketchy for most people. Part of the memory trick is that I journal, so whatever stands out in my mind before going to bed gets converted into words to exist forever on a floppy disk somewhere.

There’s more to it than that, though. If someone is going to give me their time, and maybe the touch of their flesh, then not remembering makes it sound like I didn’t value them very much. That’s an unkindness I’m not willing to bear.

There have been a lot of women in my life. I could count them, but I won’t. None of them ever turned out to be “the one,” although a few gave it a shot. I’ve been asked before who was my favorite. I do actually have a list of favorites, but I’ve never spelled it out except for once with my sister a year ago and once with Jane Clover thirty years ago. The details of the list have changed, but not much.

I ended up in a situation where there was never “the one” that mattered or “the one” that lasted. It was a mutual decision. There were plenty of times when I wasn’t given much choice, but I was always the one to end it ultimately.

I always tried to be gentle and kind about ending it, but there was a time when I offered the opinion that she was never with me for “the right reasons,” and she took such offense that I ended up in quite a bit of trouble. I suppose the reward for ending it is ending the conflict the relationship brought. Getting in that last word usually isn’t worth it. It’s also highly unlikely they’ll agree with your assessment.

About seventy percent of the women I loved before are with somebody else, often the person they left me for. Making it this long with somebody else pretty clearly suggests they made the right choice. About thirty percent of the women I’ve loved before are divorced and currently single. Most of them have decided they have had enough of men. A few of them have decided to try other women. One died in her husband’s arms. One died alone.

Jimmy Buffett wrote a song called “A Pirate Looks at Forty.” Then he wrote a book called “A Pirate Looks at Fifty.” Someone who reads a lot of my stories said I should publish them in a book called “A Gentleman Looks at Sixty.”

A gentleman holds the women in his life in his heart forever. All the women, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, nurses, teachers, classmates, and every single one he ever ended up with in a car when the windows fogged up. Love is a flash of lightning, over in a second. A gentleman owes it to his lady companion to remember that flash as it happened—forever. He can’t always guarantee a lifetime of commitment and service, I certainly couldn’t, but he can always remember, and remember every single one.