I myself turned fifty not so long ago. I am very well settled in life – I have a job, a wife with two children, my parents, too. We have a family almost all the time idyll, even though we can sometimes quarrel: the kids do not share something or my wife and I will get wound up for some reason or other. But I think all normal families are like that. There’s no such thing as a perfect white and fluffy person who doesn’t quarrel once in a lifetime. There’s no such thing as a perfect woman or a perfect man, much less a perfect child. But some people think a little differently.
I was at a cafe for a birthday party at an old friend’s house, and I didn’t know many of the people invited. I didn’t really want to get to know anyone, but a stout woman in years came over to me. She was already tipsy and was happy to find free ears to tell me what she thought of men over fifty.
– Men are always in trouble over nothing! They just set foot in old age and start imagining all sorts of things – a heart attack, or a liver ache. But when you were young, you should not have drank so much, you would not have been in pain! And the eternal pessimism? You don’t even notice it, but you’re probably always looking at the worst versions of everything, and your glass is half empty. All men are like that, I know. Sometimes you meet someone who thinks he’s a lot of himself, but men tend to think that they, like good alcohol, get better and prettier with age, although that’s not true at all. I can’t stand those gray beards and old-fashioned clothes. You’ve never looked after yourself, and at fifty you forget that you have to keep up your appearance. How many men I know, and they all have the same hobbies at fifty – drinking with friends, fishing and arguing with women. No one thinks about development and motivation, does not strive for anything, and crawls into retirement. You, men, can deny all this, but you yourself at a subconscious level understand that long ago you are not so attractive to the opposite sex, as in your youth, and become very accessible. You talk about women, but from one compliment you melt like sugar in tea. I know you well, oh, how I know!
I nodded at the words of a new acquaintance, not thinking that there was any point in arguing. She is clearly all-knowing, that see a speck in someone else’s eye, and do not notice the beam in his. Everyone changes with age, but people are different, and I think I am the perfect example of an exception to her unwritten rules and knowledge. But who can prove anything to such a woman?
Do you agree with what she says about men? Are we really that bad as we get older?
