It was a strange experience.
Many of the young fellas were quite beautiful. But they did not seem really human to me. I mean, if I were the gold standard of what human was, then these guys were aliens. First off, their heads full of thick hair, long or short, had an unearthly shine to them. And be it black, brown, blonde, red...it was all one color; no grey at all. Plus, their skin was entirely wrinkle-free. And since it was a gym, a lot of them has fine young physiques...but they moved in a way that made you wonder if they had just bought these bodies recently. Something about the relative newness of their young manhood gave a slight reticence or off-kilteredness to how they moved. They seemed not used to themselves.
If these were human beings, then what, pray tell, was I?
About 35 years older, for one thing, gramps.
I found the boys watchable, beautiful, impressive, even touching, but with one or two possible exceptions, not desirable. They were just too damn young.
Similar thing happened in the gym here last month. A young fella just a year out of university comes in to work out. Nice looking, but with a formidable build, especially in the back and shoulders, which I particularly appreciate. I find it very easy to look at him. But there is another guy, in his late forties, greying, thicker, a lived-in look, a bit of a belly... he has a kind of adult masculinity that makes me want to do a lot more than look.
Taylor Lautner is a young actor, just turned 18. He is worth over $30 million dollars. He is the werewolf competing with the vampire for Bella's affections in the tweener Twilight series. High up on the celebrity "sexiest" lists. A championship martial artist even as a kid and young teen, he worked out hard and put on thirty pounds of very admirable muscle for his lupine role. An eight-pack, even. Again, at least from the chin down, very watchable, impressive, striking.
But his face is the face of a very young man. When I look at him on screen, he could be, well, anybody. Or nobody. With all his accomplishments, his life has not happened to him yet.
I have certainly not been immune to the charm of younger men in my life. My ex Thom was 29 when I met him; I was 44. But certainly these last several years I have, thankfully, found men closer to my age, men in their 50's especially, to have a kind of seasoned masculine ease and faces in which you can see a lived life, which provokes in me much more than the undoubted beauty of new muscle, flawless skin and bright hair and eyes. To use an odd set of metaphors, with the young guys I can only imagine something like bumping up against them; but with the older fellas, I can dive right in, and deep.
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