My Mid-Life Non-Crisis

Why haven’t I had my mid-life crisis yet? I hit 40 a year ago this week.

When I say “hit” 40, I mean that 40 kind of gushed over me and seeped down the back of my shirt like a tank of piss-and-spunk-based gunge on “I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here.” The difference being that no one can get you out of here when “here” is that time of life called Middle age.

So, I’ve had a year in which to conform to the male middle-age-crisis stereotype by having my ear pierced, buying a sports car and finding myself a 19-year-old girlfriend.

I’ve done none of these.

Earrings suit a minority of blokes. If you don’t have the right overall look, the right hair and general dress sense, then there’s no halfway house with pierced ears. You either look good or you look like a dick. They’re as uncompromising as waistcoats. In fact, more so. I can’t think of any man who doesn’t look like a dick in a waistcoat unless he’s holding either a dinner tray or a snooker cue.

Sports cars? Sports cars are for WANKERS. Macho wankers. END OF FUCKING STORY. We all know it and the wankers who drive sports cars know it. They just won’t admit it. Which is another reason why they’re wankers.

And as for a 19-year-old girlfriend, I’m yet to meet a 19-year-old who doesn’t look like a kid from my chronological vantage point. Regardless of the legality of it, I’m not cursed with a desire to indulge in exploitative relationships; and although this wouldn’t quite be in the same drawer as paedophilia, it is in the same piece of furniture.

(For the record, the morality issue is the main barrier, of course. Adultery, misguided vanity and gratuitous machismo are all on the same playlist on every wanker’s ipod.)

All this isn’t to say that I haven’t experienced SOME changes on turning 40. I’m not trying to recapture my youth in the ways described above, because other than having the odd 19 year old girlfriend when I was that age (and by “odd” I mean an odd number, like maybe 3 if I’m being generous), I never wanted to own a flash car, drive fast or adorn myself in ear accessories.

But I AM trying to recapture my youth in other ways. Sad ways.

For instance, last week I bought a tin of spaghetti bolognaise and ate it on toast. A tin. Spaghetti Bolognaise in a fucking TIN. I hadn’t had such a meal since I was a teenager. I’m now on the look out for a tin of chicken in white sauce – equally delicious on toast. (When you’re in your teens.) Of course, anyone who knows about this will attribute it to a mid-life crisis.

Lots of things I do make me feel young again. Watching Dr Who. Wearing a Harrington. Having a stink bomb in my office at work and an intention to deploy it.

And lots of things I do make me feel old. Like getting out of bed. And breathing. And moving around. You know, all that difficult stuff.

Perhaps, as with the retirement age, the kick-off time for middle age has been put back by the government, and in fact I am still too young to embark on a mid-life crisis. That leaves you in a frustrating limbo period then really. A pre-male-menopausal twilight zone. A bit like half-past three on a Sunday afternoon.

Hmmm. I’ve lost the will to carry on now…