The Challenges of a May-December Romance

by LEO E. LAURENCE

Copyright © 2011 by Leo E. Laurence • All rights reserved

Some tell me that the 60-year age difference between me (78) and Gary (18) is too much on which to build a relationship. While the challenges are real, the times when it works are so unexpectedly fantastic to put me in heaven.

While the gap in our ages is formidable, our heights are equally opposite. I’m 5’4” and Gary is 6’ 2.5” tall, yet his towering height is a big turn-on when we’re together, whether out socializing or cuddling for hours in bed.

Even our body types are opposites: I’m hairy all over; and Gary’s skin is smooth and soft like silk, yet all his muscles are firm.

We met under the most unusual circumstances. A close friend called in in mid-December needing a place for a teenager to crash temporarily.

But I didn’t expect to develop a relationship with this crasher, who later became my committed roommate.

Our lifestyles were/are so different. For example, when I go to buy some groceries, I go directly to the supermarket, buy what I need and return directly to my condo in Hillcrest.

But a teenager like Gary can make an adventure out of a routine trip to the grocery, by taking totally different route inbound as outbound; or by making the shopping trip into a game somehow, usually quite spontaneously.

It is still taking me time to adjust to Gary’s teenage spontaneity, in our first month together he had me laughing more than I’ve laughed in the past 30 years. We also had sex 24/7, with brief interruptions for some sleep, food or an intimate shower together. It seemed so unreal, at times.

“But what do you talk about?” asked a bewildered Gay senior. “They’re too young to know anything,” the white-haired retiree said, revealing a lot about his overall ignorance and biases.

Gary’s thoughts sometimes range from the mysteries of the universe to systematically analyzing stage plays.

Being Fatherly

“I’m not your father, but sometimes I will be fatherly,” I told Gary as we gradually got adjusted to each other’s differences and the friction that can erupt unexpectedly.

When Gary began to explore some career choices, he considered a federally funded local agency that did job training, etc. Being a journalist, I called the agency and asked direct questions about their program . . . but I didn’t like the militaristic program that was revealed.

Gary appreciated my help. He had simultaneously discovered the militaristic aspects of the program also; and rejected it.

Perhaps one of my biggest challenges was to realize – and accept – that Gary is still a teenager with an 18-year-old’s perspective on life.

Gary’s hair is kind of long and one of my best friends, Robert, cut it for him. At night, while I’m sitting on the davenport, Gary will sit on the floor between my spread legs and play with a small electronic device he loves. He’ll be wearing only shorts, with a bare chest and bare feet.

Then I will carefully brush his fair over and over and over, until it feels so light and silky. Frequently I’ll set the hair brush aside and reach over Gary’s shoulders and run my hands across his muscular, totally smooth chest and I’m in heaven.

While a guy’s smooth chest can feel like soft silk, if he’s only 18 the softness of his smooth chest can be like feeling a most luxurious, Asian silk material . . . just unbelievably soft and rich.

Conflicts

Communication and compromise are absolutely necessary as an “odd couple” with decades in age differences find friction on such mundane issues as the position of the moon.

The big issues that Gary and I discovered were causing friction were trust, expectations, and the role of sex in our relationship and food supplies.

After he and I had lived together under fabulous conditions for a full 30 days, we celebrated with a walk in Balboa Park that he planned. Sitting on the grass near massive sculptures in the center of the park, and with the bell tower ringing beautifully in the background, Gary taught me some origami and I made a jumping frog (that really jumps).

The next day, he didn’t return home and stayed away for six days. No calls. I went crazy and sank into deep depression. I was unable to work. Pain from a crushed bone is nothing like hurt I was feeling in my heart hour-after-hour, every day.

But, Gary did come back and we both discovered that we had lots to talk about. But, we had to be determined to have those discussions.

At times I was so angry at him that we hardly spoke.

Making an effort to be more spontaneous, I suggested we forget our problems for a while and go into the bedroom and play and play and play. It’s almost impossible to remain angry at someone and be naked and have sex at the same time.

I realized that I had to take the lead and stop everything to have some serious discussion of our problems, most totally unrelated to our vast, age differences.

We both like the House show on TV. One night recently, I sat at one end of my wide davenport and Gary stretched his long body out, with his shoulders at one end, his bare (hairy) legs stretched out across my lap and his bare feet at the other end.

Eventually, also in a game that we spontaneously invented, his shorts and underwear came off and he was naked. While we both watched the House show on TV, my left hand was playing with his toes and my right hand was slowly running across his smooth chest, abs and legs. We were both leaking a lot.

One night after we had some friction about trust issues, he was getting into bed naked and suggested I do the same. He stretched out his long body on the bed and lay on his left side. I snuggled up to him and fit my crotch firmly against his bubble-butt, with my right arm wrapped round his waist and my right hand resting/playing on his left nipple.

Admittedly, my face only reached the middle of his shoulders, but I looked really closely at his skin and discovered why it is so unbelievably exciting to cuddle up to a naked teenager.