Cross generational dating

I’m sitting in a bar by the waterfront in Lamu. It is the only establishment that serves alcohol this late. The seafront is quiet with just a few labourers unloading cargo from boats. A group of beach boys argue loudly about their favourite premier league teams. I sit alone, cold beer in hand taking in the scenes.

Two girls walk in and sit at the table next to mine. One of them flashes a smile. Shortly afterwards, she strikes up a conversation as they join my table. The chatty one, the taller of the two gives me a firm handshake as she introduces herself. Her friend slithers into the adjacent couch without saying a word or making eye contact with me.

They appeared barely out of their teens. The seemingly shy one has a curly hairstyle from the 80s which sits oddly on her head - like a young girl trying on her mother’s old wig. They are both wearing spaghetti tops, tight trousers that wrap around their slender youthful bodies. It is quite obvious from their laissez-faire attitude that they are in the ‘service” industry.

It is 11 O’clock at night on Wednesday in a benign Islamic town and they are in sandals. I could be wrong but the eagerness that meets my offer of a drink settles it. As they relax, I learn that my new companions are single parents foraging with the decorum that is demanded of the environment. There is not much I can tell them about men.

At barely 20 years of age, they already sound jaded by life. They talk at length about a colleague who blew an opportunity of a lifetime. Apparently, she fell out with a 70-year-old Caucasian hotelier who spent like an oil sheikh. I marvel at their clarity and calculation as they aspire towards bagging an older man to spirit them from poverty.

When I ask them about younger men, they both sneer. In a nutshell, their peers are a waste of space. Pure unadulterated female opportunism is not news. While it is not widespread, I have met several girls who seem to have developed a curious case of grand daddy syndrome.

Cross-generational attraction is about economics and libido. A girl needs a break in life. The man has needs that cannot be met at home. Previously, there was a level of discretion that governed these associations. The only tolerated open displays of affection involved foreign pensioners on the beach, in vests exposing leathery arms who were paying their way into their young escorts’ hearts with green notes.

What is obvious is that the younger women would not be playing the field if the perks were as lucrative. The generals, those older men with raging appetites still want to play. Everyone knows, when the Range Rover types join the fray, it turns into a game of opulence.

The generals pay no attention to the rules. The impunity they enjoy allows them to operate beyond the bounds of social sanction. Girlfriends share stories about dirty old men trying to stroke one’s thighs under the table at a formal gathering. Waitresses tend to be on the look-out for those butt-pinching senior citizens. I am told female colleagues routinely fend off advances from their fathers’ peers.

The sheer audacity is stunning. Beach hotels often present sights of giggling girls sipping fruity cocktails serenaded by grand daddy generosity. The same girls are quick to sneer when a man their age makes a move on them. Somehow, they believe these younger men have not worked hard enough to deserve their attention.

The old generals have created, lazy spoilt women who believe all they have to do is be cute and someone will want to take care of them. The result is that one encounters 20-year-olds who are used to shopping in Dubai, boarding chartered planes to private game lodges and wads of cash dished out like toffees. They tend to have babies with these old generals that serve as life insurance.

The conundrum of cross-generational dating is that the old men who should set the rules of the game continue to behave like closet polygamists. We are always collecting trophies. The beautiful woman is the ultimate trophy. Science has tackled some of the nagging problems of virility. Thanks to the blue pills, sexual longing has been brought to the boil.

That greedy fascination for the forbidden fruit, awakens a force that has been suppressed for long. It is certainly difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. Unfortunately, the social repercussions of this attitude are grave. Where does that leave the average, financially strapped male?

At the peer level, most women would rather be miserable but rich. Poor but happy is an overrated cliché.  Hot women will not even look in your direction. Average girls think they deserve better. The brilliant and successful are not keen on dating men who are not breadwinners. They would rather go it alone.

The ruling stereotype is that a man who marries a woman for her money will be dismissed as a gigolo while a woman who marries for money is deemed as smart. The quick remedy is that people have to act their age at least within socially prescribed roles. I am personally tired of seeing the old man at the club who believes he blends in because he has an Arsenal jersey on. The dark side is the blanket cover this provides for the molester uncle, the groping dad and encourages the conspiracy of silence that perpetuates sexual exploitation of minors.

It is time the generals brandishing wooden swords grew out of it. Indeed, when a man of 60 pursues a girl in her 20s, it is his lost youth that he seeks - not hers. As the joke goes, “It is only after you lose your teeth, that you can afford steaks”.