I was reading a blog entry by a teacher who has a friend who has gone wacko since she's turning 40. The friend lost weight, doesn't go home if she can avoid it, flirts seriously with other men. Assuming the blogger was right and it was mid-life crisis, that woman is in for a lot of trouble.

I'm 40 but most of my friends all my life have been older. (Now they are mostly younger.) I've seen mid-life crises all over the place.

R- left his perfect wife (even he thought so), near-perfect kids, beautiful home. He took his car and got an apt and had two girls move in with him. He was about twice their age. He stayed there through a divorce and about another year. And then, you know what? Sleeping with two twenty-something women got less ego-stroking. He got tired of seeing his kids only on weekends. He missed his wife. He wanted to go home. His wife took him back, but he didn't get his old life back. She'd been a stay-at-home mom for her executive husband, but when he took off, she had to go back to work. She didn't quit when he came back. A lot of decisions about the kids and the house had been made without him in the two years he was gone. He got his wife and kids back but everyone had changed.

T- had four kids. She just took off one day, leaving them with her husband. “I'm tired of it,” she told him. No advance warning. Just left. He and the kids eventually recovered. Last I heard she was still enjoying the single life.

D- had a wife and two kids. He decided that being married wasn't “him” so he left and entered whole-heartedly into the gay lifestyle.

M- is nearing 40 and has decided that it was a drag to be a virgin when he got married. He should have found a thousand girls and gotten laid. He'd really like to do this now. But, so far anyway, he's sticking with his commitment to his wife and kids.

Other people handle getting older much better than this.

A- bought himself a sportier car. “Love your car.” was what he heard about ten times a week. It wasn't even an expensive car. Just fun.

S- lost weight and started dressing in a more feminine manner. She's having a ball looking good.

C- went to a bar and hung out there till 3 am. If he'd told someone that's what he was doing, it would have been better. He came home and that was the end of it.

I read an article the other day which was a hoot about getting older. The author hit his crisis when, after a late night and too much alcohol, he couldn't get it up. “I'm old” he decided and nothing his wife could say convinced him otherwise. So he went and did all the crazy things mid-life crisis people do, in a minor way, in order to determine what would work for him. (He got an article out of it for work, too.) One of the things he did included getting a rock band to let him pretend to play guitar with them. He said he loved being out on stage and all the acclaim. Another was taking a younger woman out to dinner. He asked his wife's permission and took a photographer with him, but other than that he did the whole “dating again” routine. He said it was awful. Part of that was probably because his wife was reading the article. But part of it was what we all knew when we were younger and what is doubly true now, it's no fun to be out in the pool, looking for a fish you like who likes you back.

Just thoughts, brought on by a blog entry here at blog-city. I can't remember which one though.