"Casual" Gets Old--Literally

The conversation started with my brilliant, anthropologically bent buddy and ended with A over another whole red snapper on Love Day. My friend and I were talking about love and commitment and the lackluster lure of "casual". He told me about an article he found in the Onion: "Casual Sex Only Rewarding for First Few Decades". For you readers who don't know what the Onion is, it's news satire at its wittiest.

Casual Sex and/or dating. Gets old after awhile?

What is the fate of serial daters who resist commitment into middle age (or close to it)? It depends. Disclaimer: This is all anecdotal. No experimental design or research conducted here. Some wind up with a "baby momma" (or "baby daddy") or two or three and then just have such complicated lives from balancing so many angry women (or deadbeat dads or good men who are trying to start other families) that he's too exhausted to have a relationship that goes into committed love. (Please note: There is a difference between "baby momma/daddy" and "mother/father of my child". There are some highly evolved individuals who are able to be cooperative and cordial--I just happen to see a lot more of the other variety).Others somehow have a change of desire or orientation, want a serious relationship, but then find that they're "optioned" to frustration, cynnical, or that lots of people who they find intellectuallly and socially compatible are already taken (young co-eds are frustrating--I know from experience. I've been approached by men 10 years my junior and could barely stomach ONE DATE). Another group finds themselves in the abyss of the middle agers who look middle aged and who are no longer sexually attractive enough to be as successful in casual dating and sex. Protruding bellies, receding hairlines, atrophying muscles, yellowing toenails just make it hard to be a winner at a nightclub.

Yesterday, I woke up from a groggy nap to watch a few minutes of one of those Prime time adult cartoons--maybe Family Guy? The episode's comedy was rooted in the tragic life of one of those single "forty somethings" who let good women get away from him and then spent his days in dingy "wife beaters" stained with wing sauce, watching tv, drinking beer, and occasionally lamenting lost loves.

Though the character's bachelor misery was exaggerated for comedy's sake, I can see how that can be a bachelor's fate. What is casual dating based on? Hot, fun, detached sex or socializing. People who casually date aren't looking to shower another with support, time, a listening ear, investment. So if casual dating and sex is all about physical beauty or short term interesting exchanges, it makes sense that when a person no longer offers a young face and body or enegy to party late and long, he/she falls off the market.

Additionally, I still hold firm that healthy humans want to be known fully, yet loved. We are generally afraid of letting another see the fullness of our humanity--how broken, imperfect, "stank" we are. Yet, we still want to find "SOMEBODY" (see Depeche Mode's link below...my friend reminded me of this song yesterday). A casual date is not going to hold you and just love on you when you lose a friend or family member. A casual date won't let you cry to him/her. A casual date might judge you if your house or car's a mess or if your outfit just doesn't quite work. Most of us generally won't even ask a casual date for a ride to O'Hare. We get tired of casual dating by our middle years. It's just too exhausting, and we want the security that is characterized by sitting in holey socks and sweats on the couch on a lazy Saturday morning. But the comfort of sitting in holey socks with bed head takes effort to reach.

Am I saying that single people older than 30 will wind up with big bellies with food stained t-shirts, become lonely animal hoarders, or miserable? Absolutley not. In fact, if I don't marry, I think I will be a ridiculously cool single person--running half marathons, maybe cool locs, ageless, strong, rock musician, a good aunt,sister, daughter, friend (but definitely not spreading myself thin in casual dating). It seems, though, that those who do single well at middle aged don't trifle in casual flings but rather invest themselves in family, career, and good friends to keep growing personally.

Seems that the older we get, the more "casual" gets "old".