McNair, et al.-- No Fool Like An Old Fool?

A popular former NFL quarterback. The governor of South Carolina. Men with longstanding Christian ministries. Presidential candidates—all with seeming suddenness caught in the hideously embarrassing position of an involvement with a much younger woman.
We wonder: are they stupid? Is it a form of hubris (a counterpart of the “too big to fail” notion in economics)? Do they think they’ll never get caught? One of the first stories ever told of an older, married man and a young girl comes from the Bible, three thousand years ago—David and Bathsheba. The affair launched a civil war that didn’t end for decades.
The McNair affair, double murder, murder and suicide, whatever, raises the age old questions once again. Why? How? What did she see in him? What did he see in her? Especially, how did it all begin? We read the news accounts and they can’t really tell us.
I sat down and thought about it this morning. I’m not famous, rich or powerful. So I don’t have the temptation of younger women who are drawn to power or wealth like moths. (As Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”)
(Years ago, when I enjoyed a measure of power in my job, I recall a few instances when a woman showed interest in me just because of that power. Once or twice I had to duck kind of hard. I was married at the time.)
So that’s a real consideration—something to be wary of if you have power or position. It isn’t necessarily that you are so dreadfully handsome or appealing; it’s just that your wallet or your clearance card is irresistible. If you choose to succumb, do so with your eyes open, aware of what’s really going on—and give some thought to potential consequences.
In short, it is highly unlikely that she loves you for you.
But there’s another factor at work here—and that’s the one a lot of men may be completely unaware of, and it can affect all of us. This is the one I reflected on this morning. We’re older. Just that, we’re older. And that gives us an edge we may not want to have.
It’s an edge we probably don’t even realize we have. Two things have happened since we left twenty behind, got married and lived a few more decades. One) we’ve gotten a bit smarter, and 2) we now come in the innocently appearing guise of being grandpa or even dad. Younger women tend to let their guards down.
Do you remember what it was like to meet a really interesting and attractive girl when you were eighteen? She had walls up—until she had vetted you for social, personal and educational acceptability. These guards protected everyone, annoying as they may then have seemed to a young male predator. How well we recall the frustration.
I still remember the first time I went into a supermarket and the young female cashier no longer dealt with me as a peer, but she called me “sir”. That was already long ago. Things began to change at that point.
I look like grandpa now. (And he’s safe, after all.) The smiles and twinkling eyes are quite unguarded today. Also, I don’t make the inane gaffes natural to a young, single man meeting someone for the first time. (At least not as many.)
If there is a moment, I can enjoy an intelligent conversation—where does she plan to go to school, what does she plan to be, where did she go to high school? Often she’s delighted to talk about herself. (I totally lacked the wit to use this as a pickup line when I was younger.)
Sometimes I find myself startled and delighted at the pinpoint precision with which she has laid out her life—what she plans to do and why. (Young men at that age rarely have as much direction—although I have had similar conversations with a relative handful.)
(I very carefully do not give my name or ask hers. When I walk away from the cash register it is over with and forgotten.)
I suspect that many a May-November affair begins simply because the older man shows a genuine interest in the person she is—or wants to be. Age and experience have brought him beyond the behaviors for which a young woman of our acquaintance once faulted an ex-boy friend.
“He’s twenty,” she said with asperity, “going on sixteen.”
I’m often struck when I substitute teach with how much more mature high school girls can seem than their high school boy friends. There seems to me to be about a ten year maturity gap in the teens. An older man who will talk seriously can seem appealing.
If he foolishly allows himself to be flattered into something more because of this, he is a likely candidate for tomorrow’s headlines.
Just remember gentlemen, your gray hair and the smoothness that comes from being several years older and smarter than you were in college can just possibly get you in much deeper than you planned to be. Even with “nice” and relatively innocent young women.
Throw substantial money and power into the calculation and you have an almost certain ticket to marital and political disaster.
Hey, I can still be attracted—but try to do at least some thinking above the waist. Remember, you’re “grampa”. She hasn’t suddenly found the love of her life, not really. It’s so easy to be flattered when an attractive young lady seems to be warming to you. Try to remember: you had your day. Back then, you probably made all the mistakes her contemporaries are making today. That’s part of being a young fool.
The wise thing for you to do might be to walk quickly away while you still can. Do that at day number one and the horrors and disasters that have come upon so many men in the news will hopefully not come upon you.
What did she see in you initially? Grandfather. Rich or poor.