Me, Men, Menopause: A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To 50

By Beth Allan

Laugh your way from “suddenly single” despair to “blissfully you” repair
Suddenly single, newly you? Life curious and bio-available? Attitude and humour are everything when it comes to online dating, buying condoms, getting naked and being single at 50. Sex and the City goes on a blind date with Carl Jung and Jerry Springer, then Godzilla shows up when you least expect him.
Laugh your way to awkward self acceptance before you hop into bed for mutually enjoyable sex and learn how to read the warning signs as you navigate your way through the quagmire of burgeoning, sloppy singles on the road to self discovery and find your new best friend on the way – you!

This book is a great reminder of how human we all are. It will appeal to the suddenly single, the abandoned, the sexually cautious, those who are self-conscious, those who don’t love themselves just yet, happily marrieds because they shouldn’t take what they’ve got for granted and anyone who needs a good laugh because, sometimes life can just be too much.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Allan
• Release date: Feb 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9780969954019

Beth Allan

Beth Allan is an author and photographer living in Victoria on scenic Vancouver Island. After the rapid deterioration of her 25 year marriage, Beth, then a single working woman in her 40’s had to cope with menopause, mortgages and manic men as she tried to find her rightful place in the unfamiliar and often unpredictable world of dating in the 21st century. Beth is currently trying to figure out what the heck to do with the next phase of her life.

Book preview

Me, Men, Menopause

A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To 50

By Beth Allan

Published by White Rose Content at Smashwords

A Division of White Rose Consulting, Inc.

© 2014 Beth Allan

ISBN 978-0-9699540-1-9

The author and the publisher disclaim any liability in

connection with the dissemination of this work.

Cover art by Ernest Warnielius © 2014

Guy Gorgeous And The Deep, Dark Hole

Can you cry for six months and still look pretty?

Does This Chapter Make Me Look Fat?

Identifying with a role… not your soul

It’s Raining TatsAnd Dogs

Tramp stamps and canines

Rat Man Gets a Mortgage

What is financial security anyway?

The Best Tongue I’ve Ever Had

Why did I have to travel so far to get it?

Ambisextrous

Can you lend me a hand?

The Travelling Trim Kit

Muff Managed

SOS – Supplying Oral Satisfaction

Just a slip of the tongue

It’s All Goo

Putting the I’m in imperfection

Cellar DwellerAnd The Poet

With The Heart Of Stone

A bird in the hand is worth what in my bush?

Au Naturel

Grey is the new blond

Great Sex Guy

A kiss is just a kiss… but a hickey is a whole new ball game

Cock-a-doodle-do

This is your wake up call

Luxury Sales For Our Lord Eckankar

Can buying a toy satisfy the hunger within?

Fire In The Sky

Flying on a wing and a prayer

Who Is She And What Does She Want?

Dancing like no one is watching

Former To Freedom

Rewriting the Fairy Tale

Guy Gorgeous and the Deep, Dark Hole

Can you cry for six months and still look pretty?

I’m a have-a-beer-show-us-your-tits kinda guy. If I’m not getting it after that, I’m not interested.

I was sitting in a familiar place, drinking my favourite beer but instead of the husband I adored sitting across from me, I was in the company of a man who had just shoved his hand down the back of my pants and asked if we were going to do it.

I sat across the table from Guy Gorgeous (his online username, honest) and wondered how I came to be in such a bizarre situation.

Oh right, now I remember.

One bright August morning, two years ago, my husband looked at me and uttered these words:

I need to find myself and I think I love someone else but I won’t act on it, I just need to take some time and find out who I really am.

I immediately felt sick to my stomach and everything went fuzzy. My sisters were on the way over to pick me up for a Sunday walk and I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t swallow, there was no spit left to swallow, and my mouth felt like sand paper. We had been together for a very long time and I had never had an inkling there was anything wrong. Honest. We were happy, weren’t we? Really happy?

Yes, we had been happy, very much so, and there was a time, not long ago, when everything was as it should be. I woke every morning to the warm, wonderful nakedness of the man I loved, the house we had redecorated exactly the way we always wanted was three months from being paid off, and we were planning an epic journey to Africa, a place my heart had wanted to see since I was seven. I was exactly where I thought I wanted to be… but he thought differently, clearly.

So why was I removing a stranger’s hand from my pants, in my local pub? Right, I still had a hand down my pants. First things first, Beth.

Being single meant dating… on-line dating to be exact, and this is why I was being pawed, in public, on my first meeting with Guy Gorgeous.

Does shoving your uninvited hand down a stranger’s pants constitute pawing? Perhaps I was being too generous with my descriptives. I’m pretty sure this was unlawful access to private property.

Anyhow, from the moment he swaggered up to the table I knew this wasn’t going to be any fun. I mean, who in this wide-eyed, ever-lovin’ world calls himself Guy Gorgeous, right?

So, he peacocks over, endears himself to me by saying, I’m better looking in person, aren’t I? and plunks his overinflated ego down next to me. I’m surprised it all fits in one chair.

I’ve really had it far too easy my whole life, he intones. I’ve always had things handed to me on a silver platter because of my looks. I’ve made it to places people only dream of.

And so the gospel according to Guy Gorgeous had begun.

The curious thing about so many men’s online profiles, besides the fact that they all had a picture of themselves with a fish or a dog, was that they usually said they were attractive, or good looking, or hot.

Now, I’m all for a person having healthy self-esteem, but the funny thing about all of this is, looks, esthetics, and what we each find appealing in life, is so personal and I found this guy rather gacktious* to look at. Like staring at someone who’s recovering from failed plastic surgery… You just can’t take your eyes off it.

* I know it’s not a word but I’m using it anyhow to indicate something that triggers the gack reflex.

Perhaps he mistook my repulsed stare for the gaze of a love-struck hopeful, and maybe that’s why he dove straight down my waistband, trespassing on my bottom.

Maybe Guy was thinking to himself, Oh wow, she’s really looking intently at me, I can tell she’s really into me, I bet anything she wants me to shove my hand down her pants and slip my finger into her crack; that always gets the chicks…

I had always wanted to be married, to love someone as much as they loved me, and I thought I had what it takes to make that happen. I believed that I loved truly, deeply, and completely, and that I was supportive. But what I hadn’t realized was, I had abandoned my real self along the way and become an enabler.

True, my marriage of 25 years had, for the most part, been blissful, but upon reflection it dawned on me that I had become responsible for my husband’s happiness, as well as running the business that was our union. When things were going great and I was managing everything, all was well with the world.

But we had weathered some serious shit too, big stuff like death, major car accidents, lawsuits, relocation, career changes, past abuses… So it came as a total surprise when, out of the blue, the fierce winds of mid-life crisis scorched our green pastures into a desert bereft of hope.

I ran my finger distractedly around the rim of my pint glass, a small, clear tone rising from the perfect friction of flesh and glass, and I lingered just a moment longer in the land of what had been my life.

But it was no longer my life and I was in my 40s, menopausal, and abjectly single. I had never imagined I would be single again and the harsh reality was, Guy Gorgeous, a man I was instantly repulsed by, was pawing me in public after knowing me for barely 30 minutes and damn it, he was still talking.

I tried asking the occasional question, in an effort to insinuate myself into the conversation, but he was having none of it. Besides, he didn’t need questions; this man could talk about Guy Gorgeous forever, and, apart from groping me, it seemed that was his only goal.

You know, that’s one of the things I had been spared while married. My husband wasn’t one for monologues. We talked, we really talked, and we never seemed to run out of interesting things to say. There was a great deal of reciprocity in our relationship and we could solve all the world’s problems over a well-crafted martini, or carefully map out our fantasy journey while lying in bed. I particularly enjoyed playing What would we do if we won the lottery? But he never just went off on a verbal rampage.

It was one of the great perks of being married for me, really. I had someone I could discuss anything with. Fantasy, regret, hopes, desires, wishes, disappointments, failures, or simply nothing at all. There was someone who cared about my life as much as I cared about his and I was very happy to have fully experienced that.

In fact, in all of my social dealings I hadn’t truly come across this style of verbal diarrhea, aside from one very special and unique friend who specialized in talking and the occasional boss, so Guy’s behaviour was less than desirable for me. Actually, it was downright annoying. This man had a long string and I had no idea how to staunch the flow of verbiage pouring out of his yapping maw.

How was it this person was so unaware of the fact he was monopolizing the conversation, or was this simply what happened to you when you were single?

Could I catch singlensis verbosis speakophilia? And if so, was there a cure?

Was I going to turn weird and become that cat lady who talked to herself? Wait, I was already talking to myself. Oh my, this wasn’t good.

If you lived alone, talking only to your pet, or plants, or your reflection in the mirror, and then suddenly got a chance to speak to a real human being, did you have to barf up as much personal detail as possible to tide yourself over the long conversational drought until the next time you had someone within earshot?

I’d say talk with but that implies a mutual exchange and I can assure you that was certainly not happening between Guy Gorgeous and me.

No siree. He was talking and I was confused. Why go out with someone if you don’t want to talk with them?

I didn’t know the rules for dating yet and, if I’d been told that you had to talk incessantly about yourself, monopolize the situation, and totally ignore the person you were with, I wouldn’t have gone out on any dates. I would have bought more plants, a couple of hamsters, a bird, a turtle, maybe a cat or ten and settled down to the business of going slowly but quite surely crazy.

Besides, I would never be able to push my hand down a stranger’s pants so I guess I was doomed at the dating game… or was it always up to the guy (Guy?), to stick unbeckoned hands into an article of the woman’s clothing? What was the currently-accepted groping etiquette? This was complicated and I had me some learnin’ to do.

But all this pondering had distracted me from my verbose companion and it dawned on me Guy Gorgeous was still talking and I was being lulled into a stupor by his monologizing.

That’s when it happened. Right between him saying, and then Candice Bergen kissed me as she handed me the award and I think she really liked me, there it was, warm flesh oozing down the back of my jeans, inside my underpants, and a finger extending down into my crack, worming its way to the Promised Land.

I’m not a prude. I actually think sex is a healthful, life-affirming activity that should be undertaken often between consenting adults. But I’m definitely not a huge fan of hand-invasion without warning either.

I had no idea I could move that fast but I extracted his hand with such alacrity I don’t think he knew what happened. He sort of stared at it, all discombobulated-like and then, recalculating his internal GPS system, he countered the rebuff by steering the offending hand deep into the intersection of Thigh Street and Crotch Avenue.

I yanked his hand out again and slapped it down on the table like some rancid piece of meat being returned for refund.

What, am I too much for you baby? he cooed.

Too much, too impertinent, too presumptuous, too everything. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

And that’s when I got to hear the line I knew was destined to be shared with folks everywhere. It was a rare and precious little gem delivered by Life to make up for this awful encounter with the ego that roared.

Honest babe, I’m a have-a-beer-show-us-your-tits kinda guy. If I’m not getting it after that, I’m not interested.

And how often does that work for you, Guy? I asked.

Well baby, you’re the first one to turn me down and, really, I don’t quite get it.

Well then, I guess you’d better not waste any more of your precious time on me, I said as I waved to our waitress to bring the bills.

But, I took the bus here honey, expecting you’d be coming back to my place. I never would have come all the way over here if I didn’t think I was going to get some.

You know, it’s quite sad to see someone so petulant and pouty when their ill-conceived plans don’t come to fruition and they try to blame it on someone else. At that moment, all I saw was a distraught little boy who’d had his toy taken away.

A great quote suddenly came to mind from The Princess Bride: Get used to disappointment. I so wanted to use it, but I wasn’t jaded enough just yet, so I murmured something like, Well then, best you found out now so you have lots of time to figure out how to get home. And I excused myself to go and pay my bill.

Standing at the cash register I noticed GG scouring the room, desperately hunting for someone else to prey on, someone more eager than I to ride the Guy Express, and someone who could also drive him home.

I wondered how many women had actually gone back to Guy’s place, been charmed by his heavy-handed, egotistical tactics, perhaps believing him to be confident, accomplished