I had this happen the other day. I needed some reading glasses, and went to an optometrist near our home for an eye exam. The young woman who gave me my eye exam was beautiful. Latina, pregnant and very full-breasted. She had on a v-neck top which allowed a great view of her wonderful caramel-colored breasts. I availed myself of that view, all during the eye exam and afterwards. I gazed right down her shirt at her breasts, those luscious chocolate orbs. She never said a damned thing, although I wasn't being at all discreet.

I got home and studied on this. After some thought, I told my wife that the reason that the young woman didn't object or even appear to notice was that I was old enough to be her father, with plenty of grey and white on my face and my head. From a sexual viewpoint and from her viewpoint, I don't exist. She didn't notice me gazing at her breasts or chose not to care that I was looking at her breasts because I didn't exist to her on that level. As far as sexuality was concerned, I was invisible to her.

An interesting thought. Part of getting older, I suppose.

Invisible is a good word for it. Had a female coworker/friend I used to hang out with. She would get hit on asked out occasionally, but would complain to other coworkers that it's been months that anyone had asked her out. When I pointed this out to her, it was just a blank stare. They didn't count. They were beneath her notice, invisible.

You tweeted:

> Women so often fail to have sympathy for what men go through.

And should you try and point that out, it's "suck it up buttercup", and "just get over it" and "fragile masculinity".

Individual women may not like the attention, but both men and women find the female form beautiful.

Not to go all morlock and eloi, but in a typical man's day to day life in a work world filled with men, mostly involving work to feed a family, the women in the office, in the commute and the restaurant may be the only beautiful thing he encounters.

Invisible as sex partners or invisible as people? It makes a difference.

I HOPE the lady didn't notice you ogling her because you were so far off her radar as a sex partner she didn't notice.

Otherwise you may have freaked her out.

Don't leer at people at work, their jobs depend on them staying polite. Not cool.

Now in breaking news, middle-aged people aren't attractive. In other developments, if you're a middle-aged individual with money and celebrity, you can get sex with a hot, young thing.

In other shocking news developments, water is wet, not dry, milk comes from cows, not telephone poles, and people drive to work in cars, not pirates.

Personally, I don't get offended if men look at me. Why would I?

I was at an ev psych conference, and my friend Jessica told me (while walking behind me out of a restaurant) that a man nearly fell down turning to look at my ass. I was 52 at the time. My response: YAY.

I just wrote a column in which I said that there will come a time when, if a man catcalls me, I'll go over and give him a dollar!

Comment: Middle-aged men who are successful to straight women, Patrick.

The French dude has every right to be attracted to whomever he wants--and will reap the reward of relationships that are exactly as shallow as his criteria. As far as the alleged insult to women, I just laughed because when I was a hot twenty-five year old woman I felt the same complete lack of interest in 50 year old men, no matter how much money or fame they had.

You'll notice that many of the uber-feminists in Congress decrying "toxic masculinity," or enabling those who do, have had rich husbands greasing the skids for them - Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Claire McCaskill, Dianne Black, et al - husbands who got rich using those "toxic" masculine traits like competitiveness and aggression.

As ZZ Top wrote:

Top coat, top hat,
I don't worry 'cause my wallet's fat.
Black shades, white gloves,
Lookin' sharp and lookin' for love.

They come runnin' just as fast as they can
'Cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.

That's one way to raise your visibility. The fat wallet helps a bunch, but one can still dress nattily on a budget. And the goal is to get a foot in the door.

You'll notice that many of the uber-feminists in Congress decrying "toxic masculinity," or enabling those who do, have had rich husbands greasing the skids for them

Additionally, most of them have managed to insert some pork into spending bills that have funnelled money into their husband's business pursuits.

"..I HOPE the lady didn't notice you ogling her because you were so far off her radar as a sex partner she didn't notice...."

Oh, you're completely correct. Her body language and demeanor was so relaxed during my visit that I ultimately decided that she was giving an eye exam to her grandfather.

'invisible' is a deliberately incendiary way to refer to a lack of sexual attraction. Most older women aren't 'invisible' they're just not sexually appealing to men, and in reality, they don't care to be.

Over the past several decades marketers and feminists and therapists have done everything possible to promote women's vanity.

We're told that we're categorically and unquestionably 'perfect' and powerful, beautiful, goddesses who deserve everything we want. And if men won't give that to us, it's because they're selfish and bad and 'ignorant'.

Most women have the intelligence and maturity to see past the propaganda, but many don't. So when some man something that contradicts their image of themselves as perfect beautiful goddesses, they lash out - as we see so often.

“invisible' is a deliberately incendiary way to refer to a lack of sexual attraction. Most older women aren't 'invisible' they're just not sexually appealing to men, and in reality, they don't care to be.”

My relationships with both men and women have improved a hundred fold since my ovaries stopped functioning about six years ago.
And yes, attractive men still make passes at me, and my husband still loves me which is far more important. I appreciate the attention but no longer play guessing games with myself over what men are looking for from me. Apathy is a wonderful freedom from worry about such things.

I don’t think it is all about me anymore. Just sometimes wish I could go back and relive my life between 18 and 55 with the estrogen and testosterone levels I have now.

The Maggie McNeil article was interesting in the sense that it's absolutely mind-blowing that something like that needs to be said.

The feminist movement, so I've noticed, basically thinks the solution to their own problems is to "fix men."

The most blatant example I can think of is the body positivity movement. I'm not talking about Meghan Trainor buxomness -- there seem to be plenty of guys who go for that. I'm talking about the women whose doctors have basically told them, "Lose weight or die."

Rather than losing the weight, they have decided that men need to be fixed. "We must pressure Maxim to put plus-sized models [oxymoron] in their magazine, so men will be attracted to us. Men have blatantly sexist and unrealistic expectations and we must repair them."

As if expecting a woman to be of a weight that doesn't court a plethora of obesity-related illnesses is sexist and unrealistic.

Women should keep reminding themselves that only men who are rich, famous, powerful, very handsome, or VERY charismatic (if they don't have the other qualities) even GET to date women who are younger by 15 years or more. Women can always refuse to date men who are much older if big age differences turn them off - and most do. So it's silly to complain about those one-percenters who can get whomever they want.

Btw, as I've mentioned, when it comes to those who say they like "Gone with the Wind" but hate Scarlett, they likely haven't read the book. Aside from the obvious fact that you wouldn't REALLY rather be Melanie than Scarlett when you don't know where your next meal is coming from (Melanie likely couldn't have survived on her own even if there HADN'T been a war, since she trusted everyone too much), what the non-readers don't know is that even if Ashley had never existed (if you can imagine that), Scarlett would still have had three big fat reasons not to be romantically attracted to Rhett - for years, anyway.

Care to guess, first?

1. He's 17(!) years older. Practically old enough to be her father. Maybe that wasn't so unusual in the 1860s, but in 1930 - soon before the book was published - the average age difference at marriage was 3 years - and the median age for a man getting married for the first time was 24. (I also know for a fact that when Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote "The Long Winter" in 1940, she tried to make it look as though she and Almanzo were only about 5 years apart; they were 10 years apart. Telling the truth at that time would have creeped out her child readers.) Also, as critic Roger Ebert pointed out, Scarlett is really not of the 1860s, she's a woman of the 1930s.

2. Rhett completely ignores what Scarlett has let him know multiple times - she doesn't like babies or motherhood or having a waist that's even 20 inches(!), so why would she want to marry again? (Her first two children aren't in the movie.) He even has the gall to imply, in his marriage proposal, that the glories of sex with HIM will make up for any unwanted children they will have. Gag. Granted, she - somewhat unrealistically - doesn't try to contradict this. (Otherwise, there would be no story!)

3. Rhett is always making fun of her lack of education, even BEFORE they marry. Who wouldn't get angry about that, eventually? While it's natural for people like Rhett to want to AVOID drop-outs with a contempt for education, like Scarlett, if you don't, common courtesy demands that you not put them down, at the least.

The demand that people find them attractive even if they are 50, have let themselves go, or a bitchy, is part of the whole entitlement thing. People are "owed" a good job, healthcare, free college, and, apparently, love too. While you can use the IRS to steal people's money or the Treasury to print some for healthcare and free college, and mandate min wage (which causes unemployment, but who's counting), how do you demand your share of love? It is beyond nonsense.

As to Amy's point about women choosing high status: during most of history, people were at high risk of starving periodically or all the time. Choosing a low status man was a death sentence. A high status man could enable a women to leave several children. This was true for 300,000+ years. Sorry, can't ignore it. Men also can't demand that women give this up even if it is "unfair" --a thought that has crossed my mind. What men can do is follow Jordan Peterson's advice about getting their act together. It won't make you taller, but you will seem taller.

Ironically, once I passed 55 women have started consistently giving me the eye. I will turn at the store and a cute thing is staring, and I'm pretty sure it isn't because I have something between my teeth. I think I may be projecting some sort of success/smart who knows what vibe. Sure could have used this when I was young and single.

Love the ZZ Top lyrics. So contrary to "look like a crazy person" style you see too much.

I nominate this thread for Demotivational Thread of the Year . . . at least for us single, middle-aged men.