Possibly never to love again- and it's just as well.

[ladislav]

I'm going to be 56 soon and, with every month, I feel less and less desire to have a relationship with someone. And I’m starting to feel happy alone. No drama, no extra spending of my money; my time is just my time.

And the sexual desire has been diminishing as well. I think of sex less and less frequently. Seems like the hormonal "haze" is off my eyes- finally!

The fact that I’ve spent so many years in Saudi Arabia- where I've lived like a monk -- and actually learned to like it- has also been contributing to such a state of mind.

Now, I'm lying in my luxury room in a big compound in Al Khobar, and it’s nice and quiet here. I just hear the winds blowing in the sands. And I’m not thinking about “mating” at all. I look at the horny younger guys who run around trying to get a date on some other compound with a Filipina, or go to a party in Bahrain -- and I just don’t share in their pursuits. Not anymore.

The years in Thailand and Philippines (I added them up once, --- and it was about 8.5-9 years on the ground in those countries) provided plenty of p4p to, basically, make me feel “full” in the end. They also "cheapened" the way I view sex and the female body. It no longer emits that magic glare that it did when I was younger. It's just "meat" now.

I also dated enough “decent” ladies to learn that they actually got on my nerves a lot, robbed me of my time - and money, and just didn’t provide lasting happiness.

I’ve been a foster dad to a Filipino child who loves me as my own father, and my life has now settled into a strange equilibrium. I‘m quite content. It’s quite possible that I won’t be marrying anyone or living with anyone. Ever.

And it’s just as well. On those occasions when I need relief, I'll hire a professional; otherwise, I’m so happy alone! Having another person sleeping in my bed now seems like a burden.

I can fly to Cameroon tomorrow if I want- I just need to quit my job.

It looks like it may be a marriage-less, family-less,love-less future for me, and it may not be a bad thing after all. I’ll still have some semblance of circumstances which will create an illusion of family, a “family-lite” if you will, but these won’t be legal binds - and nothing “too heavy”.

And when I’m really old, I’ll just get a nurse- as they say, " to take care of me in my old age". I wouldn't want to have a woman do that anyway. Who wants to be a burden on another person? Not me.

Does anyone feel the same way I do?

[MarcosZeitola]

I suppose there are worse things in life then to grow old alone. If you can at least do so in relative comfort and with nice surroundings, you have it better then plenty of others. It all depends, ultimately, on the type of person you are. Some men cannot be alone at all, others thrive in that state. Some people are very family-oriented, others aren't. Some men are lustful, others aren't. Etcetera.

Myself, I have been swept up in this big, life-changing, romantic love. I look at the generation of my grandparents and tell myself: this is what I want. To grow old with my wife, and just build up a good life for ourselves and our family. One day we'll be old, and when we are we will probably have plenty of children and grandchildren to keep ourselves busy with and to keep us company. For me this is an ideal I've had for a very long time, ever since I was a young teenager and even as a child. It's just "the way things are", the way I saw others doing things. There are a lot of alternative paths people may walk, a lot of roads one might take, and these days you see more and more people doing so.

If you reached a point in your life where you really know yourself and what you want in life, then it's just as well. I see men your age and older, who marry a cute young thing from Asia and have a good time. Your desire not to "burden someone with taking care of me", is noble and selfless, but some men who are a little more selfish may be happier. You could have your cake and eat it too, and the woman will know exactly what she signed up for when she has some level of intelligence and life experience. Never say never, but if it really is never, perhaps it's not the worst thing in the world for you.

[ladislav]

Thanks, it's just that we are bound by physiology and time. Our lives and dreams do have a time limit. You may be wishing for the life changing romantic love when you are younger, but when you are 56, it becomes less and less likely with every year. What's scarier is that you also lose the desire for it as you get older.

Just like you lost the desire for toy trucks and tin soldiers as you grew up.

[Rock]

Thanks, it's just that we are bound by physiology and time. Our lives and dreams do have a time limit. You may be wishing for the life changing romantic love when you are younger, but when you are 56, it becomes less and less likely with every year. What's scarier is that you also lose the desire for it as you get older.

Just like you lost the desire for toy trucks and tin soldiers as you grew up.

Why is that scary. It should be a relief, very liberating. The worst thing is to want something you can't have. If you stop desiring something, the problem your previously unfulfilled need created miraculously vanishes

It sounds like returning to prepubescent childhood if you are able to maintain good health and youthful energy. Makes life a lot simpler doesn't it.

It also helps you to focus on spiritual issues and prepare for inevitable end of your body life (mortality) here on planet earth.

Please keep posting on how it all plays out and evolves for you.

[Hero]

I do have less desire at age 47. But that might just be because of a lack of stimulation. Not many pretty girls anymore in the USA. Anyway I could get by without a wife, though I still hope that I won't have to.

[Moretorque]

You have made the right decision, I am in the same boat and it has been hell because I love children so I will not have any here. Where you are at is common today for thinking males who are aware of how things have become on this world.

I think long term you will be happier because of this and its for the better and I am with you in the same boat. I am really angry about it but getting over it and becoming more adjusted every day.

[Ghost]

.

[MarcosZeitola]

Thanks, it's just that we are bound by physiology and time. Our lives and dreams do have a time limit. You may be wishing for the life changing romantic love when you are younger, but when you are 56, it becomes less and less likely with every year. What's scarier is that you also lose the desire for it as you get older.

Just like you lost the desire for toy trucks and tin soldiers as you grew up.

You would think is true, and it certainly seems believable that after a certain number of experiences, similar experiences, one would get jaded and lose some of his sensititivity. But then there are other members out there who walk a different path. Take this recent thread by our member Davewe, for example:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=27956

He is sixty-two, married to his twenty-something wife and they are trying for a baby. He's got his ducks in a row financially, and they will probably be relocating to the Philippines, a country he is becoming more and more familiar with. At an age other men simply enjoy their retirement, he is about to start a second family in a faraway place. When others reminisce about adventures of the past, he's going to have a new adventure.

Maybe some people never lose their desire for trucks and tin soldiers, or the desire to create a new life to watch play with them.

Then again, no two men are the same. Just keep an open mind, I suppose.

[The_Adventurer]

I feel exactly as you do Lad.

Unfortunately I wish I realised this BEFORE I got married and had a child!

I am left to wonder if technology plays a role in this feeling in our modern age. In the past, people would surround themselves with family, a clan if you will, because that was the main contact they would have in the world. Contact elsewhere meant writing a letter on paper, assuming one could do so, and waiting months for a reply. Today, even though I have been living outside in the world for seven years, I talk with my parents, friends and other family back home, even using video chat on Skype, and that is enough for me. I don't feel a need to physically go back there and be with them.

I have friends all over the world now, in many different countries, that I chat and/or video chat with on a regular basis. I have e need felt the need to go there and physically be with them. This technology not only makes the world smaller, but it makes alone mean something very different than it did before.

Don't get me wrong. My wife and baby are good people. My wife is much younger than me, an unbelievable cook, and we can have fun together. I wonder, though, if it isn't something like what Ghost mentioned, that maybe there simply does not exist a woman in this world which can bring true satisfaction or happiness. Women are still women. The reason for these considerations is that I have learned over the years that the one thing I value above all else is my time. Lost money can be recovered. Hell, even lost relationships can be recovered, but time is the one thing you never get back.

We do a lot of family things like in the video I posted in Winston's China thread. That stuff can be fun and the food can be amazing, but I have come to realise that unless the place I go or the thing I am doing is going to be truly special, I would rather be doing my own thing.

I also feel that having lots of sex, whether with the same person or many people, gets old after a while. I don't think about it as much as when I was younger. More importantly, I would rather be doing other things. The payoff usually isn't worth the time and work invested. I can totally understand why kicking back and getting a BJ from a pro would be preferable.

I totally understand the idea of hiring a nurse to handle one's old age. I certainly have no plans to be in a wheelchair, drooling and connected to an oxygen tank, but I can imagine that, unless I am that guy who is as healthy as a horse until he keels over one day, I would be a burden on my wife, who may only be in her 50's at the time and have better things to do. I also know that I would not want to be in that position so I could not do that to someone else. I think services should be paid for. There are people who want to be caregivers. Hire them.

Then there is the freedom. Like you said, you could just up and fly to another country tomorrow if you so choose. You can't put a price on that.

[Yohan]

I am going to be 56 soon and, with every month, I feel less and less desire to have a relationship with someone. And I’m starting to feel happy alone. No drama, no extra spending of my money; my time is just my time.

And the sexual desire has been diminishing as well. I think of sex less and less frequently. Seems like the hormonal haze is off my eyes- finally!

.....

The years in Thailand and Philippines (I added them up, and it was about 8.5-9 years on the ground in those countries) provided plenty p4p to, basically, make me feel “full” in the end. They cheapened the way I view sex and the female body. It no longer emits that magic glare that it did when I was younger. It's just meat now.

.....

I’ve been a foster dad to a Filipino child who loves me as my own father, and my life has settled into a strange equilibrium. I‘m quite content. It’s quite possible that I won’t be marrying anyone or living with anyone. Ever.

.....

And when I’m really old, I’ll just get a nurse- as they say, " to take care of me in my old age". I wouldn't have wanted to have a woman do that anyway. Who wants to be a burden to another person? Not me.

Does anyone feel the same way I do?

Despite that I am married with a Japanese wife since over 3 decades I agree with you in many aspects.

For sure I am not much interested in sex anymore, even not while in Pattaya for vacation, I am now 63.

As I was grown up totally isolated and lonely, I prefer to know somebody next to me, but I have a room in the house, which is only for me. I need a small safe space for me, I can feel comfortable being alone for a while.

I have 2 daughters who are already adults with their own families, but also a Filipina fosterdaughter still studying in Cebu and should I be the one who dies after my wife, she and others next to her will care about me, I am not worried about getting old. I will not be a burden, I do not expect to receive anything for free, I can compensate financially for services done to me.

About prostitution, I am a straight man - I think I have seen enough of it in Asia... I am tired of it. Especially in Pattaya, when young boys asking the grandfather if he needs a sexy boy. LOL

About getting old, I do not want to end up in a basement, depending on benefits and food coupons.

I think it makes sense to be well prepared for old age - regulating retirement allowances, keep some savings, live in a home which is yours and not based on rent, a health insurance which is open to old people for life.

[ladislav]

The most interesting thing about my life is that when I look back ( and not even back, but into the present, as well) the best times of my life have been in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is " supposed to be" this dull, fun-less country populated by gloomy fanatics, which is dark and depressing- from which everybody wants to escape after "doing their time" here. This is the image in the media:



Nothing can be further from the truth. For the most part, it's a happy, friendly place populated by joyful, polite and well behaved people who live in a state of plenty. No taxes, no working two jobs, everybody has plenty of time. There are beaches, great restaurants and law and order. Everybody has income, the government serves the people. Not 100%, but they still really take care of them.

Living here all alone-without any family, going diving in the Red Sea, free housing, utilities, free car and gas, a tax free salary, paid vacations and tickets and meeting the people who are so happy that you came to their country to work and teach them.

And the sweet smell of the desert at night under an upturned cup of a black sky speckled with stars. The chirping and hum of myriads of insects, the dunes, the dry river beds and the caravans of camels. And their modern cities with good roads, new buildings, restaurants from just about every country in the world, malls for miles and miles and just an abundance of everything.









Somehow I did not need a woman or alcohol to make my life happy here. And if I wanted to, here you can convert to Islam and then, they give you a list --on the spot-- of women who want to marry Americans or Brits.

Too bad they have an age limit here and it's impossible to get permanent residency.

But I must admit one thing though- Riyadh is not the best place in Saudi. Too big, too polluted and yes, gloomy. If you choose to work in Saudi, any place is better than Riyadh. Jeddha is lovely and so is Dammam.

[Lorenzo]

Marriage is not for everyone. I guess you are a bit selfish...not wanting to give to another without receiving, therefore you live alone. If you are happy great, but from your post I doubt you have true happiness?

I had to make a ridiculous amount of sacrifices to be with my new wife, it seemed irrational and one way at times. But I threw caution into the wind one more time and hope in the end to leave a legacy of generosity and kindness. I'm over being selfish and I don't want to part this world feeling alone.

[ladislav]

Yes, there is selfishness involved in my decision - no doubt about it. But the main reason is that I feel less and less desire for sex or a relationship as time goes by and as I get older.

[ryanx]

You and I are almost the same exact age Ladislav. It's funny how I am also going through a similar stage in my life. I am still chasing after the girls but perhaps less because of physical lust but more an ego or validation thing. I would will feel terribly old if I at least didn't try to do it and scored a twenty something every now and then.

[Winston]

For all those wondering if being single is better:

Check out Darryl Sloan's video about why he prefers being single rather than married. Darryl is an Irish philosopher that I follow who is one of the most genuine and authentic guys on YouTube. He brings up a lot of good philosophical and logical points, even if you don't agree that being single is better. You will still appreciate his genuineness and no-nonsense attitude and personality. He is never fake and never BSes. He never tells anyone stuff like "everything is gonna be alright as long as you believe in yourself" and all that New Age crap. He tells it like it is, very realistically, and is honest about the pros and cons of life. Even if you don't agree with his preference for being single, still you will appreciate his insights and good points about why marriage and love won't solve all your problems or make you permanently happy.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYNk67Qq2Q[/youtube]