When are stretchy pants going to be the new normal?
It's time to confess and confront my biggest fear.
My first thought when people invite us for dinner is not, Great, I get to leave the house, it's Oh no, I'm gonna have to put on real pants.
By which I mean pants with a button, pants requiring a belt, instead of my old faithfuls: pants with an elastic waist.
We went out for dinner last night and it's the only thing I could think about: how long can a person survive once they've cut off circulation to their legs.
A friend asked me to lunch this week. Fortunately I had a runny nose and had to cancel (it could have been Covid, I told him, but it was probably allergies, because it's not uncommon for middle aged men with stretchy pants problems to be allergic to the very air they breathe as well). But if I'm honest, my first thought when he asked was, I have to squeeze into big boy pants.
I applied for a good job at the start of the year, and to my surprise got an interview the very next day. But a couple of hours before deadline it suddenly dawned on me that I wasn't going to get away with wearing terry cloth shorts with an elastic waistband in a career conversation with a magazine proprietor. I would have to wear real pants — pants that make my belly overflow like an overheated mug of Milo. So I pulled out of the running. If it's not meant to be, it's just not meant to be.
I could buy new pants, of course. But that would require doing something I hate more than going out in real pants: trying on new pants in a shop. Don't get me wrong, I love shopping. Just not when I have to manoeuvre in tight spaces, especially when there's a full-length mirror and only a curtain to shield me from the ridicule of other, more beautiful people in the shop. Men who live in stretchy pants no longer balance well, and I never again want to fall backwards through a curtain like a pantomime villain.
Putting on weight isn't a new thing for me. I first realised I was prone to accumulating fat around my belt-line in my teens, when my girlfriend at the time observed, while we were driving, Oh my goodness, you have a belly ... and you're actually nursing it!
To be fair, I was — I was holding it like a Schnauzer on my lap.
I should have seen it coming. I'd given up football, and I was sneaking away from university so that I could sit with my grandma in the fog of her nicotine exhalations, playing Scrabble and eating smoked oysters and cheese spread on Jacob's Cream Crackers.
I'd like to say it's all my mother's fault, because everything usually is. The slow metabolism genes were definitely hers. But I can't say that because it's Mother's Day tomorrow and I promised to be nice.
I did get overly conscious about my belly during the pandemic lockdowns, but really I needn't have worried — the first time I emerged into polite society again it was like walking on to the luxury space cruiser from Wall-E.
I should add that I've tried to rectify the problem with a personal trainer. But when your trainer calls and leaves a message on your phone that your goal of 20kg has kept him awake at night, and perhaps we should aim for 1kg as a starter, you know you're on a hiding to nothing. I don't call 1kg a goal. I call it a good poo.
So yes, I look like Gru from the Minions movie, and I'm not proud of it.
It all came to a head last weekend with what became a very heated conversation with my wife about our lack of intimacy.
Being a journalist, I had statistics to hand — the occurrence of regular sexual activity between long time partners has fallen across the western world, which places us in the 'normal' bracket.
'But we haven't had sex since my 50th birthday,' she said.
'And how old are you now?'
'Fifty-seven.'
Esther Perel, who I wrote about last week, here and here, might say that after 35 years of marriage, the desire for constancy over uncertainty has dulled the opportunity for eroticism.
I'd say it has more to do with letting the dog lie between us every night, and his regular practice of pissing in his sleep. There's nothing more uncertain than going to bed not knowing whether the space between you will still be dry when you wake up.
One of my favourite writers on relationship, love and intimacy, David Schnarch, argues that intimacy requires the differentiated I-Thou dynamic, and that over-familiarity and 'closeness' can actually harm intimate relations.
He says:
Intimacy is often misunderstood as necessarily involving acceptance, validation, and reciprocity from one's partner—because that's what many people want if they're going to disclose important personal information. But intimacy is not the same as closeness, bonding, or caretaking (all of which bring comfort by emphasising togetherness, continuity, and shared history). Intimacy is an ‘I-Thou’ experience. It involves the inherent awareness that you're separate from your partner, with parts yet to be shared.
I read this to my wife and she said, What's his thoughts on roly-poly bellies?
Which is fair. Is it really about the absence of I-Thou differentiation, or is it because two Space Hoppers were never designed to balance one on top of the other?
Topic for discussion: have you ever had a conversation about intimacy that made you feel like it was time to apply for the invalid pension?
Comments below.
NOTE: Some comedy and exaggeration was used in the making of this article (but not a lot).
I’m not ready to read about Bono’s love life.. I’m still worried about yours! And how your gut (which has neurons as you know) is supporting you in avoiding the vulnerability of intimacy. And the stretchy pants... ?!
Firstly: "Oh no, I'm gonna have to put on real pants" - I feel seen.
Secondly: Only you could transition from an ode to comfy pants to a discussion of I-Thou connection.
Thirdly: how dare you put that moon hopper image in my mind so early on a Saturday morning 😂