To have the ‘ick’ for a friend!

[WetBandits]

Been friends with a chap for the last 10 years or so, just want to preface this by saying it’s always been purely platonic; I have no attraction towards him whatsoever so this doesn’t come from a place of jealousy! We’ve always had a very open line of communication and have been through a fair amount of shit between us which we’ve supported one another through so there aren’t really any topics of conversation that are ‘off limits’; discussing sex/relationships/general life shit is pretty normal for us and always has been.

He’s 43 and has been dating a 21 year old woman. I raised my eyebrows a bit as wasn’t sure what on earth they might have in common (she’s 21 and looks it and seems to have her shit together, he’s 43 but could easily be 10 years older than that and is a bit fucked up mentally) but so far I’ve said nothing about it. However, he now regularly jokes about having a hot, young girlfriend and it just makes my stomach turn as he’s giving me real ‘dirty old man’ vibes and I can’t seem to shake it! He asked me for advice on buying her lingerie recently and the sets he showed me made me cringe as they were far from classy.

Caught up with him this week and he mentioned that GF has been talking about wanting babies; he has a tween son from a previous relationship and has always been very clear that he only ever wanted one child. I asked him if he was going to tell her that he didn’t want any more and he said: “I would but I don’t want to lose out to someone else, and the sex is so good I don’t want someone else to have that instead.”

WIBU to distance myself a little from him despite everything we’ve seen each other through (addiction, job loss, breakups, mental breakdowns, physical illness and everything in between!) as I can’t shake the ‘creepy old man’ vibes 😩 and I hate that he knows that what he wants in life is incompatible with what she wants, but he won’t end it because he doesn’t want her to find someone else!

Or do I tell him straight that he’s being a prick and stick by him for the inevitable messy breakup?

I adore him (usually) but he’s really given me the ick and I’m so angry with him for stringing his girlfriend along.

My money is working for me at this point

What a dick. 😂

I'd be more inclined to distance myself/phase him out than go for a full on truth-telling. The things you've described suggest a lot of narcissistic personality traits - the boasting and preening about his 'hot, young girlfriend', the taking her for what he can get, using you as his emotional support person over the years etc. I bet if you confront him about it all he'll position it as you being jealous of her! Better to just be less available and phase him out.

Hello Andrew 😂. I guess you have plenty of time to go online whilst in prison in Romania.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

Ok, you can stay. Laughs like this are rarer than rich, handsome, sexy silver foxes.

Loving the deluded ones pretending to be an aged catch. I always get a buzz knowing my own glossing over my own life at least has the whiff of sanity left to it.

He's not even pretending. He's expecting us to be bowled over by the fact he's got no job and his family don't want him with them when they go out somewhere.

When I had my age gap relationships in my 20s, the blokes didn't need to be madly rich or handsome (although it helped), but they did need to be established, cultured, worldly and experienced. That's the point. I feel sorry for kids today if they don't realise that. A blabbering, needy idiot who can't buy lingerie or a would-be Clarkson plonker who needs Mumsnet for attention even in his fantasy life of wealth and success?

Jeez, they don't even try these days. I'm so glad I did it when the dudes knew what to do.

I’ve been the 21 year old in this situation… and it’s doubtful she will look back on the experience fondly when she’s nearing the same age he is now. I’m now nearing 40 and had a few relationships with older men with a similar age gap in my 20s. Back then, I thought I was really mature and didn’t see the imbalance in the relationship - 18 odd years later, I look back and cringe. Now I’m almost the same age as the men I was seeing, there’s no way I would go near them - there’s a reason they were dating women so much younger. Major ick.

See, this is something else a wordly and sexy older man would know...when to stop. There comes a point where you just overegg it so badly that it blows your cover completely. You might as well just change your username to OH
PLEASE MUMSNET THIS IS THE FURTHEST I'VE GOT SINCE 2012 DON'T STOP NOW I'M ALMOST THERE!!!

3/10 overall, because it did elicit a genuine lol a bit earlier.

A lot of the time it’s not future faking I think - They are actually ready for a future (family) and therefore need a younger woman with longer fertility timespan to comfortably play that out.

Did you read the freaking thread? He doesn't want children with this young woman, who is unaware of this fact.

If Del boy and David Brent had a love child, this is the sort of shit I’d imagine they would say. 😂

Actually, I was thinking Alan Partridge. Didn't he even have an episode where he was seeing a younger woman and just kept going, "SHE'S SEVENTEEN YEARS YOUNGER!" no matter what the conversation was about?

Anyway, sorry for my role in derailing your thread, OP, but hopefully it's given you two valuable things: one, a fucking huge laugh, and two, another brilliant example of how badly wrong the "older man" thing can go. Honestly, if you're not going to do it properly, this is what you end up with. Tread carefully.

Yes!!

It’s giving me Alan Partridge and Sonja vibes 😩

Thanks everyone for your input and the gentle shaking to realise I’ve been a bit soft on him and putting up with waaaay too much shit!

No more 🙅🏼‍♀️

Good for you, OP!

Is there an off switch?

Like I said, OP...when it goes wrong, it goes really wrong.

Im a cynical old battle axe these days, and I believe if you dig deep, you will find these creepy, misogynistic traits in most men. Certainly the older ones. They just hide it well.

Your problem is you thought your friend was in the ‘nice men’ group, and now he’s shown by his behaviour his actually one of the shit ones, who talks the talk, but deep down thinks womens bodies are really only for a man’s pleasure.

It takes a while to get your brain to adjust to this new viewpoint of him. But what do you want to do about it? Knowing how he thinks of his girlfriend, does it make you wonder how he really thinks about you. If you heard of this behaviour from a friend about a guy you’d never met, what would be your automatic reaction?

Oh give over 😂😂😂😂

There is an off switch, @ReneBumsWombats . We've just given it a nudge.

Do you know what I think the worst part of the "older man" thing?

It's the fact that it makes a certain type of gamma male believe that he must eventually become sexy by default if he just fails to die for long enough. Even when he's got no teeth, hair, job, or his family leave him at home all day so he can trawl Mumsnet for love. Or he talks like the love child of Alan Partridge and Del Boy. He must be a catch because he's now sufficiently creaky.

Or maybe he really is married with a job and a couple of kids. A life so conventional that we've been making sitcoms about it for 70 years. But as he never got hit by a bus before the bald spot and lumbago stage of life, it makes him James Bond. Or Jeremy Clarkson.

Don't worry, OP. Women outlive men so you get rid of them eventually.

The age gap doesn't bother me but then my DH is twenty years older than me The rest of his behaviour gives me the ick though and I'd have told him by now

Personal, yes.

Sex, no.
That is between people who are having it.
Anything else is sleazy and poor boundaries / standards.