Me, Men, Menopause: A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To 50
By Beth Allan
()
About this ebook
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.
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.
Related to Me, Men, Menopause
Related ebooks
Just Good Friends: Cheap Thrills, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow To Propose Accidentally (Book Three): How To Propose Accidentally, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSalt on the Wound Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pink Boots Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne-Night Stand-In Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A New You: Volume 5 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nowhere To Hide (Behind The Scenes #3) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBillionaire’s Fake Girlfriend: The Bailey Brothers, #3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lora & Isabel: a Lone Novelle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBuilt for Trouble: Built for Love, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bottle Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Critical Wife Failure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpeak of the Devil: A Psychological Thriller: New Hope Series, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShamelessly Worth It: For Me, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomething Like This: The Men of Evansdale County, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMeeting Joe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Woman in the Middle: A man's guide to a woman's treasure. Her mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Uninhibited Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust like Grey Singles 6: Just like Grey Singles, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lingstroms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow To Fall For Your Worst Enemy (Book Two): How To Fall For Your Worst Enemy, #2 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Holiday Star Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLove Claws: A Cat Shifter Paranormal Romance: Immortal Protector Side Tales, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Billionaire's Touch: My Billionaire Romance Series, #5 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fighting Perfection: The Perfection Series, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJilted - Recovery in 2020 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhen Two Lovers Meet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLong Enough to Love You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNaughty Biker (Book 2): Sin Reapers MC, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Humor & Satire For You
Questions for Deep Thinkers: 200+ of the Most Challenging Questions You (Probably) Never Thought to Ask Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Hacks: Over 100 Tricks, Shortcuts, and Secrets to Set Your Sex Life on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 2,320 Funniest Quotes: The Most Hilarious Quips and One-Liners from allgreatquotes.com Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51,001 Facts that Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mindful As F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soulmate Equation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best F*cking Activity Book Ever: Irreverent (and Slightly Vulgar) Activities for Adults Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Love and Other Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing Your Sh*t Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best Joke Book (Period): Hundreds of the Funniest, Silliest, Most Ridiculous Jokes Ever Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 2,548 Wittiest Things Anybody Ever Said Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Screwtape Letters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Favorite Half-Night Stand Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here: A Read with Jenna Pick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer: A Novella Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Me, Men, Menopause
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Me, Men, Menopause - Beth Allan
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