The Parent Trap

Five minutes ago, my date called me a DILF. I heard it quite clearly.

It was supposed to be a compliment.

I know this because my date purred the acronym at me and ran his finger across his mouth, like a negligee brushing against a closing bedroom door.

A DILF. I am 35 years old. I’m not really sure what kind of D I would have to be to have accrued enough years to F somebody young enough to be my son without being arrested, but it is clear my date’s strength lies in buzzwords he has read in listicles, not mathematics.

“Maybe I’ve got daddy issues,” he laughs, each of his 27 years peeling away like the skin of an onion – before my very eyes he is regressing to A-level student.

He thinks this is sexy. He thinks I have a fetish for younger men. He doesn’t realise that he’s not really young enough to be a kink.

He laughs, gurgling like a waste disposal trying to make sense of a baked potato. I should speak before he does it again.

“I’ve heard about the daddy thing,” I say, smiling like a cat who has just spotted the cage to the family hamster’s cage is open. “But I thought it was more about older men and other guys much younger than them. People in their 50s and 60s carousing with twinks.”

“Caroooooousing,” he mimics. He thinks he’s Kaa from the Jungle Book, charming me into submission. He is one half of King Louie’s coconut-shell bra at best. “Twinks!” he mocks again.

“Well, you know what I mean,” I reply, leaning forward in the most uncomfortable seat in the world. I feel a spasm in my back, but conceal this dreary side effect of old age – I don’t want to feed his supposed fetish any more than I have to.

I continue. “I don’t think I’m quite in the DILF territory yet. And neither are you.” He looks up from his cloudy guest ale in surprise.

“Well,” I exclaim. “It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that I’d have seen you in the dinner queue at school.”

“I’m eight years younger than you!”

I knot my knuckles. “Well, if I’d repeated a year. Why does age matter to you so much? You’re young. You have plenty of time to obsess over it when you’re an old wreck like me.”

He stares into middle distance sadly and tells me how old he feels. How everyone at work seems younger and more ambitious, while he plugs away, getting nowhere. It’s a familiar tale, but not exactly ideal date chat. Welcome to adulthood, junior.

“So why would you go on dates with an older man?” I ask. This is our second meeting.

He looks at me like a concerned relative hovering by a life support machine, desperately trying to extract my bank details.

“I suppose it makes me feel better to know that there are people out there older than me in the same boat, who still haven’t figured things out. Still drifting, not achieving. Know what I mean?”

Indeed I do, the little shit. I raise my glass and we clink them and smile.

I know then it’s the last time I see him. But I won’t let him go until he appreciates the added bonus of being older – experience. And when I accept that inevitable invitation back to his flatshare in a postcode you need a police escort to enter, I’ll take great pleasure in showing him.

I lean over again, ignoring the twinge in my back once more. “How about you get the bill,” I say, brightly. “Treat your old dad for a change, eh?”

Note: I originally wrote most of this post years ago but never finished it, stumbling across it only this morning – true story. I’m not sure why I abandoned it; perhaps I thought this word-for-word account might compromise my anonymity. Anyway, I barely even remember what the guy looked like and don’t give a shit now so here it is.

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DILF?! Five condescending compliments nobody should really want to hear
The Selfie
The Social Mountaineer
The Pedal Pusher

Image: Flickr