What About You?

People are very good at telling you what they need. Time. Money. Attention. A version of you that keeps the machine running.

You work hard. A great deal is expected of you. Hands are out in every direction.

And still — you are not a résumé with a wallet attached. You are a man with a particular taste, a particular history, and a particular way of coming alive when something is actually for you.

So — what do you want?

Do you want to go to a Metallica concert and actually lose yourself in it? Do you want to stand in your old stadium and cheer like you did when the game still belonged to you? A beach for a few days with no agenda and no one asking anything of you? A Comic Con or a film festival where you get to be a fan again? A different kind of care — something like Ways2Well in Austin — because the usual checkup never quite covers you? Asia, for the food and the culture, because Europe already belongs to the family itinerary?

Is there a passion that got set down because someone decided it was silly, loud, expensive, or “not you anymore”?

You can pick it back up. You are allowed to want what you want without translating it into something more respectable first.

If you are in your twenties or thirties

You are already being asked to have it figured out. Career, image, the next move. And then you date — and too often it feels like an audition where you pay for the privilege of not being met halfway.

You have told me what that is like. Women your own age who want a great deal spent on them and offer very little back. Time. Attention. A kindness that is actually for you. You are tired of being useful and invisible at the same time.

And then there is the other side of it: women a little younger looking for men who are already established. You end up in the middle — expected to provide, rarely adored for the man sitting across from them.

That is not what you will get here.

I pay attention. I listen. I am happy to see you. I smile when you walk in — freely, with affection, because you matter. You do. Not as a placeholder, not as a wallet, not as a project. You can be hungry, unfinished, a little loud about the band you love. You do not have to arrive already completed. There are things for you to experience and learn from… life lessons.

You are not a disaster to be managed. You are a man I am glad to see.

If you are in your forties or fifties

The grind is on. Family. Work. The social calendar that is never really yours. Day in, day out, until the days start to feel the same.

You are expected to be there. Pay for it. Keep the machine running. The unspoken rule is familiar: do it, handle it, and do not make it a headache for anyone else.

Feeling overlooked becomes ordinary. You can be essential in every room and still feel unseen in all of them.

You have not disappeared. You have been useful for so long that people forgot to look at you as a man with wants of his own.

I have not forgotten. I am happy to see you. The smile is real.

You get to want something that is only yours. A night. A weekend. A holiday that is not built around everyone else’s plans. A concert, a game, a quiet beach, a trip that is actually for you. You are desired as the man you are — not managed, not scheduled around, not looked at as an afterthought.

You are not a headache. You are the point.

If you are in your sixties and beyond

You are not a final chapter. You are not the man on the porch barking at someone to get off the lawn.

You are still here. Still sharp. Still capable of wanting — and of being wanted. The years did not cancel that. They seasoned it.

Desire does not have an expiration date. Neither does curiosity. The thing that lights you up still lights you up. The body still answers. The mind still leans forward.

Plenty of people will treat you as settled, finished, decorative. I will not.

I am looking at you. Not at a version of you from twenty years ago, and not at some polite idea of how an older man is supposed to behave. At you — vital, specific, still in the game. I am happy to see you. That will be on my face when you arrive.

You get to be sexy. You get to be hungry. You get to take time for pleasure — an evening, a stretch of days, a holiday — without explaining it to anyone.

Tell me what still makes your pulse charge and your eyes sparkle. That is enough.

And this is true at every age

Whatever decade you are in, the request is the same. Be useful. Be steady. Be easy to have around.

I am asking something else.

I want the man who is actually here. The taste that is yours. The time you would take if it did not have to be justified — a night, a few days, a holiday. The concert. The beach with no pressure. The convention. The festival. The city you have been curious about. The care you have been putting off. The thing that makes your face light up when you talk about it.

You should feel acknowledged. Valued. Looked at as someone special — not because you paid, not because you performed, but because you showed up as yourself.

When you get here, I will be glad. The smile is not a performance. It is how I look at a man I am happy to see.

Tell me what you miss. Tell me what you would do if nobody needed anything from you for a while. I’d love to hear it. I’ll meet you there.