The one thing about age-gap relationships no-one ever talks about.

He was funny.  Clever, too. He was dynamic, energetic, charming and made me laugh hysterically.  He flattered me constantly and I loved it.

He was 56, older than my dad. And I was just 19-years-old.

As the internet busies itself being outraged over the 30-year age gap between newly engaged couple Stephen Fry and comedian Elliott Spencer, I remembered my brief flirtation with a big fat age gap. Unlike Fry’s mine did not end with loving success and the decision to stay together forever. It came to an abrupt end, with the appearance of a very wrinkly penis.

 Stephen Fry and fiancé, Elliot Spencer.

He wasn’t rich, or dashing, or even overly charming. But somehow, I found him magnetic and soon we started meeting secretly to continue our flirtatious dalliance.

It all felt a little bit covert and wrong, which is why I think I entertained it for so long.  All my friends were dating pimply-faced uni-students and I was being tuned by an old man. LOL. Jokes.

But after a few months and a few Bacardi Breezers (bankrolled by him of course), my horny young mind started to think:

I mean, could I go there? Would I go there?

I was mentally attracted to this man, so was that enough? Could we just turn the lights off and do it from behind so I wouldn’t have to look at his watery old man eyes?

He was a big talker. So when the moment eventually came, I was expecting fireworks. He had prepared by putting fresh sheets on the bed.

We derobed. He was excited. And I was excited. But something else was… not.

It was more this:

And then he didn’t want to wear a condom. And got all sooky about it.

But I insisted, so he got up to grab one. And then I saw this:

Which I tried to forget.

And then it was finally happening, but then not really because, well…. you can’t sail the waters of the orgasmic ocean using a saggy balloon as a sail. Then he was trying to pump up the balloon (yes, with his hand) and pretend like everything was normal and fine.

And just as I lay there wondering if it would be ill-mannered to leave mid-stroke, he started talking dirty.

And then immediately afterwards (though there was no real conclusion, just the thick fog of failure), I smiled, said he was great, and then politely excused myself. While the sheets were still warm.

No amount of Bacardi Breezers could make me unsee that flaccid, wrinkly penis on the end of a watery-eyed dirty talker.

Yes, love knows no age, and large age gaps are not a red flag or a deal-breaker.  There are plenty of people in successful loving relationships despite being at different stages of life.

May love conquer all.  May you go forth into your age gap.  But beware of the wrinkly dick at the end.

This is a post about sexual attraction. Of course love and relationships are about far more than the physical but sometimes, not always, the physical can’t be ignored. On this occasion our writer encountered one issue particular to an age-gap relationship – not in the mental or the pop culture space – but the, er, physical space. And that can be harder to navigate….

What are your experiences of an age-gap relationship?