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I go to the gym and, of course, I notice the beautiful, young women. The many beautiful, young women of taut form, natural sheening manes and burnished, creaseless skin.

I notice, but I try not to let them register too much.

I’m a 52 year-old man. I realize these beautiful, young women aren’t for me. They are youthful and gorgeous. I am not. Yet, I am neither bitter nor spiteful. Just as, along with my age, I have lost much of my hair. Yet, I am neither bitter nor spiteful of my scalp. These are simply things we must accept. Over time, things necessarily pass us by.

I know other men my age who go to the gym, primarily to leer – sometimes discretely, sometimes not – at these beautiful, young women.

Some tell themselves it’s not the reason they’re there, but I believe it is.

Some of these men talk to me. That’s how I know. Or believe that I know.

They talk about all the different young women. They fill me with details about their appearance today, yesterday, even weeks and months ago.

Most often, I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.

Of course, I notice, but I don’t want it to register. I don’t want it to sink in. I don’t want the details to linger.

I tell myself it’s a matter of discipline, this not knowing. This not registering.

I tell myself it’s akin to a child going down the toy aisle of a department store.

A child upset that, during each visit, it can’t have one of the new toys it sees on the shelf.

That child going home, frustrated and discontent whenever it can’t have a new toy.

I tell myself I am the parent, for the sake of herself as well as the child, barring the child from the toy aisle.

What the child does not see, the child does not long for. And, without that longing, there is no prolonged frustration or protracted discontent.

I tell myself, I must be the parent to my inner child, longing for what I cannot have.

I tell myself not to wish or long for them.

I tell myself these beautiful, young women will soon become mothers and wives with careers. There will be strenuous demands put upon them. There will be tests. Some they may pass. Some they may fail. In any case, it will be difficult. Some will flourish, while some will break.

And some day they too will become the women that most of these leering men pay little attention to.

Yes, these young women may be admired from afar for their beauty, but so much more lies ahead. Things unknown to them or me. Strenuous demands and difficulties that their sheer beauty cannot resolve. I wish them well.

I can admire their beauty from afar without much desire. It feels like a relief. And that is where I wish to be. That is who I wish to be. Like many other man, I sometimes fail. But it’s mostly where I am and who I believe myself to be.

Then again, does a man’s lust for what he cannot have cause him that much harm?

Do these attempts at tempering all that blind lust do me that much good?

The proof is in the pudding.

Where has it gotten me?

Anywhere?

If my attention is not on the beautiful, young women, then where is it?

What fills that gap?

A petty sense of superiority to men of such vulgar and juvenile attentions?

Is the void filled with anything of use?

Or just tinkerings that lead to this?

If so, what a fucking joke.