Free Call the Midlife by Chris Evans

A4.
    The highlights of which were:
    Top Ten Golden Nuggets to Keep a Relationship on Track:
10
More compliments.
9
More showing that you care.
8
More helping out.
7
More listening.
6
More replying.
5
More date days/weekends.
4
More proper kisses hello.
3
More proper hugs goodbye.
2
More proper night nights.
1
More of You for more of Them to enjoy.
     
    Who would have thought?
    ‘Not everyone needs therapy,’ Dr H told me. In fact she fairly rails against the idea of serial therapy, ‘just for the sake of it’.
    She thinks it’s a nonsense and a waste of everybody’s time. She considers therapy addicts a nuisance, a drain on her surgery and on the world in general. She is also highly respectful of the fact that different people have different ways of working through their problems and some never need to go to see anyone and figure things out for themselves. It’s very much a case of whatever works for the individuals concerned.
    But the key is, fixes don’t just happen. Things don’t just ‘sort themselves out’. Issues need to be addressed, understood and worked through. If that means going fishing once a week or never going fishing again, so be it.
    That said, I don’t believe there’s anyone in the world who wouldn’t benefit from having someone like Dr H available to them for the odd hour every now and again. Relationships are frustratingly elaborate for a whole host of reasons, but most of all because they consist of two sources of free will instead of one. When we contemplate how much trouble we have managing and understanding ourselves, it’s no wonder things become mind-numbingly complicated when we attempt to try to include and understand someone else as well. So why do we bother?
    Truckloads of conflict with only pipettes of resolution, that’s about the size of it.
    To me the meaning of life is to get life to mean what you want it to mean. Being with someone is not dissimilar. Things don’t have to be justifiable or logical to work. And sometimes things don’t work simply because they’re justifiable or logical.
    I think all the best things in life are like miniature versions of the Big Bang. We may not have the first clue of how they came about, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy every fragment of them born out of the fact that they did.
    And talking of Big Bangs . . .

 
    Sex
    Top Ten Passion Killers:
10
Insecurity.
9
Menopause.
8
Smell.
7
Weight.
6
Food.
5
Alcohol.
4
Tiredness.
3
Worry.
2
Children.
1
Work.
     
    In the locker room of the posh gym I attend there is a daily soap opera of who’s got what wrong with them, why and how. It’s like a competition. One maturing man listening reluctantly and faux-sympathetically to another man’s woes, biding his time till he can retaliate with his own ailment, or attempt to trump all comers. Derek’s floating kneecap took some beating for a while.
    But why are we going to the gym in the first place?
    Simple.
    We want to do all we can to remain attractive and feel sexy. Just in case.
    Anyone who claims otherwise is lying, pure and simple. Sure, it makes us feel good. Sure, it gets all our endorphins racing around. But it’s actually because somewhere in the deepest recesses of our dormant libido there’s a voice whispering, ‘Psst, come on, don’t give up – there’s life in the old dog yet.’
    But the thing is, sex in midlife needs a preservation order slappingon it. They say that one of the many traits we humans share with monkeys is that we are the only two species who have sex primarily for pleasure. I’m not so sure: I suspect the monkeys may be on their own. As the years tick by, I’m only ever more convinced that we humans have agenda-fuelled intercourse.
    By our age, we’ve all had sex when we’re not really in the mood, just as we’ve all been denied sex when we are in the mood. That’s what cups of tea and crosswords are for.
    But the overarching issue, for the vast majority of us, is that sex is an ever-diminishing