Satisfaction

The great-grandparents are visiting this weekend to meet the bambina. One of the things they wanted to do was check out the website www.realagetest.com to see what it was about. The site asks you questions about your health and lifestyle and then tells you what your *real* age is compared with your chronological age. So, good doobie that I am, I offered to pull it up and let them take a look on my laptop. I was ready to hand over my laptop to let them take the test when they said, “No, you go ahead and do it.” I figured I had nothing to lose and so got started.

I was feeling all smug about getting through the vitamins/non-smoking/seat-belt wearing questions and finding out that I was 1.2 years younger than my chronological age. Yippee Skippy for me. Until we reached the next section. Any idea where this is heading? Questions about “lifestyle” and “habits”? Yeah.

“Are you satisfied with your current sex life?”
“What type of contraception, if any, do you currently use?”
“Do you feel fulfilled sexually by your partner?”

Oh Dear G-d. What do I write? How do I answer? Should I skip it? But by skipping it do I make it obvious that I’m embarrassed? If I make a joke do I look too flippant? And in making that joke, how do I ride that line between Finding It Funny and Pretending Not to Know Too Much About the Subject Matter? Oh Dear God Help Me! What do I do?!!!

I ended up blurting something like, “What?! Does good sex keep you young or something?! Those are some pretty personal questions!” and skipping them entirely, but not before just cringing mightily at the totally heinous embarrassment of it all. Luckily I clicked through it so quickly that they were probably unaware of the full weight of the questions. But they definitely saw the “are you satisfied” question. CRINGE!!!

As I thought about it later, I realized that my entire career as a development (as in fundraising, not tech) professional was predicated on my ability described above to laugh at dirty jokes, but not so hard that I gave any indication of knowing what at all they were talking about. I used to deal with so many 60-something men with vast financial resources who liked nothing more than to be piggish frat boys in front of a young-ish woman who was about to ask them for money. I think it was a power thing. Or maybe more of a d**khead thing. Either way, I was walking out of there with a $50,000 check and my pride intact. And all it took was a strategically-modulated laugh that said, “wow, you are so funny even if I have no idea what you are talking about, you big, virile, attractive older man!” BLEAAAH.

In case you're wondering, my "real age" was 28.5. Until answering questions about my sexual fulfillment in front of respected elders added about a decade in stress!