Ask Virginia
virginia ironside
Q
I’m too fat for him
Over lockdown, I have put on an enormous amount of weight. This has made me less attractive to my partner, or so he says. He’s quite apologetic about it, but he says he’s always only fancied slim women and there’s nothing he can do about it. But surely this can’t be true. If he loved me, wouldn’t he want to make love to me whatever shape I was? We always used to have a very good sex life. Fiona B, Wantage You can love someone without fancying them sexually. I don’t think you know how men’s minds work when it comes to sex. Some men can put physical attractiveness to one side; some fancy anything with breasts and a skirt. And, honestly, if your husband were suddenly to turn into a waddling person with a fat face and fingers like Cumberland sausages, would you want to make love to him? Men and women are differently constructed and it’s possible for women to have sex just by lying back. Men have to get an erection before anything happens. I’d start trying to lose weight and think of it as an act of love and kindness; not an act of subjugation. I bet your husband misses your sex life just as much as you do.
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What’s your name again?
Q
I’m finding I’m forgetting everyone’s name. Sometimes this comes over me with people I know quite well. I try to muddle through a conversation and sometimes I remember, but often I can be saying goodbye without having a clue who they are. Is it too bad-mannered to admit it? B G, Oxford
A
I think just to say, baldly, that you haven’t a clue who they are is a bit humiliating for the other person. It implies they’re unmemorable – and when it turns out it’s perhaps the mother of someone your child was at school with, to whom you were quite close, it can be upsetting. What I’ve been known to do – and forgive me if it sounds horribly calculating and greasy – is to touch them on the shoulder or hold their hand (physical contact is important) and say ‘You must forgive me but I can’t even remember my own name these days … all I know is that you’re really nice and I like you very much. It’s just your name that’s slipped my mind.’ It is always amazing how everyone, including myself, laps up flattery, however over the top it is.
Happy to be childless
Q
Why do you dismiss Tessa G’s daughter’s wish to be child-free and say that a 30-year-old ‘has no idea what she wants’? Really? I think you are being very unfair on her mother by giving her false hope. I knew from the age of 11 that having a child was not for me. It has nothing to do with who we’ve met or who we might meet – being a mother does not depend on having a partner. In future, please treat people’s views with a bit more respect and don’t dismiss them. Paula, by email ‘Being a mother does not depend on having a partner’? Of course it does. We are not like seahorses, animals that can reproduce without any input from another. We do depend on another’s input – and I think that’s right. On the whole, women do get pregnant. This woman’s daughter might
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ISSN 0965-2507. Printed in England by Walstead Group. Distributed by Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT; www.seymour.co.uk The Oldie is published by Oldie Publications Ltd, Moray House, 23/31 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PA
98 The Oldie Spring 2022
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have been saying this in a fit of anger with her mother, knowing how much she wanted a grandchild – we have no idea. None of us can predict the future.
Care without a carer
Q
My mother is getting a bit frail and I’m very keen on her having someone to live in as a carer – she lives in a big enough house. But she is adamant that she doesn’t need a carer. She says they’d be under her feet all day. So far she’s already fallen once and no one found her till six hours later. She is so obstinate – what can I do? Name and address supplied You could beg her to wear a button round her neck so that, if she did fall, she could just press it and help would come immediately. Look on Google to find one that suits her, such as Careline. Alternatively, why doesn’t she just get a lodger, like Helpful Housemates (unityliving.co.uk)? These are just like ordinary, rent-paying lodgers, but they pay less rent to give their employer five hours of care a week if they need it. I have a Helpful Housemate and mine is rather like a husband from the 1950s – he fixes everything from blocked pipes to computer problems and puts in light bulbs that are too high now for me to reach and so on. And he gets my shopping if I have Omicron etc. Otherwise he’s completely independent, working on a degree and quite often working normally at a job nearby – and not intrusive at all. It works out very well.
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