How to Fall in Love When You’re a Twice-Divorced Middle-Aged White Guy and a Queer, Sex Worker Artist and Neither of You Are Looking for Anything Serious

By Ryan-Ashley Anderson and Kevin Maloney

🌶️ SPICY CONTENT AHEAD! 🌶️

HIM: Move in with your mother. Reassure yourself, “It’s only temporary.” Tell anyone who will listen, “No, seriously. I’m going to get my own apartment any day now.” Remember: what you lack in your current housing situation, you make up for with the I.D.G.A.F. attitude of one who has twice retained attorneys for the purpose of dividing his earthly possessions. This is hot. Everyone has been divorced once, but Two-Divorce Club is an elite tier. It says, “Nothing matters anymore. No seriously. This is all an illusion.” With this in mind, leave the house, your mother’s house, and go out into the world. Walk around with your big broken heart. Be destroyed and confident. Tell anyone who will listen, “I’m 47. I live with my mother. It’s fine. Nothing scares me anymore.”

 

HER: Get into a relationship with an unemployed musician almost twenty years your senior who spends everyday mixing music, every night going out to see music, and no time at all sucking or fucking your pussy or telling you how hot you are. Begin the relationship when you are at your most vulnerable – right after moving across the country, breaking up with a woman who let you fist-fuck her, and convalescing your dog who lost an eye after getting hit by a pickup truck right outside your house – so you’re too defeated to ask for more and too tired to leave once you discover what a POS he is.

 

HIM: Go to literary events and indie rock shows. Stand confidently among the 27-year-olds. When one of them asks, “Are you famous?” (because the only reason he can imagine a 47-year-old at a show full of 27-year-olds is that you are the retired guitarist from the Melvins or the Screaming Trees), say, “I’m a writer. I’m famous-ish in a very small community loosely associated with the words ‘indie lit.’ I have 3,000 followers on Twitter. I’m like a well-known Spock impersonator at a Star Trek convention.” When the 27-year-old looks disappointed, say, “Also, I used to be in a band called the Screaming Trees. We were big in the 90s.” Note the blank look in his eyes and realize that he has no idea who that is.

 

HER: Spend 10 months breaking up with and getting back together with this man and, just when you think things are finally smoothing out, break up again … then get back together again. Then sort of move in together. Move out. Resolve yourself to a banal routine which includes reading together from a book called Fight Right which makes you want to pull your hair out. Feel the anger and resentment welling up like lava coming to life in an extinct volcano because who the hell is he to talk about “fighting right” after all this time, and all those awful things he’d said, and all the lies. Decide to break up but keep dating, monogamously, but just not as a couple. When people ask what’s going on, say, It’s complicated, and wish that Facebook relationship status updates were still a thing. Miss MySpace. Start pulling tarot cards and consulting Co-Star about the things you should do and not do each day. Hope that it tells you to end your relationship. Get disappointed when, instead, it tells you to shout your feelings from the rooftop.

 

HIM: Tell all your friends, “I’m never dating anyone ever again. I’m in my wizard phase.” When they ask what that means, say, “It’s complicated.” Start a Wizard Phase. Retrieve your tarot deck from the storage unit. Not that storage unit, the other one. Promise yourself to consolidate storage units before people start thinking you’re a drug dealer or a serial killer. Reinstall the Co–Star app, which you stopped using during your 4-year depressing marriage when you were the opposite of whatever a wizard is. Act on the Dos and Don’ts even though they are ambiguous and silly and generated by AI. Sleep with the windows open. When the moon is full and owls perch in the trees outside, record their calls in your Merlin app. Discover that they are barred owls. Say, “I thought so.”


HER:
Start branching out to distract yourself from your not-relationship. Do more sex work because connecting, even superficially and transactionally with other humans who appreciate you, helps fill the void. Offer to help with promo and production for a local showcase run by a narcissist who immediately starts gaslighting you about compensation, insisting on more and more of your time, and generally making you feel like shit. Start to feel like your lot in life is to be exploited, betrayed, and sucked dry. Thank God for all your sexwork clients who both PAY for your time and also thank you gratuitously for this very important work you do. Head to the show – you will put in your notice after tonight – and, despite yourself, put on a smile and a positive attitude. At some point in the evening, notice a very tall long-haired, red-headed anarchist looking giant in a ripped up jean jacket standing toward the back of the room next to the entrance, and wonder whether he would be into sucking, fucking, and telling you how hot you are. Make up a reason to walk past him toward the exit – water, more water – and notice how eager he is to hold the door for you. Make a point not to talk to him, then go home and do not think about him. 

 

HIM: Attend a showcase named after a tropical fruit because your friends’ band is playing, the one that had that song blow up on Spotify last summer. Stand toward the back, sipping beer, hoping that no one mistakes you for a retired grunge guitarist. Notice a woman walking in and out of the room. Try not to notice how hot she is. Open the door for her every time. Make eye-contact. Remember that you are never dating anyone ever again. Pretend things aren’t happening in some cold, dark part of you that definitely died and isn’t open for business anymore. Don’t talk to her. Contract Covid at this showcase. Lay in bed for ten days, eating chicken soup and ramen and Khao soi, watching the Criterion Channel, interpreting this illness as the Universe’s way of punishing you for accidentally letting yourself feel things in some cold, dark part of you that definitely died and isn’t open for business anymore. 

 

HER: Stop drinking. Maybe if you’re not floating through this terrible non-relationship in a tequila haze, you will be able to see how bad things are and force yourself to fully, finally, be done. Put in your notice at the venue because fuck being exploited by men but ESPECIALLY fuck being exploited by other women and get ready for your very last show. Wonder if you will see the red-headed anarchist again. Feel yourself getting wet. Wish you had worn panties with better coverage. Be grateful for low lights, dark denim, and strong kegels. 

 

HIM: Test negative for Covid. Venture back out into the world, but only tentatively. Stick to outdoor venues unlikely to give you infectious diseases or feelings. Avoid women. Avoid doorways in general. Notice an advertisement for the show that got you into trouble last time. Make plans to be busy that night, but don’t actually make plans. At the last second, say, “I’ll just pop in for a minute.” Stand near the doorway, but tell yourself it’s for non-door-opening reasons. When you notice her across the room, don’t notice how good she looks. When she’s about to walk through the doorway, say, “Just this once.” A minute later, break this promise. When the show ends and she approaches you with a mutual friend and makes a perfectly-timed, disparaging joke about your hometown—the exact sort of humor that erodes your willpower, your wizardry, and your defenses—say, “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.”

 

HER: Notice the red-headed anarchist is back. Find yourself tagging along with a friend to say hi. Introduce yourself. Capture his interest by making a dig at his sleepy hometown by asking, Isn’t that where AARP hosts their annual conference? Wait until you get home to follow him on Instagram, and make sure not to spend too much time looking at his profile. Notice you have a new D.M. Check it. Smile uncontrollably while reading, I don’t know what your situation is, but I’d love to take you out for drinks. Feel a cold stone in your stomach. Your not-boyfriend has NEVER offered to take you out for drinks. Remember how he took you to a fucking counter-service taco place for your birthday dinner and then expected you to buy HIM drinks that evening. Allow this memory to fuel your strength to end this not-relationship for good so you can make room for something to bloom with this hot, anarchist red-head that you can’t stop thinking about.

 

HIM: Find her on Instagram. Comment on her post. When she responds to your comment almost instantaneously, slide into her DMs. Tell her, “I don’t know what your situation is, but…” Discover there IS a situation. Feel sad for about five seconds, then notice how quickly she responds to your messages. Remember that you are a published author, famous-ish in a very small community loosely associated with the words ‘indie lit.’ Summon all those powers to be charming as fuck. When she texts you 10 digits instead of a regular reply to your DM, be confused for a full minute before realizing it’s her phone number. When you text her for the first time, not via Instagram DM, but on your actual phones with all those blue and gray bubbles, pause for a second because this is the beginning of something that is about to become a HUGE FUCKING THING.

 

HER: Remind yourself that you are in a relationship, however dwindling it may be, and that the last thing you need right now is to start liking somebody else and, anyway, remember that your pussy has been closed for business for so long that you’re probably a virgin again and who wants to have THAT conversation at 37? But even beyond that, fuck men!!!!! What you really need right now is to suck yourself drunk on some big, soft, beautiful breasts, and fall asleep with a post-coitousely dripping wet pussy pressed against your leg. What a dream. Consider laying off everything and everyone, including your current not-boyfriend and this maybe future boyfriend whose hair you want to bury yourself into like a baby bird who doesn’t want to leave the nest. 

 

HIM: Make plans to get together for a non-date. Suggest drinks. When she suggests instead that she gives you dancing lessons in her apartment, play it cool. When you show up and knock on her door and she answers wearing a striped shirt tucked into tight jeans using the “French tuck” method (a term you learned from watching Queer Eye), notice that, by the light of day she is even better looking than you remembered. Repeat your refrain from the other day: “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.” Dance with her in her kitchen. Die. Go to the Underworld. Travel on mythic rivers and meet dead spirits from ancient times. Tell them about your predicament, about this woman and the doorway and Beaverton jokes and how you just wanted to be a wizard, but then she decided to give you a dancing lesson in her kitchen. Watch the ancient spirits shake their heads slowly and say, “Dude. You’re fucked.”

 

HER: Promptly start going on wholesome not-dates with the anarchist that include things like outdoor concerts, two-step dance lessons in your kitchen, and dimly-lit literary readings. Discover he actually is kind of an anarchist but, thankfully, he’s the realistic kind who understands the best way to change the system is from the inside (aka, he makes a paycheck doing the least financially reproductive job possible – freelance creative work – and uses those funds to subsidize his creative work while investing in other artists and writers). Bond over your love of food and hate for capitalism. Confess on one of those early non-dates that, in addition to your creative work, you also do digital sex work, enjoy being called a “good girl” in bed, and are looking for someone who gives Daddy energy. Why not ask for everything as they say. Men get it all, so why can’t you?

 

HIM: Go to a country show together. When she whispers in your ear that she does digital sex work, notice that the way she entrusts you with this information feels intimate. Not threatening or scary. Go to another country event, this time at a farm. Sit on lawn chairs. Be charming and compliment her. Try to act coy when she says, “You’re so smooth.” Realize that, at age 47, living with your mother, twice divorced, with nothing left to lose, you actually are smooth. When she tells you she’s into Daddy energy, realize that even though you are an artist and you hate capitalism and the patriarchy and you are trying to be a good feminist, that in some core part of you, all you’ve ever wanted is to take care of a woman who is smart and capable and funny and knows how to make perfectly-timed, disparaging jokes about your hometown and doesn’t need to be taken care of, but wants to be anyway. Listen to old folk music on the drive home together while birds fly across the pink summer sky. Want to kiss her. Don’t kiss her. Two weeks later, get tangled up together. Completely. Wholly. Get matching tattoos. Become reckless in ways that have enormous consequences, because you are 47 years old and fuck it.


HER: Learn that the anarchist red-head totally supports you making money giving JOI, that he wants nothing more than to call you a good girl, and that he definitely gives Daddy energy. And just when you think it can’t get any better, discover that he has a big, hard cock, that he likes the way you write, and that he wants to spend every day for the rest of his life filling you with cum, because he’s 47-years-old, twice-divorced, and, according to him, “fuck it.” Twelve hours later, pull a Tarot card about new beginnings, break up once and for all with your non-boyfriend, and go public with your new boyfriend.  Sign your soul over to the devil under a full moon for the chance to breed with this massive stud, get matching blood drop tattoos to seal the deal, and shout your feelings from the rooftop.

 

Ryan-Ashley Anderson is a queer, neurodivergent writer, artist, and sex worker. She earned a BFA in Creative Writing from UNC-A, and is currently enrolled in a dual-degree masters program at PNCA, studying Critical Theory and Art. When she is away from her desk, out of the studio, and taking a break from JOI, you can find her knitting, hanging with her tiny cat and one-eyed dog, and having actual sex with her very hot and talented partner, Kevin Maloney.

Kevin Maloney is the author of Cult of Loretta, The Red-Headed Pilgrim, and the forthcoming story collection Horse Girl Fever. When he isn’t building websites and watching trashy reality TV, you can find him walking five short blocks (he couldn’t find anything closer in his price range) to the apartment of his very hot and talented partner, Ryan-Ashley Anderson.

Next
Next

Bonfire Boys