QUESTION: In August I went to Greece with a bunch of friends. To my amazement, a waiter at our local taverna made it clear he fancied me. The thing is he’s 27, while I’m 51. On the last night things escalated and we ended up having amazing sex. Ever since, we’ve been texting and he’s been begging me to come back. My friends say he just wants to fleece me for money. I know how hackneyed my story appears, but he’s the first man I’ve liked since my divorce and we have a connection. Am I being foolish beyond belief?
ANSWER: Yes, you are being foolish, but we all behave foolishly in affairs of the heart. If I tell you firmly that you shouldn’t book a ticket, will you follow my advice? I doubt it. When people believe they have a connection they tend to follow their intuition.
I don’t like being a doom-monger. For all I know this waiter is your perfect soul-mate - but I’d say the likelihood isn’t high.
For starters, he’s 24 years younger than you, which rarely works outside Joan Collins’s or Madonna’s boudoir. Do you want to be picking up your pension when he’s just reached his prime? Then, as your friends say, there’s the high probability you’re just another notch on his bedstead. Young men who wait tables during the holiday season are not renowned for their constancy.
I think it would be naive to presume that your suitor was meekly living a life of celibacy until you swept him off his feet. You need to recognise the element of fantasy that is nearly always a major factor in holiday romances.
Your rapturous response to courtship was not just about being chatted up by a younger man - it was about being distanced from your day-to-day anxieties. But you do have to ask yourself - with honesty - what he sees in you. If you feel that your material wealth has some appeal then you should acknowledge it and ask yourself this: if you lost everything in an financial scam, would he adore and support you?
The flipside of new technology is that it prolongs some flirtations beyond their natural shelf life. Once upon a time, people left their overseas’ flings under sunny skies. Nowadays, you can text, tweet and email to your heart’s content, and this often gives the illusion that there’s more depth to the relationship than there actually is.
If nothing I have written here deters you, I can only salute your optimism. A friend tells me that while on holiday on the Dalmatian coast this year she met a British woman who was 20 years older than her former fisherman lover, she recommended the arrangement. No one can really understand fully the mysteries of another person’s affair and I certainly can’t tell you, categorically, that this man is a fraud.
Just keep your eyes open and keep in with your friends - you may need their shoulders to weep on in the months ahead. - Daily Mail