1. The angle makes his head look small.
2. The frown and crossed arms make him look angry.
3. His chest is missing.
4. His belly is emphasized.
5. He looks like a Creepy Old Guy.
Creepy means that your appearance, demeanor, or words make the person looking at you or talking to you feel uncomfortable, but not actually threatened.
A ghost is not creepy. A haunted house that might contain ghosts is.
A man pointing a gun at you is not creepy. A man leering at you is.
But not every man leering at you. Only those who are doing something wrong, introducing the erotic into situations where it is inappropriate.
This guy is aroused, but does not look at all open to sexual activity, thus creepy.
Anybody can be creepy, but I hear it most often about older guys approachng younger.
So here are the rules:
Be comfortable with your physical appearance as a 40, 50, 60, and 70 year old. Don't try to forestall the inevitable changes of age. Own your baldness, wrinkles, and grey beard.
2. Up Your Grooming
Erotic desirability is a combination of attractive traits, which vary from person to person , and the lack of unattractive traits, which don't vary much: nose and ear hair, spotty or irregular head hair, body odor, bad breath, moles, warts, skin tags, liver spots.
As we age, our unattractive traits increase, so we have to be extra careful to eliminate or hide them.
Impeccable grooming and personal hygiene are a must. Shower, shave, shampoo, brush, wash, trim, deodorize.
Being over 40 is no excuse for sagging and bloating. You lose a little muscle mass as you age, but if you keep up a weight training routine, the loss is negligible. Just switch from the free weights to the machines, and decrease your running from 5 miles to 3 miles a day.
But don't hang out in the sauna for hours, turning beet-red and sweating buckets. That's creepy.
NO baseball caps of any kind, ever.
5. Don't Try to be Down with Contemporary Culture. Are you familiar with the Angry Birds, Travis Scott, Minecraft, Chris Hemsworth, the phrase "on fleek", or whatever is the new "now"? If you are, fine -- run with it.
If not, don't try. Youth culture changes too fast, and if you make a mistake, you sound ridiculous.
6. But..Don't Show Your Age. A few references to David Cassidy, Ronald Reagan, and the days when there were only three channels on tv ("what's a channel?") are interesting and colorful, but you can quickly turn into Grandpa Simpson. And no coming out stories -- they weren't interesting in the 1980s, and they aren't interesting now.
I suggest current events or timeless references: Shakespeare, Renaissance art, the homoeroticism of ancient Greece. Or just let the young guys talk about what they find interesting.
7. Don't Stare. In the 1980s and 1990s, we hooked up by gazing at the guy we were interested in, staring at them with a frown, like we were overwhelmed and disquieted by a sudden surge of erotic interest.
That is not done anymore. Staring is creepy. The younger generation has substituted eye contact and a friendly smile.
8. Don't Touch. A surreptitious touch on the knee on the shoulder, even a grope, used to be part of the cruising game, distinguishing "friendly" and "erotic" encounters.
No more. The younger generation kisses before touching.
9. Don't Compliment. When you're trying to attract someone, oddly, compliments don't work. They make you appear overeager or insincere.
10. Don't Discuss Sex. In the 1970s and 1980s, every conversation included the terms anal, oral, top, and bottom. No more. Today they like to figure it out for themselves.
Instead, have a pleasant conversation on a topic of timeless interest, and wait to be invited to "hang out."
Once you're alone in a comfortable place, you can let it all hang out.
I borrowed most of these pictures from the excellent "Daddy Worship" tumblr site.
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