This is going to sound very odd, but it’s something which occurred to me yesterday and has disheartened me somewhat since.

I am no longer attractive to young girls.

Wait. Read that again, and note I wrote attractive, not ‘attracted’. Not being attracted to young girls would be a cause for celebration, until you realise I said ‘no longer’. And then you’d call the police.

Let’s get back to the point. Just a few years ago I was young, fit and didn’t look like a crack addict; and, as such, girls a few years younger than me got all giggly in my presence – some even declaring that they wanted to marry me. And, despite it being a bit odd, a compliment’s a compliment, and I took it.

But those days are gone. Nowadays I wear jeans which are so worn they have developed a huge rip in the crotch, so much so that if I sit with my legs open the resultant view essentially classes as indecent exposure. So I sit with my thighs clamped together and, because it’s convenient, my hands on my knees.

I wear comfortable shirts, which are often shades of blue or grey, soft cotton which is nudged by my moobs and ever-expanding gut. I have a cardigan which it takes all my strength not to button up. And sometimes I don’t bother to style my hair, so it sits proudly atop my scalp, stuck in all directions like I’ve been licking a Van de Graaf generator.

It’s no wonder, really, that I’m repulsive to the opposite sex, regardless of what age they are. Heck, now and again out of the corner of my eye I even catch my wife looking me up and down with the same expression you get when you’ve stepped in a dog turd. Maybe it’s time to throw out the grey and crack open the Brylcreem before my belt passes my nipples or my crotch is replaced by a hanging slab of fat – whichever comes first.