Two of my friends who are my age who were in relationships with younger women. When I was doing my dating app experiment two years ago, both suggested that I get a prescription for Viagra. In private conversations, each told me how it helped them and also eliminated their performance anxieties.
I didn’t have any anxieties about performance until my friends confessed theirs to me. During my marriage, ED was never an issue for me. (I wasn’t immune to occasional “failures”, but these were rare.)
But, my friends got me thinking about how embarrassed I’d be if I had the opportunity for sex and couldn’t perform. Since I hadn’t had sex with a woman other than my wife for over 3 decades, I didn’t want to take that chance.
So I got a prescription for the little blue pill.
My friend suggested I do a dry run test before actually using the pill with a partner, so I could see how it affected me. He also gave me a full rundown of when he took a pill, how it worked for him, timing, etc.
I didn’t try the dry run. But I did take the pill once, anticipating I’d be invited by a date to spend the night.
To my chagrin, I totally misread that date. I wasn’t invited.
I had taken the pill on an empty stomach about 30 minutes before our date. Within a few minutes my entire head and neck was flushing a bright red, as if I was going to have a heart attack. My sinuses clogged up. My head and face felt hot.
During our meal, I was embarrassed because I knew how red my face was. I made up some excuse about being windburned while walking the dog. I have no idea if she bought my excuse or had dated other men who used the blue pill and had seen this before.
I felt uncomfortable. The date was fine. Not being invited back to her place was a big disappointment. The side effects of the pill I described about were uncomfortable enough that I thought, “I’ll never take one of these again unless I absolutely need it”.
As any regular reader of this blog knows, I never needed it because I quit dating.
I only bring this up because when I did my big purge last week I came across a bottle of my pills. I kept them for two years, just in case. After all, you never know…right?
Wrong.
I know.
- I have no opportunities.
- I don’t have an ED problem.
- I hate the side effects.
So I threw the bottle away.
Now I don’t have to be reminded of my dating failures whenever I open the medicine cabinet. Nor do I have to worry about the side-effects of the pill or looking like a red-faced lobster.
For what it is worth, if I ever do experience an ED problem, I wouldn’t hesitate to try this or one of the competing medications. I was grateful my friends did not hesitate to discuss this with me. That was opening themselves up in a way I hadn’t expected.
And that, my friends, is the real reason I wrote this post. If you need a little help from a little blue pill, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. And if you don’t, good for you.