Like the new avatar? It’s a characature of the real me! (Everyone trying to imagine guy with bright yellow face and inverted commas for eyes....)

In the last instalment I was 35 and had just had a passionate one night stand with a 21 year old. I wake up next morning sober and desolate. I actually want to turn back the clock. I have really blotted my copy-book now! I have taken my marriage vows, jumped up and down on them and kicked them out of the park. There is no turning back. I can console myself with thoughts like "Aye, well I was really drunk at the time..." and "I didn't want to do it, she forced herself on me" but its not helping. I go home and get a good nights rest and feel better for it. I realise that whilst I am unhappy about what’s happened I am no longer actually depressed. I feel like I am a man again. Meaningless sex has actually cured my depression. Life seems worth living for a while - but I know it isn't going to last. I need to make some important decisions about what happens next.

I think about divorce. I could leave my wife and take up with this new girl. But I suspect this girl’s motives for turning up in my room like that (correctly as it turns out - her father has died 6 months previous and she is having difficulty coping with it). I suspect that if we got together we would be lucky if it lasted 6 months. On the other hand there is a small possibility it could work out in which case she would want children and a nice house. But I feel I would have to keep my wife in the manner to which she is accustomed leaving much less for the new set-up and I really don't want to do the baby thing again - I have been, in effect, a single parent for 5 years and I am very close to my kids and there isn't room for any more. I could take up with an entirely different woman, a divorcee that already has kids, and that would be a better option but I still don't like the idea of trading in my own kids for someone else’s. Looking at it from my wife’s perspective she would be really angry. She would use our kids as a weapon making it difficult for me to see them, she would start to fall apart emotionally and our kids would suffer, she would harass me continually and I would feel guilty and have to support her. My family and her family would hate me for it. I would get the blame. I might also find that I have a lot of love left for her, but it is difficult to say as our relationship is so complicated. These problems would crop up even if we just separated and I didn't get involved with anyone else. Divorce simply isn't an option, at least until the kids are grown up.

I feel trapped again. I need to ditch the young girl that is pursuing me as it is becoming a "Fatal Attraction” scenario. Her obsession is actually starting to scare me (I blame the film!) so I string her along for a few months until "out of sight out of mind" works its magic and she forgets about me. I don't feel bad about it because it was purely her decision to get involved in the first place.

I have had my eyes opened by the experience. I notice that a lot of young girls in their early twenties are interested in me, more interested in me than when I was their age. That seems strange, even though I am told I look some 6 years younger than I really am. I notice that boys in their early twenties tend to go up the pub of a Friday night, get completely rat-arsed, throw up in the gutter, pretend they are "hard" and have a really deep gruff voice and pepper every other sentence with "Fuckin' wanka". I start to see why young girls in their early twenties might find a married man in his mid-thirties quite attractive. I have been groomed by my over-assertive wife to be the perfect partner. There is a lot of temptation around, and with my copy book so badly blotted its going to be difficult to keep to the straight and narrow!

But I am still trapped. The best long-term cure for my depression is to find a source of meaningless sex with no strings attached. I surf the web for porn and by accident happen upon a web-site in Argentina for escorts. My God, if you like the girls of Baywatch then Argentina is one hell of a place for a single guy to spend a holiday! These girls are not like the "Band of Gold" girls. They are more like the high class "call-girls" of a Jackie Collins novel - and they really exist! I start to wonder if they exist in the UK too....

... Next instalment - researching the UK punting scene