Me and my lover recently broke up because he is going through a mid-life crisis and feels that his youth is slipping away. We were together for 15 years and now I am 40 and he is 41. He wanted to experience the "gay life", bars, clubs, sleeping with younger guys, etc. When he should have been doing all of this experimenting, like in his twenties, he was in a relationship. Well now, he wants to re-live the glory days since he really never lived them. The problem is this: I lived my life. I did all those things when it was age appropiate. To do those things now you look like a aging, middle-aged gay man who is desparate to stay young. By doing this, you look foolish and leave yourself open to be used and taken advantage of because you want so desparately to fit in. Well this is exactly what has happened to him. He met a 26 year old and immediately fell for him. They went out to dinner, dancing, he even lent him some money. They have only known each other for about month and the 26 year old told him from the start that he was not interested in him sexually. Well my friend figuered that he would still hang out with the boy hoping that he would grow on him or he would change his mind. Of course all the boy did was take advantage of him and now my friend is heart broken and called me on the phone crying. I told him this would happen because he is like a fish out of water. I've been around the block a few times. I don't have a problem with him wanting to "eat life". But I don't think that as the X, I should go through this crisis with him. Am I being selfish? Shouldn't we just make a clean break if it instead talking about over and over and over? If this is what he wants, then he should go out and do it whole-heartedly and not keep me as a saftey net everytime things don't work out for him. What should I do?