Most men go through some form of midlife crisis. They want to do and achieve things that they would normally have conquered in their younger days. As they get older, things start to become slower as the world around them goes faster and faster. They begin to realize opportunities they have missed and begin to resent this. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is describing the thoughts that go through the mind of an aging man who is disappointed in how his life has turned.
During the first stanza of the poem, the narrator "Prufrock" comes across a woman that he is sexually attracted to. "Let us go Let us go, through certain half-deserted street, The muttering retreats,Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels." He wants to do things "Of insidious intent" with her. Instead of acting on these thoughts and talking to her, he decides to not approach her at all. Each time he refuses to go up to the woman he repeats to himself "In the room the women come and go,Talking of Michelangelo." This may refer to how man women have come into his life that could have had a chance with had he pursued them, but instead he hesitated and nothing happened with them. Because of this continuation of failing to form a relationship with these women, he brings it upon himself to pretend that something did happen.
He also goes on to imagine what would have happened if he had persuaded these women. "There will be time, there will be time, To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;". He continues to say this mantra of "there will be time, there will be time". There would be time for him to prepare himself before talking to these women and he would have had time to put together the right words and actions to use in those situations. Not only would there be enough time for him, but there would even be enough for the women as well. "Time for you and time for me,".
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