relationship, again. I don’t have that desire,” Fonda tells the magazine.

But just because she doesn’t want to be in a relationship doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her fair share of fantasies, particularly one that involves a younger man.

“Do I fantasize? Yes, here’s my fantasy. I’ll just put it out there,” she says. “That I meet a professor or a researcher, somebody in that line who is really capable of loving, of cherishing a woman, so that I could test myself and see if I could show up. I think maybe now I could, but the problem is that, like a man, I would want a younger man. Isn’t that awful? It’s a thing about skin. I would want a younger man, and I’m too vain.”

Jane Fonda in Harper’s Bazaar
Mario Sorrenti
One of the reasons the Fire Drill Fridays head is steering clear of a relationship is she’s learned that she’s not capable of intimacy at this time in her life.

“One of the painful things that I’ve realized by 80 — I don’t even know how old I am — 83, and single now. What I’ve had to really think about is that I’m not really capable [of intimacy],” Fonda reveals. “It’s not them. It’s me. If a guy had come along and said, ‘Come on, Fonda, show up,’ I would have run away scared. I was attracted to men who never would have done that to me because they couldn’t necessarily show up themselves. I didn’t know that at the time, but now I know. I don’t think I can do anything about it now, but that’s the truth, as Lily [Tomlin] would say. That’s the truth.”

Though single now, Fonda was most recently married to CNN founder Ted Turner from 1991 to 2001. She says ultimately the need to want to please her husband was the problem.

“When I married Ted — I mean, marrying Ted is like marrying 15 people — you have to learn how to hunt, so I did. You have to learn how to fly-fish, so I did. He liked me to dress sexy, so I did. And so forth. I wanted to,” she explains. “Why be with Ted Turner if you’re not going to allow yourself to be absorbed in his reality and learn from it? And I’m glad I did.”