The hottest collab: Older women x Younger men
Don't trust the movies on this one. Trust yourself.
After blowing out the last candle on my 35th birthday, I knew I had matriculated into a new grouping of womanhood. Unlike women of a previous generation, I had a lot to look forward to outside of the conventions of marriage, sex with one person forever, and children.
Suddenly, I was going from financial struggle-core to having a decent savings. I ditched hygienically incompatible roommates (and partners) to become my own vassal of my own Brooklyn apartment. Instead of wasting time and money aimlessly bar-hopping, I was prioritizing traveling and living abroad. And I could do it as a single woman. In my thirties. My grandmothers are both fist-bumping me from their graves.
In the past, most women had a much harder time trading in their cherub glow. Our youth used to be our only power. Like expired milk, we were sniffed and ditched when society decided it was time. But that was a looooooong time ago. We are not milk. We are dried fruit. We become sweeter, more flavorful and more shelf-stable than our younger, more supple sisters.
Here’s the best part. This is what we’ve earned from the sufferings of our elders:
Our numerical age no longer matters when it comes to having a profound romantic or sexual life. Because as women of agency who are financially self-reliant, we don’t need to depend on slim pickings for survival. As long as we are self-assured enough to know-KNOW this, dating actually becomes more interesting the older we get.
I’ve been clumsily but happily navigating this new hemisphere for the last few years. Especially now that I’m single again. In my twenties, I had always had older boyfriends. Obviously, this has been the acceptable math since forever in the hetero space. No one ever bats an eye when a hetero woman reveals that her partner is significantly older. The reverse however, still garners a squeal and latent judgement, aka “What’s it like????” “Is it a sex thing???”
Even now in our pseudo-liberal society. We are still flawed in our inability to suspend disbelief that an older woman could co-exist with her younger man. (No thanks to movies, but I’ll get to that later.)
You can’t help who you love, ya know? I’ve fallen for many a younger man in recent years, though not exclusively. I’ve met them at work, online, through friends. Our age gaps have ranged from two to ten years. Some have amounted to longer-term relationships. Some have just been fly-by-night soft-boys I’ll probably fantasize about forever. And some I want to permanently forget. Regardless, I’ve evolved out of any restrictive old-school beliefs around who I’m supposed to love. As convicted sexual abuser R.Kelly once penned for his underaged bride, Aaliyah, “Age ain’t nothing but a number.” I’d like to forget R. Kelly, and in fact, he didn’t invent this age-old adage. It’s been afforded to men since the beginning of time. And in the past few decades, women have boldly entered the chat and are singing this at the top of their lungs.
Last night, my friend Jason put me onto a movie called Prime starring Uma Thurman, some actor named Bryan Greenberg, and Meryl Streep. It’s a “rom com” directed by the guy who directed Boiler Room. (Red flag.) The storyline is this: 37-year-old successful New Yorker (Uma) meets 23-year-old man (Bryan), who happens to be her therapist’s (Meryl) son. One major incongruity eventually rob this very-much-in-love couple their happily-ever-after ending. And it’s not *really* because of their age difference.
They’re presented as a mismatch from the get-go, in age, aesthetics, and their economic circumstances. But none of this creates a wedge in their ability to get along. They have fun together, are vulnerable with each other, have great sex, like the same art (LOL ROTHKO specifically—I didn’t say the movie wasn’t cheesy); they like dancing and going out for sushi. Or rather, she introduces him to sushi and he likes it. But the catch is … Uma’s character wants a baby DESPERATELY. Annnnnd Bryan at 23 “obviously” doesn’t know what he wants, says everyone around him but him. If this were real life, they’d probably be right. But also in real life, not everyone at 37 knows what they want either. Not every woman at 37 wants a baby.
SPOILER ALERT: Ultimately, they don’t end up together. I was gutted. I sobbed.
But first, let me set this ending up for you. Second to final scene: They’re naked in bed. The 23-year-old has decided he wants to be with Uma forever, and that he wants to “give” her a baby. She’s like, “Skrrrrt.”
Then she says, mid coital, “You’re not ready to be a baby daddy. But the fact that you want to is the best gift anyone has given me” or some shit like that. And then fast forward to a year later, they’re not together anymore. He goes back to a restaurant to retrieve his hat and coincidentally sees her through a restaurant window cajoling with another older couple and a fuddy duddy older man. Viewers are left to assume that she’s traded the younger dude for someone who’s more age appropriate to “give” her a baby. Which is the only thing she wants. Apparently.
She sees him. They exchange glances and forced smiles through the window, eyes glimmering with longing and sadness. He waves, then turns and walks away.
The ending fucked with my cautious optimism around dating younger men. Here I was feeling imbued with more life, more joy, and the ability to saunter into my self-actualized older woman era —with any bae I want regardless of my age. Here I am, finally ripping off the sexist and agist chains of outdated conservatism, defying the once-accepted, VERY SUFFOCATING pieties of ye olden days. Here I was looking way hotter than my mom did at my age because she was too busy chasing after a baby and trying to be good housewife.
And this movie from 2005, directed by a guy, pours acid all over my freshly-planted grass. Apparently, this movie (and most movies) are progressive enough to talk about the older woman and younger man pairing. But, they like to remind us that the likelihood of that pairing working out is zilch. And then in real life, even when this pairing DOES work, we fuck that up too. The media, while praising the French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte for being awesome, likes to also remind us how philanthropic he is for loving her. Because she’s old/older. Because the older we get, it becomes an act of good will when people look our way, right?
So I sobbed for Uma’s character. For Bryan’s character. And I sobbed for me and all the other women LIKE me, are still being gaslit to believe that our very natural inclinations to be who want, be WITH whoever we want, is just responsibility avoidance and escapism. That these kind of unconventional pairings always end up in flames somehow.
Published author and dating coach Susan Winter (who specializes in topics around older women and younger men) says, “Barriers that limit love are crumbling. Whether racial, religious, or gender-based; love is what matters. And the freedom to love, should know no boundaries.” It’s true. Rather than look to cinema and the outdated tropes being peddled, I look at what’s more topical: our younger generation of daters. My younger friends are flex when it comes to gender, relationship intent, sexuality, and yes, age. While some of my same-aged and older friends still liken dating younger men to being a promiscuous fantasy/search term on Porn Hub. Or worse, that these younger men can’t give us what we want. There’s an assumption we all want the same things at some point. Well, we don’t.
From my own experience, the more self assured I become, what I want shifts too. I’m personally less concerned about having babies.
Nowadays, I want a friend in my romantic partners. I want stability. I want to be with someone who isn’t jaded by life. I want to be adored. I want to be with someone I adore.Age does not guarantee any of this. Age doesn’t determine’s one’s emotional maturity. One’s life experiences and openness to change are the most effective catalysts, in my opinion.
Importantly, movies and books and the media only offer limited narratives meant to entertain. Learning and knowing by doing is so much more fun anyway. And with my 38th birthday fast-and-furiously approaching, I’ll continue welcoming all of the impossibilities. Because nothing is impossible or something like that.
I’ll also welcome the realer-life ending that Prime doesn’t offer us. It’s one where Uma’s character freezes her eggs (because obviously, she still wants the baby possibility to be available to her.) And then, afterwards, she remembers this really nice connection she had with a great guy who just happens to be way younger. And decides to give it a shot anyway.
My mom is 4 years older than my dad!