As the kids said 900 times in recent birthday speeches about their mother, I’m super competitive. Can’t help it. Yet already I’m feeling a certain ennui amid all the horses and pollies who want to win things. How ace then to find two other contests this week that have floated my boat.
First, my favourite ever servo has been named one of the Top 12 Best Foodvenience Stores in the World! Huge.
Servo in question: APCO Mt Duneed, just outside Geelong. So good that I had my birthday party there last year. The place is like a David Jones Food Hall. Terrazzo floors, butterflied lamb roasts, passionfruit sponges, gourmet cheese. And it also sells petrol. I implore you: go.
Second, Noah Wyle is People magazine’s 2026 Sexiest Man Alive for his turn as Dr Robby in The Pitt.
At 55, he’s the fourth-oldest titleholder. Right in my wheelhouse. My forever pin-up boy is Gene Hackman and I’d probably push my family off a cliff to ride a horse behind Viggo Mortensen dressed as Aragorn.
Common thread: age. Experience. Gravitas.
That’s what got Noah the gig. Not looks. I mean, he’s pleasantly handsome in a tired tadpole way. At least the beard speaks of sea captain capability. And he’s rangy, so he would be easy to take jeans shopping.
We’ve seen him snap on surgical gloves so often since ER days that he looks inherently grown up. Like he’d be good in a crisis. And would wear appropriate shoes to dinner and dance with nans at weddings. Sexy AF.
In the decades I worked at Who magazine when it was the sister publication of People, I was always vocal in the meetings where candidates for the annual Sexiest People issue were debated and chosen.
It was a ruthless process. Looking fine was important but so was character (I never got Steve Buscemi over the line. Bridge too far.) We picked some dashing young men, but well-groomed silver foxes often came up top of the pops.
Noah’s win also fits with a theory I’m tossing around with friends. We wonder if the secret weapon of the sexy older man isn’t silver tinges or well-pressed separates.
It’s being a Wife Guy.
The internet definition of a Wife Guy sounds slightly derogatory: a man whose public persona revolves around praising or showing off his wife.
I see it differently: a man who likes his wife, respects her, talks her up and seems rapt to be married to her.
One who knows men don’t improve with age like wine just by sitting there. Plenty of men just sit there. The ones who get better have usually had someone sanding the edges.
Noah is a Wife Guy. During his Hollywood Walk of Fame speech in April, he said the star also belonged to his wife, Sara: “You are my north, south, east, west.”
On her birthday, he’s said, he takes a moment to watch Sara and feel “so very happy and blessed to be with her” (veering into creepy, but nice too). And he loves making breakfast with her.
Wife Guys are in their 50s at least. They know not to go out wearing something stupid or go nuts with the Just For Men. Wife Guys don’t outwardly yearn to be 20.
They’re secure enough to make fun of themselves and make a cracking off-the-cuff speech. They buy the right burrata. They book optometrist check-ups while the health insurance extras are current.
Wife Guys: George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Kevin Bacon. They have good guy stuff. Future Wife Guy: Prince William. Family man who would be terrific on your tug of war team.
Not Wife Guys: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck. It’s not just the full-length leather coats. It’s the weirdness, the fights with family, the tweaks that make at least one look like a well-groomed midlife lady.
How we’d judge sexy women is a story for another day, but men have an easier run. They disappear into awkward early middle age, do dad stuff then emerge in their 50s better than ever.
Sexy then isn’t the kicky beard. It’s a patina of responsibility. Evidence someone has loved and been loved well and can say it.
Dr Robby, take my pulse, stat.
Kate Halfpenny is an author and the founder of Bad Mother Media.
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