My friends and I had positioned ourselves in the low-ceilinged bar strategically, at a long table with candelabras and vases of overflowing peonies, that ran along the length of a corridor from the main entrance to the warren of spaces beyond. As people walked past, our group—a mix of women in their 30s and 40s—checked them out for flirting purposes, and this was mostly entertaining until one of my friends of similar age and I shared a glance. Everyone was beautiful, but about 15 to 20 years too young for us.
It’s a common lament for women in their 40s, whether you’re in a queer space, as we were, or somewhere hetero. “Everyone here is too young,” I said, and another woman at the table—a 30-something I’d only just met—offered a phrase that always feels a bit like eating a cake with a fly garnishing it: “You don’t look your age, though!”
The others joined in with other similarly well-intentioned comments, but as I tried to explain to them, my friend and I weren’t being self-deprecating, and we certainly didn’t lack confidence. Rather, dating younger people holds little interest because the things we are attracted to—such as wisdom, self-awareness and humour—are things that tend to get better as someone gets older. I want someone who is sure of themselves, not someone who is still roaming a hall of mirrors searching for their real self.
But also, telling women older than you that they don’t look their age doesn’t just have inherent ageism baked into it; the assumption that ageing is bad so we’ll be delighted in being told we look younger. It’s the way I am made to gargle the flattering words that I look good for my age, and regurgitate gratitude. I have no interest in cosplaying as a younger person. I was neurotic in my 20s, and in my 30s felt as though I should be wise but wasn’t. In my 40s, I feel more confident in advocating for myself, I go to bed when I want to, I eat when I want to, and I work on what I want to. The amount of experience under my belt feels like a superpower, and I have no desire to exchange a single year of it.
If we hadn’t been at the bar in order to flirt, I probably would’ve suggested that examining and interrogating these sorts of instinctively trotted-out phrases, which are connected to deeply-rooted beliefs, could be a worthwhile exercise. Not just for some lofty goal of helping to dismantle ageism, but because at some point these women will be confronted with it themselves.
Another friend pointed out that being told I look good for my age was meant to be a compliment, and I replied, “That’s like a man saying ‘great tits’ and scolding you for being offended.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: vogue.in
