I've been dating an amazing man for a year. He's considerate, funny, sexy, affectionate, intelligent, and successful. He makes me feel like the most important thing in the world, we laugh and talk for hours, and I never thought sex could be so amazing. The problem? He's 53 and I'm 27. And no, I'm not looking for a father figure. He looks 40 and is in better shape than most 30-year-olds. He has the most wonderful family, but two of his four kids are about my age, which makes me uncomfortable. I wonder what it’ll be like if we have kids, worry that I’ll end up alone, and dread the constant comments over the years, “Oh, is that your father?” and “I guess you found your sugar daddy.”
--Age Fright
Okay, it is kind of a drag to have both a baby and a husband in diapers. This could happen to you -- but only if you toss your eggs and his sperm into Ziploc baggies in some fertility doctor’s freezer, and grow a fetus in a Mason jar when you’re 60 and he’s 86. On the plus side, think of all the great stories the old man could tell the kid about his own childhood -- back when people were discovering fire and inventing the wheel.
Aging isn’t what it used to be, and not just because plastic surgeons are crossing people’s jowls over their backs and tacking them to their shoulder blades. So, numerically, your boyfriend’s got 26 years on you. These days, there are 65-year-old punks on skateboards -- although there’s occasionally some confusion as to whether wanting a joint means being in the mood for pot or in need of a new knee.
Sure, the day may come when “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” because he’s had a colostomy, when “Abs of Steel” become abs of a Shar-Pei, or when you no longer put on fishnet thigh-highs to play nursie, because he generally isn’t awake while you’re emptying his bedpan. Then again, there are obese, chain-smoking, “age-appropriate” men whose hearts give out at 40 from rigorous sex -- not having it, just thinking about it.
Maybe youth really is wasted on the young, since it takes a much older man to truly appreciate a hot young girlfriend: “Yeah, baby…who’s yer Granddaddy?!” What does a 27-year-old guy have that your boyfriend doesn’t? Probably a lot of confusion about who he is and what he wants, and a driving ambition to sort it out -- even if it means staying up all night doing Jell-O shots and having sex with your best friend.
If you've found a love like this you're in the minority -- or a fictional character in a Nora Ephron movie (check under your bed for Rob Reiner if you’re unsure). There are those who will snidely refer to your relationship as “Antiques Roadshow”; especially women your boyfriend’s age who wish they could have a sugar daddy, and men your boyfriend’s age who wish they could be one. If you’re going to let others dictate how you live, why not make it official? Go up to strangers on the street and say, “Got any problems with me dating the old dude? Because if you do, I’ll just stay home and watch CSI.” What will make your relationship less of a news item is how you react. Do you cower while people conduct whispering campaigns speculating on your ulterior motives? Or, do you cut them off mid-whisper and state your ulterior motives loud and clear: “Who cares about his money? I’m just using him for sex.” December 12, 2005
I’ve been in a relationship with a lovely woman for two years. Six months ago, she gave me an ultimatum. Now I have two weeks to make my decision: marry her or break it off forever. She’s crazy about me, and my family and friends adore her, and all would be ecstatic if I took the plunge. The problem is, I am just not passionate about her. A friend’s father once told me “it doesn’t matter who you marry.” I find that really sad, but if it’s true, what am I waiting for?
--Down To The Wire
Romeo and Juliet were overprivileged freaks. Until 200 years ago, according to historian Stephanie Coontz, “the theme song for most weddings could have been ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It?’” Sure, sometimes love did follow, but for thousands of years, writes Coontz in Marriage, a History, people married for sensible reasons, like keeping peace between France and Spain. For commoners, matches were not typically made in heaven, but in three inches of manure: “My daddy’s pigs and your daddy’s cows forever!”
Back in the 1550s, when it took two to do a lot more than tango, divorce was about as common as cell phones. In those days, putting food on the table meant chasing it, killing it, skinning it, then turning it on a spit over a fire, and there was a bit more to housework than despotting the water glasses and wiping down the microwave. Since the laboring class usually married in their late 20s, according to Lawrence Stone and other historians, and “growing old together” could mean making it to 40, a marriage might have lasted 10-15 years, at best. These days, with some gerontologists predicting that living to 120 will soon be the norm, if you pledge “til death do us part” at 25, you could be promising to spend 100 years together. (You might serve a similar amount of time if you murder several of your neighbors.)
Love isn’t the answer, it’s the problem. As Coontz observes, once people started marrying for love, they started getting divorced for lack of it. Nobody wants to ask whether it makes sense to tell another person you’ll love them until you drop. Yes, it can happen. Everybody’s got a story of that one couple, still madly in love at 89, and chasing each other around the canasta table. Guess what: They lucked out. You can’t make yourself love somebody, or continue loving somebody after the love is gone; you can only make an effort to act lovingly toward them (and hope they don’t find you too patronizing). Love is a feeling. It might come, it might go, it might stick around for a lifetime. It’s possible to set the stage for it, but impossible to control -- which is why people in the market for durability should stop looking for love and start shopping for steel-belted radials.
I’ve always thought a marriage license should be like a driver’s license, renewable every five years or so. If your spouse engages in weapons-grade nagging or starts saving sex for special occasions -- like leap year -- well, at the end of the term, give them bus fare and a change of clothes, and send them on their way. But, what about the chi-l-l-ldren?! Maybe people who want them should sign up for a “delivery room to dorm room” plan, with an option to renew. It’s counterproductive to preserve some abusive or unhealthy family situation, but maybe more people would buck up and make parenting their priority if they knew they just had to get through 18 years on family track: “We’re very sorry you’re in love with your secretary, but there are children involved, so zip up your pants and take the daddy place at the dinner table.”
Some people do have to settle. They’re afraid to be alone, or they aren’t brave or creative enough to thumb their nose at convention, or it’s closing time in the egg aisle, and if it’s male and willing, they’ll take it. According to your friend’s father, “it doesn’t matter who you marry.” Maybe it didn’t matter to him because he’s one of those guys who really just wants a tidy house, regular sex, and hot meals -- and he never figured out he could come close with carryout food, topless bars, and a cleaning lady. Do you have what it takes to hold out for a woman who really lights you up? You might -- providing you don’t need another half to be whole. If you let this girl go, you may feel empty, bored, and lonely for a while -- but it beats marrying her and feeling that way for a lifetime. Maybe you can’t order up “happily ever after,” but if you try for “realistically ever after,” you might find “happily ever now.” December 6, 2005
My girlfriend of four months and I work in the same warehouse, and aren’t required to dress up on the job. Although she’s very attractive, she wears jeans everywhere: Levis to work, Levis cut-offs to swim, etc. The one time I asked her to dress up for a date, she wore a jean skirt. Am I far enough into this relationship to buy her an outfit or comment on her clothing? I don’t want to hurt her feelings. We’re very good together, and I can see us having a future.
--Girly Friendly
It all started in offices across America with “casual Friday.” Like horror movie ooze, Gap khaki spread across the work week, until casual Friday was preceded by casual Monday through Thursday. There was no place to go but down. Before long, casual Friday started looking more like sloppy Saturday, and your corporate lawyer was greeting you at the elevator in flip-flops and pajama bottoms.
Lately, it’s increasingly hard to tell $20 million leading ladies from those earning $20 a day redeeming cans, and ragged, unshaven Hollywood moguls from ragged, unshaven Hollywood Boulevard bums. Since both often appear to be shouting at nobody in particular, it helps to look for the Bluetooth headset -- a sign that the guy probably has a real live person on the other end of his ravings, and parks something tagged “Jaguar” or “Mercedes,” not “Please Return This Cart To Staples.”
Back on warehouse row, you don’t expect your girlfriend to spend her days pallet-hopping in a Roberto Cavalli evening dress and four-inch maribou mules. But, assuming you won’t be transporting her to dinner on a forklift, you aren’t out of line to want her to dress for dates as if she’s aspiring to change your life, not your oil. Instead of despairing that she has yet to break the denim barrier, try to see the fact that she worked her way up to a jean skirt for what it is: a riveted, five-pocket ray of hope. Her effort suggests she isn’t willfully ignoring what you want; she’s simply ignorant of the obvious: You attract more men with lace than burlap.
The best way to tell somebody “Here’s how I’ll find you attractive” is not to suggest that you have, for some time, been finding them not-so-attractive. Tell your girlfriend you’re taking her someplace elegant, and want to buy her something special to wear, then make helping her pick it out part one of your date. Wax on about how beautiful she looks, and keep waxing after she’s back in her barn-wear. Window-shop at establishments that do not feature denim, pointing out how hot she’d look in this or that. You get the drill. And she’ll get the message, and without you ever saying you’ve kind of had it with greeting her at the door and wondering, “Do we have a date or a broken water main?”
Tempting as it may be to shrug off fashion intransigence as a petty idiosyncracy, if you need eye candy to be happy, you two won’t make it unless she starts dressing to the nines instead of the threes. Whether she can or will remains to be seen. While you’re waiting to find out, try to incorporate her current look into your fantasies -- not the way it makes you picture her cleaning out the garage, but by fast-forwarding to the end of the day when the jeans come off. A little overtime in the imagination department might be what it takes to have a future with this girl -- especially if she intends to start it off in a relaxed-fit, button-fly wedding gown.
