Oh look, a study came out saying the same old tired things that these studies always say. Women feel old by 29 because blah blah blah magazines society blah blah. Men don't feel old until 58 blah blah. People are all up in arms about it, talking about how unfair it is and how much society sucks for this reason or that and how whatever group you have to belong to is being oppressed by the other groups. Le sigh.
Do I feel older now as compared to how I felt at 18 or whatever? Yes. I'm 37. There are people my age who have grandchildren. Do I have things that sag more and bag more and crow's feet and gray hairs? Yes. Do I know that I often feel out of the loop, unaware of the slang, lost in the newer culture, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the years I've lived? Yes.
But would I trade any of this for the feeling of security I have in myself now? No. Would I trade it for my even darker sense of humor? No. Would I trade it for the wisdom (even what little I have) gained from years of trial and error? No.
Would I go back to the emotional hell of 18? No. Would I go back to the naivety of believing in love and marriage and college will get you great jobs? No.
Because this is the thing, we feel older because we are older. Does that make us OLD? No. It doesn't make us young either. And while many people, so many people grasp and try to hold onto the idea of being young, we tend to do so forgetting how much being young really does suck.
We lament at how society caters to the young and the beautiful, but, honestly, is that the life you want? Would you want to be your age and still get treated like a piece of meat? Would you want to be a 39 year old guy and sound like or look like Justin Bieber?
And yes, older men like younger women. Does that mean there are less men for you to date because they want the younger girls? Yes. But . . . do you really want to be with a man who is obsessed with youth and nubile beauty? I realize I'm being very judgmental, but I've always been of the opinion that if you have to live out Steely Dan's "Hey 19" with someone who doesn't even know what the hell Steely Dan is, then you're probably not someone I would be happy with anyway.
So this is what I say to the study. Yes, I feel older. Yes, I'm not young and pretty and blah blah. Luckily? I'm old enough to not care enough about that to let it phase me. I'm mature enough to know that getting older is better than being young and impressionable and easier to take advantage of.
Though, I say all of this knowing my situation is somewhat different than the typical woman. I was never complimented on my looks as a child, so my self-esteem isn't chained to that concept. Mine is more tied up with my ability to be a smart ass. I don't want kids, so my biological clock is ignored or, more often, mocked. It doesn't matter if I "finds a manz," because marriage is so not for me. And I'm still Gen X slacker enough to measure my worth not in financial success but in how much I can find meaning in each day.
Even as I write that, I realize that while I'm not the typical woman, there are probably more and more women who feel the way I do. The nice thing about having pervasive jadedness as a cultural norm is that more and more people view the social myths and trappings as nothing more than a set of lies at which to roll one's eyes.
In the end, I think it's less about women really feeling old at 29 and more about how much society needs them to feel old at 29. We have whole industries hinged on this. We have control measures and self-worth destroying tactics built from this. Industries and institutions thrive off the idea that women need to be young and beautiful, and to do so, should be on a diet or in a chair sticking poison into their skin to numb expressions or under a knife or under a man or any number of other things where they throw away their money and common sense and self-love so that the rest of the world can profit from their labors.
In the meantime, the rest of us fat old ugly broads will be over in the corner drinking our martinis and not giving a damn if you think we're pretty or valued or whatever. If you suspect we're amused that this annoys you, we are. We don't need your approval. We don't need your love. We don't need you. Thanks all the same though.
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