Why Thirtysomething Men Have it All
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Life’s not fair, and sometimes its little quirks really rub our faces in it. I’m sitting in the garden, inhaling the scent of neighbouring barbecues, and listening to a male friend rage against the system.
“I can’t understand it,” he laments. “I treat them nicely, I always call, I make them laugh - I’m pretty sure I even give them genuine orgasms...”
We sip Pimms and consider his fate. He is a great guy, not Brad Pitt, admittedly, but clever, charming, kind, sporty, and well-educated, with the sort of manners that would make your mother swoon. He is at the start of what will almost undoubtedly be a very successful career, but the guy just cannot nab his future wife. Or even anything close.
“They’re all dating men in their thirties who take them to the south of France or on shopping benders to Harvey Nichols. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?”
At 27, he is not yet in the big earners’ league, and recently lost a potential girlfriend who caught the eye of a passing Porsche driver.
“She wasn’t worth it anyway. Money-grabbling little minx,” I soothe him. “You have to be patient, and I promise that in a few years time, these girls will be coming back in droves.”
“I can’t imagine it,” he says.
The unpleasant and frustrating truth is that everyone seems to be dating up - in age, that is. So the twentysomething girls are dating thirtysomething men, and the thirtysomething women are dating fortysomething silver foxes, and on it goes. The only girls with a passing interest in twentysomething men are precocious A-levellers who want the street cred of dating an ‘older man’.
It’s only when the twentysomething girls starting hitting the big 30 and realise they’re still years from getting hitched that the tide begins to turn. The endless list of what constitutes Mr Perfect begins to shorten. Suddenly the nice bloke they turned down a while back because he didn’t resemble Mr Big starts to gain appeal.
When they manage to concoct a flimsy reason to call, they’re surprised to discover that he’s morphed into a man about town, with the bachelor pad, the suit and the car to match. Suddenly, with the prospect of marriage, babies and country houses on the horizon, our man is in demand. It’s taken him the best part of a decade, but his time has come.
Of course by now he’s learnt to be wary, and is happily dating an undemanding twentysomething who is content with the odd shopping trip and weekend away. She doesn’t keep asking "Where are we going with our lives?" or getting tearful at weddings and cooing over small children. Instead she asks, “Where are we going this weekend?” or “How about a blow job in the traffic jam?”
The truth is that men get better looking, more confident, and better in bed as they age...while most women just get a stiff neck from looking over their shoulder at the brazen young hussies behind them.
“Don’t worry,” I tell my friend. “Just think how much fun you’ll have with desperate thirtysomethings on one hand, and eager twentysomethings on the other. Ah, the tyranny of choice. You can become a proper cad.”
“Roll on the next bloody birthday,” he mutters into his drink.
We sip Pimms and consider his fate. He is a great guy, not Brad Pitt, admittedly, but clever, charming, kind, sporty, and well-educated, with the sort of manners that would make your mother swoon. He is at the start of what will almost undoubtedly be a very successful career, but the guy just cannot nab his future wife. Or even anything close.
“They’re all dating men in their thirties who take them to the south of France or on shopping benders to Harvey Nichols. How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?”
At 27, he is not yet in the big earners’ league, and recently lost a potential girlfriend who caught the eye of a passing Porsche driver.
“She wasn’t worth it anyway. Money-grabbling little minx,” I soothe him. “You have to be patient, and I promise that in a few years time, these girls will be coming back in droves.”
“I can’t imagine it,” he says.
The unpleasant and frustrating truth is that everyone seems to be dating up - in age, that is. So the twentysomething girls are dating thirtysomething men, and the thirtysomething women are dating fortysomething silver foxes, and on it goes. The only girls with a passing interest in twentysomething men are precocious A-levellers who want the street cred of dating an ‘older man’.
It’s only when the twentysomething girls starting hitting the big 30 and realise they’re still years from getting hitched that the tide begins to turn. The endless list of what constitutes Mr Perfect begins to shorten. Suddenly the nice bloke they turned down a while back because he didn’t resemble Mr Big starts to gain appeal.
When they manage to concoct a flimsy reason to call, they’re surprised to discover that he’s morphed into a man about town, with the bachelor pad, the suit and the car to match. Suddenly, with the prospect of marriage, babies and country houses on the horizon, our man is in demand. It’s taken him the best part of a decade, but his time has come.
Of course by now he’s learnt to be wary, and is happily dating an undemanding twentysomething who is content with the odd shopping trip and weekend away. She doesn’t keep asking "Where are we going with our lives?" or getting tearful at weddings and cooing over small children. Instead she asks, “Where are we going this weekend?” or “How about a blow job in the traffic jam?”
The truth is that men get better looking, more confident, and better in bed as they age...while most women just get a stiff neck from looking over their shoulder at the brazen young hussies behind them.
“Don’t worry,” I tell my friend. “Just think how much fun you’ll have with desperate thirtysomethings on one hand, and eager twentysomethings on the other. Ah, the tyranny of choice. You can become a proper cad.”
“Roll on the next bloody birthday,” he mutters into his drink.
Here Is The Writer : Alice in Numberland
By day Alice crunches numbers at a banking colossus in Canary Wharf, and by night she devotes her time to studying the strange behaviours of the male species. In between she expands her collection of Agent Provocateur and runs marathons. Tell her what you think about dating in the City.
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