It’s my birthday this week.
I have lots planned. A private play and dinner on Friday, a party on Saturday and a kitchen supper on Sunday. I am seeing all my friends over the weekend. It should be really good. I’m really looking forward to it.
But, as every girl will know, there’s always a bad bit about birthdays. It means you are another year older. Whatever you have planned, however nice everyone is to you, once a girl passes 25 she wakes on the morning of her birthday and feels the urge to rush to a mirror. Time’s ever-rolling stream – bearing all our sons away and bringing wrinkles.
Age for women is a thorny concept. Men, lucky men, don’t suffer with age-rage. Because even in their sixties and seventies, they still pull women half their age. I was reading an article in the paper last week by Lori Gottlieb, who has written a best-selling American book called ‘Marry Him’ about why women shouldn’t hold out for Mr Right (who is often born of unrealistic expectations) and settle for Mr Ordinary, otherwise they will end up on the shelf. As the article says:
“Feminism gave women this sense of entitlement that we deserve someone who’s perfect. And then we meet the so-called perfect guy and he’s out of our league and has no interest in us and we tell our girlfriends, ‘He must be secretly gay’ when in fact he’s just really not that into us,” she says.
Add to this the heart-sinking demographics. Gottlieb likens being single in your late thirties to a terrifying game of musical chairs in which the options keep narrowing the longer you refuse to sit down. In other words, the more stubbornly you hold out for The One and the more you invest in that particular fantasy, the less likely he is to appear. Even if he did miraculously appear in a white convertible Porsche, who is more likely to be The One’s One? You or the carefree 25-year-old who’s putting herself through university by doing a bit of modeling on the side?
This is wisdom born of Gottlieb’s struggle to come to grips with her own diminishing value on the dating market. It involved taking an honest look in the mirror, literally and figuratively: “A lot of it was about self-perception. I kept looking at profiles of these guys online and thinking: they look middle-aged, yuck! But then I realised that I probably look middle-aged to them, too. I’m frozen in time in my own mind. I picture myself at 30. But the truth is I have wrinkles and jowls and grey hairs. Everything’s changed.”
Now I am, I realise, a married woman! So I’m not single, I’m not on the hunt. But one of the strange things about BDSM is that if you are in an open relationship like me and you are always on the hunt, you suffer, in your thirties, the same anxieties as a single woman – and have to come to terms with exactly the same facts – the older you get, the less attractive you are to a guy. This even, I think, applies to being in a relationship. As you grow older together, his perceptions of you change. You are no longer to him what you are when he first knew you. So you have to work harder. In my case – not everyone’s case – that means I have to dress well, look attractive and feel body-confident. Which for me, involves being thinner. Not an easy task. But chaps you see, they can sense nervousness. It actually makes you very unattractive to them. They like confident girls, at least in the initial stages. They don’t want a bag of worry, irritation and lack of self-esteem. And how much easier is it to be confident when you are ‘hot’, when you turn heads when you walk into a room, when dom men fight to play with you?
I recently fell out with a male friend who (not on purpose) made me feel old and past my sell-by-date. We chatted, made up and got through it. But it made me realise how much of my self-esteem is built on being wanted and desired, both by females as friends and males on a friendship, play or sexual basis. Now I am the first person to admit that this is actually rather sad. I always advise my friends to do what they want and to not care what other people think or do. So why can’t I follow my own advice?
What makes me curious is do men suffer from this? Do they ever enter a room at one of my parties wondering if anyone there fancies them?
I’m aware that of late, I’ve covered my worries about growing older and less attractive quite a lot. All right, an awful lot. Which is probably why I shouldn’t write blog posts on a Monday morning, when I feel depressed about my life! I promise that after this moan, there will be no more age-related posts from me for a little while, otherwise people are going to get bored and irritated and probably start sending me botox vouchers. Anyway, I shall ask you all to raise a glass this week to me and my wrinkles. And to actually remember that when I get going, I’m quite fun to be with. Wrinkles or not!
Sweetheart, I love you, but every time you start talking about being old, I want to bop you on the head. Early thirties is “old”? In what universe?
I guess in some ways it doesnt matter if it’s your 30th or your 60th in that sense, if you feel like you’re putting your most attractive years behind you, then yes, I can understand that it’s depressing. Of course all of us want to be wanted and desired and act offended when a white van hoots at you but secretly feel flattered, but you are absolutely gorgous as well. The funny thing is, if you were eternally young and a Megan Fox look a like but you didn’t have your personality then none of us would be interested.
I think the concept of confidence is an interesting one, when I waltzed onto the scene in the summer I was slimmer than I am now, tanned and oozing “I just left school and I’m awesome” confidence, all short skirts and knee socks, and yeah, I’d say that at the point in my life I was pretty hot, but was I happy, secure person? Fuck no. I know a lot of people who can’t go to Oxford Street Topshop without getting scouted by modelling agencies, but thy’re also the most fucked up and insecure individuals. I suppose the secret would be to cultivate some serious self confidence that doesn’t hinge on how much you way or how clear your skin is. Andif you work that out… could you let me know how?!
PS. Wrinkles? Seriously? We’ve got the same level of wrinkelyness and I’m 19.
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And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Jess,
I feel that I could write thousands of words to you about this, but (lucky for you, and everyone else!) I won’t.
“it made me realise how much of my self-esteem is built on being wanted and desired, both by females as friends and males on a friendship, play or sexual basis.”
One question I would ask, and keep asking until I got some interesting answers, is Why? Hint: Not because it’s sad.
“I always advise my friends to do what they want and to not care what other people think or do. So why can’t I follow my own advice?”
I posit that you can’t follow this advice because it doesn’t address the root of the matter. I am not so sure that the opposite of using pull-factor as the basis for self-esteem = not caring what other people think. When a person is trying to detach from something unsatisfying (or toxic), it rarely helps to tell them to relax and be all OK with themselves. Instead, I wonder where else you (specifically you) might find passionate meaning, value, worth, etc. other than in the sexual gaze of others (such as you imagine it)?
Comments aren’t the place for pop-psych, so I will shut up! But, I will leave you with something that was impressed upon me (and my bottom, ha ha!): that it can be a form of wickedness to denigrate what is good and beautiful and human, and, yes, impermanent–viz. you as you really are, right now, today.
Jessica, I’ll be seventy-five next birthday, so what, I am who I am.
Congratulations on your upcoming birthday, you are one year more attractive, you have one year more personality and confidence, and one year more sexy.
Some of the sexiest women I know are over sixty, it takes time to develop personality, which is much more attractive than merely skin deep beauty.
Enjoy your birthday and rejoice in the fact that you are WOMAN, and sexy with it.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Two things:
1) Not every woman looks in the mirror on her birthday and feels angst. I have never worried about age and never will. My thirties have been the best decade of my life so far – but I have no doubt they will be surpassed by my forties in a couple of years’ time.
2) With all due respect – your worries about attractiveness, due to your open relationship and therefore always being on the hunt, are not the same as the worries a late-thirties single woman has, and don’t ever forget it. Not when you get to go home to a husband (or perhaps your lover, this evening), and I sit here dumped and crying and alone.
Well birthday twin darling, I guess I have to admit that I too have been reflecting on getting another year older.
Unfortunately we’re only human and we can’t help but stress over it, even just a bit. I can honestly say I’ve been much happier in my later 20s than I was in my early 20s. But birthdays make us look at our lives and weigh them up. And sometimes what we see doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves, even if those on the oustide don’t understand why not.
My thing is the pressure to settle down. I have lots of great playmates and friends but it seems everyone else around me is coupled up, engaged or married. The little insecure voice inside my head is whispering; you’d better find a partner, what if you no-one ever wants you, what’ll you do when you’re old and alone. Of course the rational voice when it gets a chance shouts back: ‘fuck off I’m happy’ and I _know_ that my own happiness is all down to me. But still the voices whipser away, or even worse when my family get going it stirs it all up again.
So I can sympathise hon. But I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph; you are one of the most entertaining people I know and we’ve had some great fun together, so roll on the weekend and the clinking glasses and to the aging of friendship
x
Happy Birthday Jessica, enjoy your weekend and I’m quite sure that however old you get, however many wrinkles appear (and they haven’t yet) and be you fat, thin or comfortably in between, you will always be one of the hottest in any room… it oozes from every pore, personality doesn’t bother with age
x
Oh lovely girl. Age is just a number but we all feel the passage of time. I think although it’s hard the key is to focus on all the things that make so many people totally adore you. You are kind, clever, funny, loyal, nurturing, inspirational and goddamn sexy. Not to mention above all a wonderful friend who has been there for me countless times beyond the call of duty. If I could give you one thing for your birthday it would some kind of inverted mirror so you could see yourself as positively as the rest of us see you and realise that you have nothing to worry about. But they don’t have those down Accessorize so you’ll have to settle for something else (doh!) xx
Happy Birthday.
You’re not old – and you should be thrashed every time you say you are… I’m already 40, and I don’t even consider that old!