Dating After 30:

from the dating archives..

There is a really strange phenomena that occurs when you hit 30. All of a sudden your girlfriends who are over 30 start to act in completely bizarre ways. They also expect you to think totally differently than when you were under 30. This is, of course, all thanks to the blessed biological clock, that will, at some point, just not today thank you – begin to TICK. And it will continue to tick until, in your late 30’s/ early 40’s, if you don’t figure out a way to muffle it will eventually become a screaming siren. And if legend is correct this screeching siren will have you asking a man out to coffee on Thursday and asking him to make a baby with you by that following Monday.

Did I mention I was so afraid of my clock going off that I avoided babies like the plague for years? And the only reason I know that holding a baby will not set the clock off is that I was at a party with 45 drunk people and me, and a baby. So out of desperation I played with the baby, and to my relief realized this would not in fact make my hormones rage in ways that would make me crave my own. At least not yet….

But I digress.

The first strange phenomena I found was that your friends will have you married off with 2.5 kids and a dog the minute you even mention an interesting guy. This will happen EVERY time you mention that you met a nice guy, that you had a nice date with a guy etc. Your future will be planned and mapped out for you in great and amazingly creative detail by your girlfriends before you can even say “baby”. The best example of this was after I bumped into (literally) someone I think is an incredible genius in his field. (To be fair to my friend, it was no secret that for a time I had a huge crush on him, and subsequently lost all thought and reason when around him.) So I tell my friend, I just bumped into him and she says – totally on her own, with no prompting from me:

“Wouldn’t it be great if you two got together. He would be so supportive of this and that and you could live half your time here and half your time there ….. And your kids would be creative geniuses and….”

Now I should point out that I don’t really know this guy he really doesn’t know I exist. And other than the fact that he has said Hi to me, when I literally bump into him, or had mundane conversation when standing in line next to him, I have never really spoken to the guy. But this clock thing does weird things to women

Then there’s the Boy Toy lecture.

You would think that after my long-term relationship with a guy 20 years my senior, that interest in younger guys would show my friends that I must be over the father-figure complex they were accusing me of having. (Not that I’m admitting to ever having had one.) But no. Instead of rejoicing that I have developed a tendency to check out every hot nubile young guy around, they worry and give me the ever present, Boy Toy lecture.

First off, is 30 really old enough to have a Boy Toy?

And wouldn’t I technically need to be having lots and lots of incredible sex with him in order for him to be an actual “Boy Toy?” And shouldn’t the guy, or guys in question have totally rock hard bodies and not much else going for them in order to be a genuine Boy Toy?

Apparently, none of that is important. What is important is that I settle down, date guys who have their act together and are not in any way, shape or form, younger than me and do not have life fully and totally figured out.

This lecture of course, does on some level make sense, since I did spend my 20’s supporting men who did not have their act together. And as I have found out, the reasons for not dating guys in their 20’s when I was in my 20’s still hold true now. But it also makes guys over 30 look like a bunch of boring duds. The lecture can also have the effect of making me want my latest “Toy” that much more.

Hmmmm. Speaking of which I think I need to add to my collection…

For another dating story, try Love Him Or Leave Him Because of His Shoes?













