Life According to Laurie

Are You Past Your Expiration Date?

Do we have an expiration date? Is age truly just a number now? Are we only as desirable as the number of healthy eggs we can produce, my chickadee?

When I was very small, my great great grandmother used to espouse this theory about women: They should be shot when they're 30. Being that longevity runs in my family and my great great grandmother was still alive when I was small, she dodged that bullet.

As time has gone by, we all have. Thirty is considered vibrant and youthful now. Is fifty the new thirty? Maybe in looks or vibrancy, but there's more to it. I get many calls about "the younger dude," and it's a totally different dynamic than it used to be. Let's look at a few of them.

One of the first things I usually get asked is if the dude minds that she's older, and she's thinking in terms of looks. Although every situation is different, the answer is usually a resounding no. He's with you, and he is because he thinks you're cool and he loves your look. You're far more worried about that than he is.

But there are a couple things that can and frequently do come up.

First is the problem that no matter how fabulously you get along, no matter how great the connection, a 20-year-old is a 20-year-old, a 30-year old is a 30-year-old, no matter how mature for their age. They think like one, they act like one, they have the life experience to draw on of one. You want them to grow up? So do dude's parents. And they'd also like him to move out on his own.

Do you care? Nooooo. You've never felt like this before. After all this time, you've discovered someone who truly loves you and appreciates you for who you are, and he tells you this all the time. Now of course being a bit older, by five, ten, even twenty years, with five, ten or even twenty years more of life's bumps and bruises behind you, you are not so quick to trust.

Eventually, however, you let go, little by little, day by day, enchanted by his boyish charms and his good taste, unmatched by others. He's spent all this time pursuing you relentlessly, and finally, you allow yourself to conjure up in your mind that life of happily ever after, with the castle on the hill overlooking endless beaches.

But -- and there's a big one, and we're not talking about the one you're sitting on -- he is envisioning the same castle on the hill -- as a vacation, with you handcuffed to the bed and engaging in various forms of gymnastics. After all, isn't that one of a younger dude's biggest fantasies, the sexy older woman teaching him everything she knows? Nobody wants to be in a situation where they're a nice vacation, but dude wouldn't want to live there.

One of my clients prefers younger men, and has been ultimately rejected by three of them. So what is my precious dudette doing wrong? Repeating the same scenario. She doesn't like anyone her age or older, and always ends up going for the younger men that come along. They pursue her like a teenager searching for their lost I-phone. They have to have her. She is the cherry on their sundae, she's the coolest status message on their Facebook.

And all three times, all three guys, cooled off for the same reason. They'd been thinking -- once they let the big brain work again -- and they discovered that they just might be wanting some progeny someday, a little baby dude with the same funny shaped head and big ears as them. And they're very very sorry, but they have to admit that our heroine's eggs aren't so fresh anymore. They love her to death, but they'll be moving on now to find someone with an expiration date a little further out, just like the milk in the dairy department that we shove to the back.

Solutions? As I said earlier, stop repeating the same scenarios with the same type people. After a while, getting slapped in the face doesn't feel so good, and you might want to make some changes.

Am I saying you can't date the younger dude? Absolutely not. In fact, my brother had a successful marriage to someone 17-years his senior. But just like the older dude, they come with their own particular advantages and disadvantages.

When entering into a serious relationship, the most important thing is to know yourself and what exactly you want and why. If younger dude can't possibly supply you with your life's desires outside the bedroom, you're barking up the wrong dude.

Are you afraid of getting older and dating someone younger staves off those fears momentarily? Age catches up with all of us, and living in fear of life's natural progressions isn't healthy. The goal is to be the best you can be at any point in your life, and you can't be perpetually 30, any more than younger dude can.

You have to realize who your partner is, truly, at any age, and be willing to accept them as the person and maturity they are. If they can't accept you, THEY have the problem, not you. You didn't age overnight, you are exactly who you were when they pursued you, and maybe THEY aren't who they represented themselves to be.

Oh, and babies? Not an impossibility at any age these days. Aside from, obviously, adoption -- so in nowadays (thanks, Angelina) -- there is more in the mix than can be named. His sperm, donated eggs which you carry; his sperm, your eggs, someone else carries; and on and on. And you know, sometimes the joke's on him and he's shooting blanks. If you both want a baby, it's never impossible.

I think the bottom line here is age is just a number, and nobody should marry themselves to a number. Look at the person, whether he's younger, older, or even just your age.