Always Younger

I’ve never been with a woman older than me. I’m 27, so that’s over a decade of dating, and somehow it never goes that direction. I wasn’t tracking it as a rule—it just happened that way. And I’m pretty sure I’m not unusual in this.

It’s the pattern everyone pretends isn’t a pattern. Older guy, younger woman, everyone’s fine with it. The celebrities make it obvious: Lothar Matthäus, Bruce Willis, Hugh Hefner. But it’s not just the famous guys. It’s assumed. It’s what happens.

The reasons are stupid and obvious. Younger women are fun—they have energy, less history, fewer demands. They find you interesting. They want stability, money, someone who looks like they have their shit together. For a while it works. He gets to feel capable and desired. She gets taken care of. Two people getting something they want out of it.

Until you realize something’s been off the whole time and you just weren’t looking at it. The sex stays good, but everything else starts to split. She wants to be out late; you want her home at a decent hour. She’s becoming someone; you’ve already become someone. The dynamism that felt exciting starts to feel like performance you have to keep up.

I don’t know if there’s actually a rule here. Some couples with twenty years between them seem to make it work somehow. Others are just trading—he gets the young woman, she gets what she thinks she needs, the clock ticks. Maybe that’s the whole point: figuring out when it stops being about desire and starts being about the power dynamic. When you can feel the leverage shift. You probably know which side you’re on. Whether you care is another question entirely.