Bitch Kitty Racing

My birthday approaches. In just two short weeks I am going to be twenty-eight. Yes, that’s right, I said twenty-eight.

Do you have a problem with that?

I didn’t think so.

Birthdays always make me think of how old I am, as in: “I can feel my cells degenerating. I can’t remember things like I used to. Something hurts internally.” Many people say that age is just a number, and while I understand math and know that to be true, I also know that age does matter. We change as we get older. If age were just a number I would not be so sensitive to certain foods these days. If age were just a number my coworkers wouldn’t get wide-eyed and exclaim, “You’re how old?!” If age were just a number I wouldn’t feel dirty when thinking about snack cakes.

“Snack cakes?” you ask. Allow me to elucidate.

Snack cakes are the delicious little yummy treats we have in between meals, a.k.a. twenty-somethings. I am certainly not at an age where dating a twenty-two year old would be socially unacceptable, yet I know that we’re very different.

I was in the store this morning buying breakfast when I ran into a young female acquaintance of mine. We chatted for awhile and I was admittedly transfixed by her smooth skin and glossy hair, generally vivacious and lively personality. The conversation was coming to a close when she said, “We should, like, totally get together sometime.” I’m sure I stared at her for a moment before asking her if she knew that I was fourteen years her senior. “That doesn’t matter,” she replied. “Besides, you look great for being your age.”

Really.

While I did give her my number I am not sure if I’m, like, totally going to get together with her sometime. As I watched her tiny little youthful bum sashay away after our exchange, I noticed the way her hips moved: beautifully, gracefully, fluidly. I wanted those hips. I wanted those hips because mine hurt and I’d like a transplant.

The moment I realized I was viewing her as a possible donor of replacement parts was the moment I realized she might be too young for me. At no point should you be looking at your date and thinking of her as an organ bank, yet I find myself staring at the skulls of young women far more than their bodies, wondering how much pituitary might be in there, wondering if they might share. I have even written a poem about it:

Bye Baby Bunting
Daddy’s going hunting
To find some fresh young endocrine
To soak my aging organs in.

Okay, so I didn’t actually write the entire thing, but you get the idea.

Of course they’re sexy at that age. Our entire society is programmed to find young people sexy. They’re so taut and firm and full of life, so completely unjaded and hopeful. My friend Sara has possibly the best line about trans-generational dating: “It’s okay to sleep with them, just don’t make them fall in love with you.” She’s one of several thirty-something female friends I have who’ve dipped their toes into the pool of willing young men. Actually, I think all of my single female friends have done some pretty serious bathing. It’s socially acceptable with women. Sara would actually drool every time we’d drive by a skate park, and we’d laugh about it. If I did that outside a Catholic school I’d be lynched.

For men, it’s a bit different. In polite society, we’re not allowed to lust after women too many years younger than us. Apparently it makes us perverted somehow, or shrinks our egos, or means we’re unable to have a relationship with someone our own age. There is a double standard which applies here. Even though both young men and women might be easier to fall in bed with than someone older (fewer defenses, perhaps), older women can compare notes as easily as they compare shoes. Young men are viewed as bits of virile, still-muscled arm candy. They can take care of themselves. Young women, however, need some sort of protection from the big bad wolf who might take advantage of their naiveté.

I doubt very seriously that double standard sends the message of equality of the sexes.

Still, every modern man who wishes to keep his purity intact avoids younger women. I’m not talking about jailbait, either, because that is just dead wrong. I’m talking about the twenty-one year-olds that abound in every Friday night bar. We know they’re there, we can smell them, we can watch them move, but we don’t dare approach them (to be honest, in this day and age we can’t really approach anybody, but that’s for Miss Manners to figure out, not me). But what if they approach us? What about my twenty-two year-old? She’s adorable!

The date would begin in a bar where she’d be carded and I wouldn’t. The cocktailer would look at me like I was scum. She’d rave about the band onstage, who I’d never heard of, while I thought to myself that they sounded like Iggy Pop, who she’d never heard of. She’d look embarrassed as hell introducing me to some of her friends that were there when they said, “Nice to meet you, sir.” Undoubtedly some woman I’d gone out with my own age would be there, laughing behind her hand, knowing full well that my lost virginity was older than my date. One o’clock would roll around and I’d start to feel tired, wondering how I was going to fend off a trip to the speakeasy until five a.m. after I’d already promised my date we’d go. I’d be thinking of Sara’s words all night long, wondering at what point it was okay to make out, wondering if the three date rule applied with someone who was seven when I got drunk onstage in Portland for my birthday that year.

Complicated.

Yet companionship knows no age limits. It’s possible to be friends with anyone. It only takes remembering that everyone has different life experiences. There are several famous romantic relationships between people with age disparity: Nick and Nora Charles, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall, etc. It’s a matter of respect for the person you’re with, regardless of age. As long as that person is not treated like a toy, but like an actual human being, everything is going to go like it should. That should apply to everyone anyway.

So in addition to throwing away our outdated sexist cultural mores, let’s throw away the outdated ageist ones, too. We’re all different, but we already knew that. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Rather than different, let’s call it “new.” That’s much more exciting, isn’t it?

Shiny, shiny!