The Four Seasons, a new comedy series created by and starring Tina Fey, was the most watched show on Netflix for two weeks. The show is centred around three couples in their fifties who holiday together; much of the plot hinges around one man, Nick, leaving his wife for 32-year-old Ginny. The scorn towards Nick dating his hot, young dental hygienist practically exudes from the screen – at points, cruelly. In the final episode, Fey’s character tells Ginny her relationship with Nick will count as a “blip” in her life.
I am similarly judgmental of younger women dating older men, despite my best intentions. When it was rumoured recently that 29-year-old Delaney Rowe, one of my favourite TikTok comedians, was dating 45-year-old The Office star BJ Novak, my conception of Rowe as whip-smart and cynical weakened. I used to struggle with the fact one of my favourite singers, Celine Dion, started dating her late husband when she was 19 and he was 43.
It’s not very feminist to deprive women of agency; to presume they don’t know their own minds. But then, I’m not the only one. One of New York magazine’s most talked about long-reads, largely featuring relationships where men were considerably older than their female partners, asked in 2023: “What is it about age-gap relationships that sparks so much outrage? Couples say they’re happy. Why is it so hard to believe them?”
Indeed, the catchphrase “let me guess, she’s an old soul” has come to represent the predictability of men explaining their dynamic with a younger girlfriend. A guy I know who started dating his ex when she was 18 and he was 35 explained to a group of us: “I know what you’re thinking, but actually she was the mature one”. Rather than it being the mic drop he intended, it proved everything we had thought about men who date younger women.
We often assume older men who date younger women want someone who doesn’t have their life experience and who challenges them less – even if such a desire is subconscious. I fear that younger women who date older men have given up – because dating can be brutal – and out of a desperation for someone who treats them well, settled for someone who is mature only because of 20 more years’ life experience. I know it’s evolutionary to find older men attractive – they’ve stored up capital, while younger women are more fertile – but the thought that age gaps are borne of such base instincts only increases my aversion to them.
This is particularly unfair of me because relationships where women are older are currently heralded as cool and progressive. In the recent Bridget Jones movie, she’s 52, and her love interest Roxster is 29. Babygirl centres on the sexual dynamic between a 57-year-old CEO played by Nicole Kidman, and her 28-year-old male intern. I can find it easier to view younger men in such dynamics as comfortable in their masculinity. Can you imagine if the reasons women vocalise for dating younger men in the media – that they have a higher sex drive, or that they have less baggage – were used by men dating younger women?
It’s a massive double standard. But I would argue it’s partly justified.
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We are so desperate to celebrate older women dating younger men because we feel we’ve been programmed our whole lives to view older women as wrinkly and droopy – while men get to be silver foxes. I’ve seen it play out. When hit on by a guy five years younger, I’ve had to seek counsel from my female friends that I wasn’t creepy or “past it”, and they’ve done the same with me. I doubt men feel as much insecurity.
I’d also argue there is some rationale for women not dating older men. Men already die on average four years before women – so for a life partner, the age gap is added onto the years women will spend alone in retirement. My generation already talks about our retired mums who are energetic and want to go out and socialise, while dads prefer to watch TV on the sofa. An older man is also more likely to be further ahead in his career, increasing the wage differential in a heterosexual couple – if one of you has to step back to raise kids, it’s pretty much a done deal it will be the woman (if it wasn’t already).
After a break-up, I recall a quote ringing in my head, which Celine Dion told the crowd to introduce one of her songs, at the Colosseum in Las Vegas: “I believe that we love truly, deeply, only once in a lifetime”. Looking back, despite her being the queen of love ballads, I feel that’s where Dion is wrong. We are capable of falling in love with more than one person; statistically there are multiple people for us in this world.
That New York magazine piece, “Couples say they’re happy. Why is it so hard to believe them?”, wasn’t asking the right question. Those relationships involve real love; real happiness. But surely, there’s the promise of being happier with someone else, for a longer time. And that it’s worth young women – like 32-year-old Ginny – having the bravery to seek that person, of a similar age, out.
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