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Now I’m in my 50s, young men want to date me: Welcome to the world of WHIPS
Now I’m in my 50s, young men want to date me: Welcome to the world of WHIPS
“I know what you want to know. But I can’t tell you, because I haven’t known these young men – yet. I’ve yet to find the emotional strength to reveal the bingo wings and my thighs.”
I don’t completely disagree that there is a disconnect between middle-aged men and women. Younger men can be less rigid (and in my experience weren’t thinking about kids so we had that in common). And older men are often delusional and think they deserve younger women.
But the above quote isn’t exactly making the author’s case. Oh, and WHIPS stands for Women who are Hot, Intelligent and in their Prime…
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Drinking in Vancouver B.C.
When: Saturday, 4:50pm
I love The Keg, a Canadian chain which was completely new to me. I wasn’t sure whether to characterize it as a casual steakhouse or a bar and its official name, The Keg Steakhouse + Bar, solves that problem nicely.
Age appropriate? Yes. Tom Petty and Carly Simon played and a trashed blonde in her 50s was talking to herself in the bathroom and didn’t stop on my account. “Tiger, tiger” she kept saying to the mirror and I half-hoped this was some Canadian form of the Bloody Mary game.
When: Saturday, 6:20pm
I have no idea why an Irish sports bar in Vancouver would be called The Bimini. This was a dude-heavy place and basketball was on TV in the main level (bars are so much larger in Canada than NYC) though there were three women in their mid-30s who looked vaguely Latina all wearing San Antonio Spurs jerseys.
Age appropriate? All Irish pubs are.
When: Sunday, 3:30pm
Steamworks is a giant multi-level brew pub right in Gastown, which abuts Vancouver’s answer to the Tenderloin and made for some amusing reviews of the Airbnb I stayed at. Large booths tend to be both family-friendly and middle-age bait
Age appropriate: Yep, I hadn’t seen so many 50+ women drinking in a room in recent memory. I chalked it up to the cruise ships in town (a taxi driver said that’s why the city was so crowded that weekend). The women next to me were definitely wearing resort wear, real Lilly Pulitzer or not, I don’t know.
P.S. I was in town the same weekend as that girl got pulled into the water by a sea lion and I have no idea if this was national news or just a big deal locally.
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Barred: Bar Bar
When: Tuesday, 2:30pm
I only chose Bar Bar in part because I have anxiety about using an iPads with a keyboard (a laptop would be unthinkable) in public (even after vaping Sour Tsunami in my rental car) and it seemed chill with lots of outdoor tables that were awfully occupied for a weekday afternoon lending further credence to my no one works in Portland theory. (Don’t worry, I have the exact same theory about Brooklyn.)
Two tiny near newborns eventually showed up with their moms who were practically newborns (OK, plus 26 years) themselves. There were also young black-lipped goths in Birkenstocks, as well as a woman who looked barely 21 keeping the dream of the ‘90s alive by wearing a flannel and stocking cap in 90 degree weather and making me irritated and sweaty just looking at her.
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Barred: Loyal Legion
When? A weekday between lunch and dinner
There is a certain style native to traveling Pacific NW (and probably Colorado but I’ve never been) women and German tourists who could be anywhere from 50-75: short no nonsense cropped hair, often gray, loose cotton pants, also cropped, polar fleece, Merrill type orthopedic/outdoorsy shoes. I can’t say I’m a fan of this look but I appreciate that they drink beer, usually craft. I might get shit for this, but it’s not always easy discerning a middle-aged Oregonian’s identity because they often look like stereotypical lesbians. I have friends and family, some straight, some not, who fall into this category.
Loyal Legion was a generic beer hall that happened to be open at the time I wanted to have a drink. I was amazed that two different couples composed of a nondescript husband (one was larger and gave off blue collar vibes, the other skinny and academic) and exactly the woman I just described entered a little after I was seated and sat at the bar about five stools separating them. Both also had colorful print scarves around their necks.
Was I carded? No, and it’s increasingly absurd that I continue this category.
Age appropriate? Sure, at least during the afternoon.
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Stop Treating 70- and 90-Year-Olds the Same
Clearly, I am not 70 yet but this headline caught my attention since I know if I make it to that age I’m going to be annoyed about lumping everyone in the same old age group.
I certainly found it ageist that Tinder did not allow searching nuances after 47. You could specify a 41-44 segment, for instance, but then you would have to take all 47+ men as if looking to date a 48-year-old man is the same as 65 or 80.
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Do Orcas Have Hot Flashes?
Defined broadly, menopause is the programmed end of fertility in a female animal. Human women, of course, are well aware that their fertility will decline with age and cease after a certain point, typically around age 50. In the animal kingdom at large, however, menopause is an oddity — and a long-standing evolutionary mystery. An organism’s ultimate goal is reproduction. Why sacrifice that consummate purpose? Even more puzzling, why would an animal naturally become infertile and then go on living for years? Throughout history, scientists have proffered numerous theories. But studying the biological phenomenon of menopause is difficult, in part because it seems to be so rare.
Lenny Letter, on the menopause for millennials beat.
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Screen Time: Friends From College
I’ve seen detractors of this show, a few “it’s ok’s,” and one “love it” from a woman who suffers the most severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect I’ve ever encountered. It’s not a great show–college-themed premises don’t work on me because I went to a weird, really small school–but I keep watching anyway. Keegan-Michael Key is turning 40 (the actor is 46) so these friends from college, I assume, are similarly aged.
In the second episode, Lisa, played by an actress who is only 35 which is specious since she’s married to an actor a decade older, both pretending be 40, drinks too much at a bar presumably in Manhattan and is boorish at her friend’s play.
In the third episode, all three lady friends go for drinks at Bemelmans, an uber-age appropriate venue. In fact, that’s the joke, played very broad, that the women glom onto a table of rich octogenarians and pretend to be models who also sing.
As an aside, the opening scene shows an affair between Keegan-Michael Key and Annie Parisse (42) where he runs out of condoms, wants to do it anyway, and asks if she’s in menopause, bolstering my theory that menopause will be a growing part of pop culture and eventually made cool.
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Screen Time: Gypsy
I’ve only watched the first three episodes of Gypsy yet there is already a plethora of middle-aged lady drinking and in all sorts of age-inappropriate venues that begins with a bourbon (Naomi Watts’ character asks for a chardonnay) in one of those weird cafe hybrids where I would never have a drink.
“Diana” also gets a drink spilled on her when she goes to see a barista’s show in a bar and shows up at a dance party in Bushwick.
Jean, her real name, takes her husband Billy Cruddup to some new bar she knows about that seems ok for 40somethings.
Diana is never presented as old or out of place, though her new lady friend mentions that she likes older women.
P.S. The character has a hands-in-pants masturbating scene that clearly echoes Mulholland Drive.
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AARP The Girlfriend
Nice to see a publication for women 40+ since there kind of aren’t any, but does it have to an offshoot of AARP? The R does stand for Retired, if you forget, and that’s at least two decades away for me–and maybe you too.
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I Called It…
…millennials are already trying to make menopause cool.
“Is this the new normcore?” Haley asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’m trying to think of how to describe it in that same vein. Middle-aged…menopausal…Menocore??”