The Male Version of the Ticking Clock
Elline Lipkin wrote an interesting piece recently for Salon.com called “The Mating Game." 35 and certainly entering the “Ticking Clock” time zone herself, she fled New York for Texas to save herself from becoming “a particular stereotype that I’d sworn never to become: the overanxious, time’s a-tickin’, neurotic single woman over 35 living in New York." Instead, she found herself suddenly thrust into middle age, since marrying before 30 is not the unknown in Texas that it is in NYC.
So she hit the Net to try her luck, and found herself bombarded with men 10 to 15 years or more older, who suddenly “wanted it all” and were most concerned about the state of her womb and age of her eggs. These guys looked primarily for women under 35. Lipkin writes: “Now that they’d set the goal of getting married, they seemed more than a little surprised (bewildered, in fact) that this was one goal they couldn’t make happen by simply applying their will." and “I didn’t disavow that someone 10 years older might have something in common with me, but when I met these men, it was rarely the case. Their grizzled hair (or what was left of it), paunchy bellies and lined faces placed them in a life stage that seemed distant from mine—still finding my way into a new career, longing to start down the path to family with someone also navigating the way for the first time."
Certainly a huge complaint of women who are in the same age range as these over 40, 50 and 60 guys is that the men are looking for much yournger flesh than theres. Who knows, maybe they’ll find it—particularly if they have the assets (ie money) to pay for it. But most men are going to find that like Lipkin, most women 35 and under are looking for guys their own age. Read my earlier blog posting to see what eHarmony’s Neil Clark Warren has to say about the same subject.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
