Female ageing causes female bitterness

“See a smile, and see an optimist. See a smirk, and see a realist. 

See a frown, and know an eternal bitter and twisted pessimist.”

It was a cold winter Monday morning in the gym queue five minutes before the opening hours of 6.30am.  The doors leading to the reception are always closed and usually locked, therefore the half dozen eager (or just short of time) people waiting for the opening make small chit chat inside the foyer area.  To be honest, I find most people at that time slightly annoying, but I guess I can’t be too critical as it suits my lifestyle convenience to train at that particular early hour.

There is this one woman named Sharon, and she either goes by herself or, most commonly, with her 60 year old plus mother.  Some could say this is really sweet – a daughter spending so much time involving her mum in a social environment – and as a man who has a great relationship with his own mother, I totally adhere to this, but the reality is Sharon has no friends, and in truth, no life outside of work.  Sharon is in her late 30’s, and although thin, she is looking every year of her age.

Quite a few of my buddies at the gym had heard first or second hand that Sharon fancied me.  It made me chuckle early last year, as she found out that I was going to Australia on my own.  She put two and two together and found five, assuming all had gone wrong with my girlfriend at the time, and that I was single.  Two things wrong with this thought process: One, I was still with my girlfriend who was more than two full grades above Sharon in physically attractiveness, and 12 years her junior.  Two, I wouldn’t date Sharon if she was the last woman on earth.  Porn would be more satisfying and far less hassle.  The lack of reward in relation to the hassle to go with it would be a no-brainer to never venture there.  Any man with options should think and act in the same way.

Although she is a clever, ambitious, hard-working and articulate woman who you could say holds all the non-visual attributes in equating to a great long term girlfriend, and she is good to talk to in so far as you can have a decent conversation with (something very rare with most women), there has always been this chip on her shoulder kind of approach that cannot be concealed to a person who is half clued up on listening ability, body language, and observation of human behaviour.  In fact, she is probably very evenly balanced – with a chip on both shoulders.

Any woman with no female friends, who spends more time with her mother than anyone else, who works seven days a week, who is admitting of being self-obsessed with money, and who doesn’t even go into her company office at all despite being given the licence to work from home, in my cynical view has huge personality disorders.  It just isn’t the norm, and although I’m an advocator of not following suit and refraining from being a servant to social conformity, this is a couple of steps too far.  It only draws to bring about a human being who cannot accept people for who they are, and who cannot take the high road when times get tough or they collide with people who push them off track.  You don’t have to like someone or even get on with them to still use them to your advantage

Back to the gym queue.  When I got there marginally after the two of them, there was only another old chap waiting.  In the reception area (which is not usually entered) stood a skinny, cute girl in her early 20’s talking to the receptionist of similar age.  They were giggling and most likely talking about weekend drama that was predominantly fiction and partly true – as most women that age do, and should be taken with a pinch of salt.  When the receptionist let us in, Sharon and her mum decided to have a go at the cute girl, in quite aggressively informing her she shouldn’t be waiting where she was situated. Big deal!

The cute girl took it well at first, just smiling in disbelief of what had been said.  Shaz and Mum went for it a bit more, to which the cute bird hit her with the killer punch:

“I haven’t come to the gym to get in an argument with an old woman.”

That was gold dust to me, hiding my laughter, but the mum pointed out how disrespectful she had been.  Sharon, needless to say, pretty much echoed every word her antagonizing mum spelt out.  Then the receptionist got involved, trying to diffuse the situation by some words to the effect that her dad knew the two of them.  “You know nothing about us!”, replied the mum.  The receptionist tried to convince them she was only making small-talk to cloud over the friction, but the bitter gruesome twosome were having none of it.  Quite frankly, it was pointless, needless, bitter, and twisted.

The instigated hostility they showed in aiming at the cute girl’s alleged queue hopping had absolutely nothing to do with their accusation reasoning, and everything to do with being jealous and bitter of a younger, fresher, hotter woman in their peripheral vision.  You will see this all the time.  Yes, by and large women do become friendlier and easier to talk to as they get older, but this is through necessity – due to decreasing attention they get from loser men - more than any other subsidiary factor.  But this “friendlier” and more engaging nature is not to be mistaken with becoming bitterer, and nothing epitomizes this undeniable occurrence when younger and hotter same gender rivals are within their striking distance.  This is all the more noticeable when men they are attracted to are within the same breathing space to all parties as explained.

This tale of events can be seen throughout the female age food chain.  Mid 20’s girls who have had a few years going out on the town may vanish once they start to see late teenage and early 20’s rivals appear in greater number.  Late 20’s women in the office will not take kindly to the company employing a young, good looking woman who will take much of the beta male attention away from them.  The 30’s women will know they have less power with men (even mediocre men) than they possessed five or ten years ago, and they may contrive a pregnancy to mitigate his straying eyes, and hands.  Women in their 40’s and beyond don’t improve much on this velocity of bitterness, until they finally accept the fight is no longer worth fighting. 

Compare this to men.  I have seen some older men look at me with hostile, jealous and bitter expressions, but this is also pronounced with men of similar age or younger too.  Widely and generally spread though, there will be far less of this negative emotion shown by older men onto younger men, sometimes even to the point where the older man looking on is reminiscing of you to what he once was.  A naïve younger man could draw to the conclusion that the older man is gay, but the more likely justification is he sees in you what he once saw in himself.

But more relevant to this is the fact that men, whilst not happy with getting older, fatter, balder, greyer, saggier or wrinklier, do not suffer as much from physical ageing, and the deficiencies that naturally form with age, in terms of attracting the opposite sex: 

• For one, the vast majority of women don’t want a man as physically alluring as them, so if you take a female physical attractiveness average of approximately 6/10 (applicable to women aged from 18 to 40), this leaves plenty of older men being able to secure a half-decent woman.  They should, even with excess weight added to all the aforementioned physical slides, be able to grade up in looks terms by a fair margin. 
• Second, as has been said many times before, a man’s physical appearance shortcomings can be disguised somewhat by other non-visual factors – mainly status and wealth – but by many other aspects women find desirable too.  

Six months after her initial hints towards me (now around September time), Sharon asked if I was going away again.  I told her “we” were going to Venice and Florence next month.  Her face dropped quicker than a lead balloon.  A month or so later one of the other receptionists had to enter the foyer, where we waited, to switch off the fire alarm.  With no conscious intention for Sharon to see, I looked at the receptionist’s fine ass as she bent down.  Sharon caught me looking.  She, and her mum, have never been as warm in conversation since those two events…

A final thought

A decent percentage (although still a minority) of women in their mid 30’s to late 40’s, and sometimes older still, do go searching for younger men.  You can blame the need for social proof due to social media, or the odd cougar movie, but at the end of the day it is what it is.  This younger man seeking dynamic is also apparent with women in their late 20’s too, although not as common because a woman at that age is in a better position to tie down a male provider of similar age or older.  In any case, if they secure this younger man he is usually of low calibre. 

A woman ideally desires to be with a man who is wealthier and higher status than her, but the vast majority of these men will be with younger and hotter women than the older woman who is pursuing him.  This leaves a woman past her physical beauty prime to seek out differing motivations, and it often coincides with her being that bit more advanced in her own career, earnings and assets.  This differing emotion often manifests in a psychological need to feel young, beautiful and special, in counteracting the back of the mind doubts that the best days are behind her.  By finding and locking down a man who is a few years her junior, the front end results can paper over the cracks of inevitable later frustration.

This later frustration is portrayed in the way of her projected blame onto the younger man for being too immature, poor, selfish, uncommitted and unambitious, but deep down she knows the true frustration is the voice within that criticizes her own current predicament.  It’s difficult and even alien for her to admit to poor choices derived from the past, so she has to blame someone or something else.