10/04/2010

In the country of old men
Met a bloke at a dinner party this week who told me that the way to calculate the perfect age gap between men and women is to halve the man’s age and then add seven years. A suitable mate for Tom, therefore, were I to pop my clogs, would be 31 (he is 48). My suitor, however, would be 80. How depressing is that?
While he gets to swan off with someone who can do cartwheels and give him ten children if he so desired, I’m lucky if I get five years of free disabled parking.
This “compatibility gauge” if you can call it that, must, of course, have been dreamt up by a man. But it has set me pondering if me and my girlfriends have got it wrong.
When I was 31, somebody of 48 seemed almost as old as my parents, and was immediately discounted. Had I been wiser I would have realised that old is good. Those few friends of mine who did marry much older men, have by and large, enjoyed playing the role of cherished, young poppet and have apparently happy marriages, undented by extra-marital affairs, nervous breakdowns or too much hard labour.
Still, too late for me. I am stuck with someone one year older than me, but in all other ways, 86.