OK so now I’m forty and single and pretty cute and I’ve written a bunch of things I’m proud of and I love what I do for a living but also I’m broke and I have my head in the clouds a lot of the time so I guess I’m sort of dateable?

Surrrre I am.

Andrew said the other day that if you’re serious about dating in New York, then you should have a profile on an online dating site, and there’s no way in hell I’m doing that, because I am certain it would make me insane. But does that mean I’m not serious about dating in New York? My 90-year-old grandmother called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday and told me I should do J Date, but in the next breath complained about someone’s boyfriend she had just met because he was too fat. I told her I was more worried about paying my bills than meeting a man, and it’s true!

I get hit on a lot by men in their twenties, which is very flattering and at times tempting, and I know plenty of people who are involved in relationships with big age differences that are extremely happy. (Also I know plenty of forty-year old men who consistently date twenty-seven year olds, and I delight in giving them shit about it.) But my last serious boyfriend was nine years younger, and he was adorable and sweet and old-soulful but there were times the age gap was glaringly obvious and impossible to contend with and then we broke up, and now I will never date a younger man again, and definitely not a man in his twenties. Although isn’t it lovely how full of hope they all are? And they have such beautiful skin. And cool shoes.

Now I’m at the age where everyone’s getting divorced, and there’s this whole new crop of men out there who have already been through the wringer once, and they are simultaneously burned out on relationships and yet excited to date someone new. This is confusing for everyone involved, even if he is the loveliest, wittiest, most charming man in the world. (Or perhaps, especially if he is like that.) I do not recommend dating a recently divorced man, nor a recently separated man, nor a man who is a month away from signing the papers, or basically anyone who still calls another woman his “wife” even if it is still technically true. Gross. You have my sympathy but…no. Get out of my bed. Get out of my way. Call me when she’s your “ex-wife.” Call me when everything doesn’t feel so huge and devastating and dramatic. Call me when you’ve calmed down.

Then there are the men who have never settled down in the same way that I have never settled down and we eye each other warily when we meet and can barely have a conversation, and the ones we do have are unpleasant and mired in something…god, I don’t know exactly what it is. I think it’s just this feeling that we’ve met before in a past life and didn’t like each other then. There is nothing new to learn from each other, we have nothing good to share. There’s some sort of combative essence between us. It is so strange when it happens. We find a wall in the conversation, we work our way toward it quickly and violently, and then we walk away without even saying goodbye.

…

I had a writer’s lunch with Dave the other day (he’s married, with children) and he posited a theory that in their twenties, men chase after women, and then in their thirties, it flips, and women start chasing after men. All of it sounds like a not fun game, and I would be a terrible contestant. Chasing! I’m out of breath after the first lap. And I don’t like to play games I can’t win.

So I might be in early retirement over here in the southside of Williamsburg. We all know I don’t care about getting married. And now, forced by a significant birthday to reflect on my relationship status, I feel fuzzy on my end goal. Shouldn’t I know by now? Is it totally weird to not care? I mean, I obviously care a little bit because I’m writing this, and also I think about it and talk about it with my friends. But once I start working on a new book, like I am now with UPSTATE, then I forget for months and months that I should (or could, anyway) be out there looking for someone, and then I surface for air and it is the same as when I left it, only shifted ever so slightly. I guess we’ll have to continue this discussion once I finish a first draft.

No inspiration or answers today. Just honesty.

(11/02/11) | 7 Comments »