Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Subjectivity
[Read the article: I'm sexy and available! Chat me up!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I will take the LW at her word, that she is an attractive woman, because there is no reason to think otherwise, but in seeing several responses from women who say they are highly attractive and in their thirties, but can't get a man, one has to wonder how accurate self assessments of attractiveness are.
In any mating or dating market, there is an element of competition. Basic evolutionary strategy dictates that each participant tries to get the most desirable mate available to him/her.
Now, when highly attractive women are spurned, are we saying that the unpaired men are by-passing the most attractive women in favor of less attractive women, or that the women who are most attractive to men are not the best looking ones? Or simply that women in their thirties now have to get in line behind women in their twenties?
Or are women in their thirties unrealistic in their expectations? The LW mentions interest from an older Italian man whom she did not consider to be from the appropriate segment of the market. This is fair enough, but is this an accurate assessment of the state of the market?
One way of looking at the situation (plight) of single women in their thirties is to say that they have in some way missed the boat in the relationship game. They have had their shot at the big money when they were in their twenties, but have not brought home the bacon, and now though still sexually desirable, they may have to play in a secondary market.
This is a bit analogous to the pop star of a couple of decades ago who now makes a comfortable living playing to the nostalgia crowd, but no longer tops the charts.
There is a notion in the United States, which is where I presume the LW is from, that couples who date must be very close together in age. Back a few years ago I, a middle-aged man, corresponded with some women via Yahoo! personals. (I don't think I actually met any of them.) What struck me was that women only a few years, or less than a decade, younger than I were not prepared to consider dating a man a bit older. This seemed hilarious to me, because I thought I was doing them a favor by expressing some interest in their second-hand selves.
I am sure that the most attractive women in their thirties can still get the type of partners that they want, but even Angelina Jolie has a man ten years or more her senior, and while Demi Moore has a hot young husband, she is not getting the hot young roles on screen any more, so even the hottest and most desirable women of a certain age will have to adjust in some way to the realities of the market.
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@ Brightstar69
[Read the article: I'm sexy and available! Chat me up!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am intrigued by exotic women (exotic to a white guy) so I would be interested in you if I saw you, but intimidated all the same.
Yes, but why be intimidated? You are a member of the dominant culture of this nation (USA) and she (the exotic woman) is part of an immigrant group or ethnic minority. It behooves you to display a little noblesse oblige and put her at her ease, not the other way around.
Probably it is because you have been reading too many Civil War romance stories in which blacks of both are possessed of superhuman sexual prowess and powers of obeah and rootwork. I have news for you. Them days are gone!
You remind me of a young male coworker not so long ago, who had seen a photograph of my then amor (of African descent) and decided to co-opt me as a advisory consultant on African American sexuality. The question he posed was: "do black chicks like to do it really hard and long?" I explained to him as gently as I could that any relationship between two individuals took on its own character over time and that I could not give a definitive answer to this query. (However last I heard his Caucasian girlfriend had dumped him anyway. I heard a rumor about why on the grapevine, but, alas, too scurrilous and demeaning to mention on Salon.)
Anyway, my point is that if you feel intimidated by potential partners, then you can expect them to feel the same way about you. So do you have a Mexican standoff, or do you do something about it?