I went on a first date (he slid into my Instagram DMs, as they say) last week for the first time in four years. Although the date itself was a pleasant way to spend a morning, it left me wondering if men my age are just ultimately looking for something that women my age are no longer willing to provide.
To be clear, this isn’t a reflection on the guy himself; he was everything a man in his forties knows they should be. Funny enough, interested enough and saying all the right things about the importance of communication in relationships.
That is, it would seem, until the communication comes from me. He expected high praise for all the things he is doing as a single dad, but his list of childcare tasks, I was quick to remind him, is just the everyday reality for most women, single or not.
Anyway, back to those qualities we are all looking for in a mid-life man. He was tick, tick, tick for dating performance. He was charming; he made sure to walk on the roadside of the pavement, and picked up the brunch bill without hesitating. But when I started to look at everything surrounding the date itself, I began to see a completely different picture.
Let’s start with one of the questions he asked me in the lead-up to the date itself. What do I miss most about being in a relationship? I had to think hard about this. And even after considering it for far longer than I should have, the truthful answer was uncomfortable for me to sit with. The only thing I miss is being thought of, considered, even, by someone else. Because as a single mum, that’s not something that happens often in my life.
But with that thought came the painful reality that I cannot think of one relationship I have been in where that has actually been the case. The truth, which I fear many women can relate to, is that I have barely been considered in my past relationships and my needs have always been trumped by theirs: from the small things like never leaving the lights on for me when I got home late, to not asking his mother to stay when I’d just had a baby. So, my truthful answer to his question was: nothing really.
At this point, I should say, I am self-aware enough to know that none of my past relationships have been good ones. So, it is possible that I just don’t know what I am missing. But when I look around at my friends that are in long-term relationships and those dipping their toe back into the dating world, I’m not sure that I see the benefit for women.
I often get the sense that men who are dating after divorce are looking for a replacement wife (who has, in fact, been largely playing the role of their mother), and women dating after divorce are simply trying to protect their peace.
And as the messages back and forth continued with Mr First Date, so grew the feeling that he was in need of something that I am not. We slipped into a familiar pattern of texts in the morning and then again in the evening. I could see how I was filling a wife-shaped space in his life, whereas he was just becoming another thing on my to-do list.
Evidenced again when one night he didn’t message, and I didn’t either, only to be asked the following morning if he’d done something wrong, as I hadn’t been in touch the night before.
How is it that within less than 10 days of knowing each other, and after just one coffee date, I am responsible for managing the feelings of a fully grown adult man in his forties and finding myself having to reassuringly stroke his ego, all before I have had my first coffee and got my kids to school?
The answer, I think, is this: Mid-life men, most of whom have been mothered their entire lives, are not looking for a partner – they are looking for someone to fill the role of carer.
The women I come across are often not sure if they want a relationship – it would have to add something to their already full lives. They know that the chances of finding someone that actually does that are incredibly slim.
Whereas I suspect men are not as fearful – they fully expect that they will meet someone who does enhance their day-to-day, because that is literally what women have been doing for men our entire lives. Adding to it, making it better, carrying everything.
I believe this is why more and more women in mid-life are starting to date younger partners. Data from platforms like Bumble and Hinge show that roughly 59 per cent to 60 per cent of women are open to or actively filtering for younger partners, with a notable rise in women in their forties seeking men in their late twenties and early thirties. And I’m hearing the same thing reflected by women in my DMs.
If I’m honest, where I once thought that would never be me, I am starting to see the appeal; I have heard that younger men are more willing to share the mental load, perhaps because they grew up in a different world. They watched their mothers work and run a home at the same time. They’ve been raised around conversations about emotional labour, therapy and equal partnership that are part of their culture rather than a threat to it. For a lot of them, doing their share isn’t a favour they expect applause for, it’s just what being in a relationship looks like. Men my own age are just not doing the work. Why would they when they have had it so good for so long?
And I don’t blame Mr First Date, or any of the other versions of him that I have had relationships with. They’ve been shaped by the same internalised misogyny we all have.
We live in a world that celebrates men for achieving the bare minimum when it comes to being a partner or even a father, so of course he is looking for someone to cheer for him for doing his own washing or to see him as a catch because he looks after his children.
Because, somewhere along the way, even if they don’t realise it, this is a generation that learned that this is what earns applause, and so underneath all the talk of partnership, and the importance of communication, they are actually just looking for someone who will keep clapping and pick up where their last wife left off. I’d rather stay single.