That older, wiser guy is undateable—just ask women his age

Illustration by Manali Ghosh | ThePrint

Nobody is more misunderstood than a 30-plus man who is perpetually single—involuntarily—and thinks therapy is a scam. He’s the original victim of the make-believe ‘male loneliness epidemic’. All his exes are toxic, and all the podcasts saved in his phone are apparently spitting the gospel truth. Naturally, the only way he saves himself is by dating women in their early 20s, not yet corrupted by a fully-formed prefrontal cortex. They “get him”, you know?

He’s not a villain. From Ranbir Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor, Al Pacino to Leonardo DiCaprio—even famous men only embrace youth. So what if women his age can’t stand him? He’s the “mature” guy with a coffee table book for the younger lot. He calls himself a victim of the modern dating culture—and finds recourse in the excuse of being “old school”—but thanks to the same culture and its evolved vocabulary, he’s now able to say that he’s seeking emotional intimacy without commitment. And nobody labels him an F-boy for it. He’s glad he can finally be the guiding force for someone. He’s overjoyed if it’s a girl who was in kindergarten when Rang De Basanti was released.

Guiding force may not be the right word for wherever he leads her to, but his intentions are pure—to make sure she carries him to the bathroom one day.

Before he’s that age, he’s hardly vulnerable. He says he’s got a ‘warrior mindset’ but can’t remember to fill the water bottles he empties. Too fragile for accountability, too ‘emotionally reserved’ to be communicative. We’re not supposed to be hard on him by expecting explanations from him. He’s probably “processing it” and will never circle back. For all the talk about having worked on himself, he’s the victim in all his breakups. His next—much younger, much agreeable, much “easier”—girlfriend is supposed to nurse him out of them. And he wants her to make tea too.

New age barter system

If you’re wondering where he’s getting this flat 100 per cent bumper sale on emotional labour, let me tell you—he’s been deemed the cream-layer boyfriend material of this age. Look to the West, White women are turning trad-wives for him, making phanir teeka musala from scratch.

In your neighbourhood, if you live in Vasant Kunj, Delhi, there’s an entry-level corporate-professional girlfriend who makes him breakfast every morning in half sleep, after her night shift. If he doesn’t eat it, he’ll die from acidity by noon at his very important mid-level manager job. He doesn’t have to ask her for it. Both him and her have seen the same scenes in their parents’ home, so she’s not doing too much anyway.

Lots of 20-something women are getting by like that. Making tea, saving rent in exchange. It’s a barter system. Even the English literature majors among them are not quoting Simone De Beauvoir. What’s the point of making a feminist out of your man if life’s much easier without it?

By chance, due to his rotten luck and the common sense of some women, if he doesn’t find a mature-for-her-age girlfriend, he goes online and becomes an incel. “Women are too emotional these days” is his first viral tweet. “They’re being selfish by not having babies” is probably the second.

Men who never grow up

Speaking of women with common sense, there’s a frontier debunking the fact that older men have any clarity due to age. Too many straight women report of a toxic situationship scenario in this dating pool. The 35+ men are either married or waiting for a ‘good girl’ to marry, so they won’t commit. But they’re too old-school to do casual dating—so they “take it slow” with a woman 10 years younger. She’s the girl who’s never introduced to his friends.

After a six-month-long situationship standoff, a Gurugram girl’s Hinge match broke up with her. His parting sermon looked something like this — “Thanks for helping me quit smoking and focus on sketching, it’s more than I expected from our brief encounter (six months). Best of luck for your future.” What is womanhood if not just about uplifting the gents?

In many cases, these men duck the question by waxing poetic about the perils of partnership; how, by being attached to someone, you lose your identity. Because they’ve been in more relationships than their younger insignificant others, they act all-knowing about how they actually don’t work. So why does he want his non-partner to be loyal to him? He’ll cry, don’t ask.

A 20-something woman in Delhi is fine with dating a 45-year-old man who has two children and a wife at home. But as soon as she starts talking to a guy her age, the married boyfriend loses his mind. He warns that younger men won’t get her depth or fulfill her ‘needs’. He won’t either, but only because he’s got a family to support.

It’s naive to assume that all older men make better partners because they’ve achieved some sort of clarity in life by reading Osho or following Ankur Warikoo. Some of them are half-balding and ‘figuring out dating goals’ on Hinge and Bumble. All they really want is to never grow up.

Views are personal.

(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)