A friend's unintended insult

growlycat · May 31, 2014, 08:16 PM

A casual friend of mine recently made a comment that hurt a great deal.

This friend said that if someone, by their 40's has either not been married or in a very serious relationship then "I tend to think something is very wrong with them."

My friend although in her mid 40's, older than me, is a former model and still gorgeous. Me: out of shape but trying, and someone who has never had a truly satisfying or even long lasting romantic relationship.

Comments like this make me feel even more hopeless about myself.I know that I had a rough start in life and I didn't even begin to get my ***** together emotionally until my 30's. I am the ultimate late bloomer.

It's hard not to feel damaged or broken, but I only have one life--i'd really like to live it. I'm tired of being in pain and feeling bad.

Has anyone found any small or large success out of a situation like mine? Anyone get it together enough to have a satisfying love life? F* marriage and having kids at this point---companionship would be enough.

growlycat · May 31, 2014, 08:31 PM

Ha!! Thanks, Hankster--she is a "work friend" meaning not a very close one.
At the time she was talking about a guy she dated, not me.

I'm sure some of this comes out of her own insecurity--she has always been gorgeous but faces the likely prospect of what age will do to her. Pretty people have no idea what life is like for the rest of us.

She said other depressing things too--that guys in their 40's and 50's want women in their 20's and 30's. A lot of what she said sounded like cliches yet I still find it depressing.

It is hard to shake the feeling that I don't belong anywhere.

growlycat · May 31, 2014, 08:39 PM

um..hankster where'd ya go??

hamster-bamster · May 31, 2014, 10:33 PM

Growly, I have two suitors currently, one in his 20s and the other in his 30s. Both very smart and I find them attractive. One is slim (in his 20s) and the other is too slim (a walking skeleton). I weigh 227 lbs being 5.5 (I don't look quite as heavy because for some reason, hopefully dense bones, I always look less heavy than the numbers - when I weighed 150, people thought that I weighed 120). So this example shows that young men do get interested in older women and that weight is no hurdle. My bf is 5 years older than me, slim, and in awe of my assets - "just make sure you don't lose your roundness" were his words recently. I know or have seen pictures of several other women he had been in relationship with. Two are zaftig, one is extra svelte, and one is medium shaped. His preference, he says, is for zaftigness.

Statistically, men do tend to get interested in younger women more frequently than in older women, but it does not mean 100%. And the bulk of relationships is still within a close range of age. In terms of body shapes - just look AROUND. not on TV, but around. You will see all sorts of couples, and the prevailing majority of them eould not fit the very narrow and thoroughly arbitrary standard that gets pushed on us as the ideal to strive for.