HERE’S TO ME, MRS. ROBINSON: IS AGE JUST A NUMBER?

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Jenny and I were in a bar near Marylebone on Saturday night. The bar was set out like a lounge with old fashioned furniture, a chandelier, and a glittery rhino statue. Jenny is a mountaineer and loves swimming in the English sea – we’re very different that way. However, we’re both in our early thirties, have the same hair colour, and are used to our coupled-up friends reassuring us that someone will love us one day.

They will say to us, “It’s when you’re not looking, they will come.” It’s as if they think we’re going out at night with torches and nets, trying to catch a boyfriend.

Back to the story, Jenny and I were in this bar near Marylebone….

I was talking to a curly, fresh-faced boy who reminded me of Dustin from Stranger Things. We were talking about this and that, and then suddenly he dipped his eyes.

“I’m very into mature women,” he said.

I looked behind one shoulder, and then the other, and realised he was talking about me. I was the mature woman.

Great. One minute I was sucked up in skinny jeans grinding to Black Eyed Peas, and now… I’m Mrs. Robinson.

Mrs. Robinson is the antagonist in the 1967 film, The Graduate. She is a disappointed premenopausal housewife who seduces the bumbling, strait-laced graduate, 21-year-old Benjamin. They have this affair…Benjamin turns into a man…He scuba dives in his pool… Falls in love with the daughter…It’s a whole thing. Watch the film.

This wasn’t The Graduate. Even though he was only 19, Curly was far from a bumbling Benjamin. Nor was I a seductive Mrs. Robinson. For one thing, I wasn’t in suspenders and wearing a leopard print coat. ( I was in a long white dress that, according to Jenny, ‘made me look like an unmarried wife.’)

“Come to an orgy with me,” Curly said.

I almost spat out my drink.

“No, thank you,” I replied.

“Please. It’s not far, just in Soho,” he whined. As if distance was the issue. He stuffed his cigarette into the ashtray and blew out the last bit of smoke off the balcony.

“There is no excuse for you to smoke,” I nagged. “You were like four years old when they put black lungs on packets.”

“I would rather give up orgies than cigarettes,” he replied and, to make his point lit another cigerette and inhaled it.

Jenny was getting the same chat from Curly’s friend. It was clear from her expression that she also didn’t want to fulfil the ‘mature woman kink’.

I’m not opposed to age gaps in healthy, consensual relationships. I have dipped a little below my age and have got sixteen years above my age. And I’m not alone – age gaps are said to be the relationship trend of 2024. According to a Bumble survey taken last September, 63% said that age wasn’t a defining factor in dating.*

Just look at Hollywood; Heidi Klum married a 29-year-old guitarist when she was 45. Ellen and Portia are 15 years apart. Dick Van Dyke’s wife is 46 years younger than him; she’s 52 and he’s 98.

There are pros to dating an older man. For starters, there isn’t that fear of losing him to #VanLife. They also can age beautifully, like a pair of old leather boots. They don’t kick footballs in the house. And those extra years mean they have more stories to share. I’m also fascinated by first-hand accounts of what growing up in the 80s was like. Was a Rubik’s Cube all you had to play with? Where were you when the Fall of the Berlin Wall happened? Did your mum work out to Jane Fonda?”

I disagree when people say that age is just a number. Whether we like it or not, age moulds our views, routines, and bodies. It’s not a number; it’s part of who we are. Dick Van Dyke is no longer dancing around chimneys for his job. I’m no longer thinking I could be a surfer in Australia. We learn, we mould.

We can still be in love with someone a generation ahead or a generation below, but we may have to adapt to the lifestyle that comes with their age. If dating older, you need to be willing to go to wine and cheese nights, and be there for when their cholesterol rises.

“It may be good cholesterol from the eggs, but it could be that blue cheese you keep eating, darling.”

And if going younger, you risk being cancelled on your sofa for watching Friends. Plus, your youthful partner will never understand the parental pressure you endured as a child of keeping your tamagotchi alive.

Back at the bar in Marylebone with the shiny rhino, Jenny and I were still being chased by Curly and his friend. (I forgot how persistent 19-year-olds could be).

We told them again it was not going to happen. And then advised them to stop smokimg, look after their hair, and if they really had a kink for mature women, then they should just go to Gail’s…wherever there is sourdough and overpriced coffee, Mrs. Robinson will not be far away.

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