The Catastrophe of Ageing

~ Midlife Dating Adventures

This is a thought-provoking piece (and you all know how I love those) that ties in well with the series of articles I have written previously about women aging and dating. Thanks to Exposing 40!

exposing40

Summer 2015 and I am six months into my forties. It’s a balmy Friday evening and I’m at the bar at Lewisham Street Feast.

Cute twenty-something barman: “That’s a really nice dress.”
Me: “Thanks.”
Him: “It’s Cos isn’t it?”
Me: “Yes!” (Impressed)
Him: “I ironed it for my Mum earlier.”

I don’t think I stopped giggling for about half an hour. When do cute barmen stop noticing you and start noticing that you’re wearing their Mum’s dress?! Joking aside, becoming invisible is the great catastrophe that befalls women as they creep into middle age. Or it is if you believe the Daily Mail, which last week claimed “midlife invisibility stings, whatever the feminists say.” Urgh!

Summer 2016 and I’m 18 months into my forties. It’s a balmy Thursday evening and I’m sat in my garden, savouring a glass of white wine and thinking about a conversation with a…

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43 thoughts on “The Catastrophe of Ageing”

      1. People like you are an asset to listen to. Poor people who don’t consider themselves lucky for knowing you. Always sad hearing beautiful intelligent ladies feeling not valued in this society x

        Liked by 2 people

  3. Boring dates are not worth it. I guess they are in such a hurry for kids sometimes so they can finally get an adult in the house. I wonder if the husband is actually the father sometimes. The one I saw on the train before was so unfit I thought there was no way he could have sex without a PlayStation etc…
    The kid was about 4 and already had authority

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    1. Oh this is making me laugh a lot! Yes I had an extremely boring coffee date yesterday morning with a tall, humourless and passionless IT dude with a high-pitched voice. Thankfully he wasn’t feeling it either and messaged me this morning to wish me luck. Yay!

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      1. I feel for some people doing the right thing and getting out there to meet incompatible people. I would be deluded if I thought I was always a good date though. In those days there were certainly women kinder to me than otherwise.
        I deal with several alcoholics trying to get on the program and for some reason this woman hating immature garbage seems to be a common trait. Especially amongst those who will never get sober. It staggers me how Adams will so often blame Eve. These are grown men with jobs, kids, etc… she did it.
        For effs sake I wish they would grow up.
        God help us if they ever find out she was just about always faking it.

        Liked by 3 people

      3. I had one idiot on my couch for a fortnight. He used my WiFi for this MGTOW shit.
        Omfg…. how sad. They cry about shit I love about being male.
        Get a fucking anachronym I said

        Liked by 1 person

      5. These are blokes making money by spruiking anti racism and anti homophobia yet when safe to do so at a footy club have called me a fag, etc…
        I said at least if I were I would have backbone and wouldn’t have to steal money from my kid’s piggy banks after a weekend at a dance party. Seriously what parent has to come down all Sunday still? Especially when the drugs he gets are mostly sugar anyway.
        In seriousness my best mate was gay (and died in the 90’s) and he would have broken some of these halfsteppers necks. I shook the hand of an All Australian centre half back a few months ago and hmmm….
        It’s all a bit how’s your father…
        I have never been married but how difficult can it be to go home after whatever you are doing…. without blaming a political party?

        Liked by 2 people

      6. Don’t worry I have said all this with 40 of them standing around and one exit from the room…. and they still can’t even conspire how to hit me. Oh… 2 of them do drive past me and yell faggot. Both fathers.
        They have probably had blues with their partners because she won’t take the wheel when they want to try yelling out something new

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      7. Sorry. Feeling a bit better now. Apologies for going off tap on your real estate. I also mentioned sports in an abstruse manner. Still did in a sense. Apologies for that. It would probably go on the tally of good will you’ve extended me.
        I hope I didn’t interrupt during dinner 😆😉

        Liked by 1 person

      11. Totally. I didn’t know whether to laugh or what. He used about a week’s worth of my WiFi in a day and then complained that I should have unlimited.
        He had been kicked out of home and had court coming up. When I drank years ago I often got beaten up and slept anyway. In no way was any woman interested in me and if she was I knew she was going worse than me. These half steppers usually have drug habits to qualify as alchies and they rarely stop as they keep acquiring all the material gains and status symbols life has to offer.
        I had someone else today blaming women for everything. Maybe they should read the first part of the bible again.

        Liked by 2 people

      12. They can’t even get an anachronym. The sort of wets who could never get their pen licence in grade school.

        Liked by 1 person

      14. This one dude screams when his hysteria is really bad that science will make women obsolete and we will be able to reproduce without them. Luckily when he books my time I double book because he always cancels.
        I wish a bookie would offer me odds

        Liked by 1 person

      16. The worst thing is the complete lack of logic. Because I listen over time and don’t comment regularly I really develop quite a tapestry of their bullshit. It actually has helped me stay sober for more than 18 years. If we listen people show us what to do… and what not to do.
        I have very little power over people, places, and dickheads.

        Liked by 1 person

      17. Seriously E I effing cry. When I was a teenager I had a song called I’m with Stoopid. I feel it got caught on repeat and never ended.

        Liked by 1 person

      22. This shit he was watching on my time and money was absolute garbage. I said she didn’t do any of it. You fucking married a stranger and then 2 years later were telling me that you’re discovering what a nice person she is.
        You fucking married her I said.
        I have hated being told other people’s business in locker rooms since I was 15

        Liked by 1 person

      24. Hmmm… I look younger than I am and I get spoken to like a child quite often. Sometimes I stop these fools and ask them how old they think I am. Usually they say mid 20’s. Only middle easterners say 40’s when I stop and ask this one. I guess their arrogance isn’t naive.
        In reality I feel damn ancient. God knows I have paid some dues. Thanks for the chat although I really shouldn’t be encouraged 🤣

        Liked by 1 person

      26. Despite having depression since I was 17 I guess what separates me from them is that I have chosen to use a condom and been honest with girlfriends. Ie not emotionally blackmailed or taken hostages. With my inner landscape it has been cause for me to consider others more.
        Sorry. A bit over it. Some blokes are just piss weak. Funny how their partners tell them to talk to me and whilst I have fooled around with married women I will never betray friends. My brother would come up from the grave on that. Even a friend who was a bastard I twice refused his long term girlfriend.
        Most blokes are weak as piss and secretly want to wear stockings etc… at their local bar. Secretly

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Great article. It was like someone got inside my head and wrote down what was there but more articulately than I could. I don’t feel invisible. In fact, I have strengthened A LOT since hitting my 40s. The only thing that’s changed is that I don’t get wolf whistled in the streets and thank god for that! I definitely don’t feel invisible.

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. Strangely enough neither do I. For me, I have come alive since leaving my marriage and have found a new and more interesting life – at least one that is more lived and filled with ups and downs, rather than the other more mundane ups and downs that raising children gave me. (To be clear, also incredibly joyous times). I liked reading another woman’s perspective.

      Liked by 4 people

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