Why do older guys always complain that younger guys don’t pay any attention to them? I’m 25 and friends with a 45 year old who’s always telling me how twenty and thirty-something guys don’t want to date someone his age. He says he’s being discriminated against.
by: Woody Miller
Hey, Woody!
Why do older guys always complain that younger guys don’t pay any attention to them? I’m 25 and friends with a 45 year old who’s always telling me how twenty and thirty-something guys don’t want to date someone his age. He says he’s being discriminated against.
When I make what I think is a logical suggestion—date guys your own age—he looks at me like I’m crazy. “But I’m attracted to younger guys,” he says. I go, “Well, aren’t YOU discriminating against older guys, too, if you refuse to go out with them?” He just looks at me and says I don’t understand. What’s not to understand? Why is it “age discrimination” if a 25 year old doesn’t want to date a 45 year old, but “age preference” if a 45 year old doesn’t want to date a 45 year old?
— Confused but not really
Dear Confused:
All my expert panelists over 40 want to know how you got so smart at such a young age. They also want to know if you have plans Saturday night.
The perverts.
Anyway, I’m with you. I have a friend who’s in his 60’s. Called me “age-ist” because I’m not interested in dating men his age. When I asked him why he pays for “escorts” that are thirty years old but not sixty years old, he says what all males say when they’re cornered by their own hypocrisy: *“That’s different.”*
Men are always trying to exempt themselves from the very rules they try to impose on others. That’s what makes us swine. I’m sorry—if you’re 45 and you won’t date 45 year olds you have no right to complain about 25 year olds who don’t want to either.
Relationships between older and younger gay guys are complicated. In doing research for his book, Reeling in the Years, my friend Timothy Bergling classified older/younger gay relationships into four types: The type that are repulsed by each other, the type that fall in love with each other, the type that are best friends with each other, and the type that don’t know enough about each other to even have an opinion.
My point is that your friend has every right to pursue any adult he wants. But there are consequences to any chase. In this case, being labeled a chicken hawk.
Three important things to remember about the age thing:
1) Don’t assume that all older guys want younger guys. They don’t.
2) Don’t assume that no younger guys want older guys. They do.
3) Don’t assume that chicken hawks are a gay phenomenon. They’re not. Older straight guys are probably worse about dating younger prey than gay guys. Think about it: When was the last time you saw a bunch of straight men whistle when Sandra Day O’Connor walked by? Who do you think straight men want to give a “pearl necklace” to—Barbara Bush or Zooey Deschanel?
Seriously, underneath all the bitchy asides, the passionate relationships, the rock-solid friendships, and the hateful distrust between older and younger gay men remember what Leo Probst once said:
“When it comes to age we’re all in the same boat, only some of us have been aboard a little longer.”
You should support your 45-year-old friend’s romantic choices. What you shouldn’t support is his insufferable double standard.
