Sex pests, self-loathing and the sheer hell of dating at 51
Read the new Bridget Jones and it’s all toyboys and wild romps with the lights on. Get real, says AMANDA PLATELL
OF ALL t he depressing, maddening and humiliating situations I found myself in as a newly single woman in my early 50s, there is one excruciating moment that will always stand out in my mind.
I was having dinner, our third date, in a glamorous restaurant with a hugely attractive man and had just agreed to go back to his flat for coffee.
Out of nowhere, a man came up to our table and said to him: ‘Great to see you. How’s the new baby?’
When he had left, my lying, cheating date admitted he had a wife and threemonthold daughter living in the country while he worked and lived in London during the week.
I left the restaurant there and then, furious, and wondering if there were any men out there who truly wanted a genuine relationship with a woman well past the first flush of youth.
This is the truth about being a 51yearold singleton. And it couldn’t be further from the one depicted in the new Bridget Jones novel.
Yes, Bridget is back — 51, single and launching into dating again, five years after the death of her husband Mark Darcy.
Early extracts from the new book reveal Bridget deciding that her life as a sexless singleton is over, and she’s back agonising over calories, alcohol units and unsuitable men.
In her hot pursuit of steamy romance, she borrows a pair of thighhigh, spikeheeled black leather boots, goes to a nightclub with her friends and picks up a 29yearold eco warrior.
Wham bam, she’s mad about the boy (the title of the book) and having joyous sex with him in the bathroom in front of the mirrors — with the lights on!
Oh, Bridget please, this is beyond credible. The older singleton’s life is a far cry from instant sex and toy boys who want commitment. I should know: I was 51 when my relationship ended four years ago.
I had divorced in my early 30s, then got engaged to another man, but foolishly ended it after seven years. After that I had been in a longterm relationship which had hit the rocks spectacularly. By the time I washed up again on the dating scene, I was an absolute mess. And the one thing I know I would never have done is jump straight into sexy boots and hit a funky nightclub trying to pull men young enough to be my son.
Thighhigh boots for a woman in her 50s belong only in panto. As for dating someone 22 years your junior, in your dreams, girl — or should that be nightmares.
There are, indeed, many young men who fancy older women but, with few exceptions, they only want sex. They quickly tire of your Dire Straits albums and cosy dinners for two when all they want to do is listen to Kings of Leon and go clubbing.
The first time I was approached by a much younger man as a single 51yearold was in Central Park, New York. I was sitting alone on a bench beside a lake. I had been single for six months and was miserable.
He was 6ft 4in, searingly handsome and, as it turned out, 22. My Adonis was working on a film being made in the park, moving people out of shot.
I had lost a lot of weight, as you do after a painful breakup, and was wearing a fake fur coat and kneehigh boots.
He walked up, towering over me, f l ashed the kind of smile only a man that handsome can and asked me to move. ‘Where to?’ I asked. ‘Straight into my arms,’ he said. ‘I finish in an hour — can I take you to dinner or for a drink?’
‘You cannot be serious,’ I said. ‘I’m old enough to be your mother and, anyway, I leave tomorrow.’
‘Perfect! Hey, I’m not looking for love,’ he said. ‘ Just sex. What have you got to lose?’
My dignity and selfrespect, for starters. And any shred of confidence I had left. I made my excuses and left.
UNLIKE Bridget, I had enough sense to realise that writhing around with a sleekskinned, muscle-toned toy boy is guaranteed to make any 51yearold woman feel more like 100.
You may go to bed purring like a cougar, but you wake up feeling like a mangy old lioness.
While we’re flattered by a younger man’s attentions, most of us want someone around our own age, who is single, sexy and solvent, and wants to be in it for the long term.
As for Bridget’s sex in the bathroom with the lights on, that’s so beyond the edge of reason it falls over the cliff.
Most women require posttraumatic stress therapy after taking off their clothes in front of a new lover after 50, even if he’s older than you.
We usually require basques to hide our flabby tummies, pushup bras to disguise half a century of gravity and stockings to conceal thread veins.
After the end of my long relationship, the thought of baring my flesh to a new lover kept me awake at night with terror.
LIKE Bridget, I did consider joining a dating agency. I went for an interview, where they try to find out what you’re looking for in a man and what you have to offer. ‘Gaah!’ as Bridget would say.
I don’t do fat men, I told the Dating Lady. It’s one thing growing old and podgy with your husband of 25 years, but unthinkable that romance could begin at 51 with a Pavarotti double.
Age range 45 to 60, I told her, and a real 60, not a fibbing octogenarian with a wig.
Race? Don’t care. Religion? Ditto. Wealth? I just want someone at home in his own skin who has a job he enjoys — for all I care he could be a carpenter, I lied.
Dating Lady put down her pen and said: ‘You’re not giving me much to go by here to match you up. Tell me what your dream man would be.’
So I said he’d be a successful businessman in his mid50s, divorced two years ago. He and his wife had drifted apart after the children grew up.
He was about to tell her he wanted a divorce when she told him she’d fallen madly in love with a millionaire and didn’t want a penny of his money. They parted as friends and he kept the house and his pension.
Dating Lady said that as a potential dating pool of men, it was the size of a goldfish bowl.
So I determined to meet someone using traditional methods. I met one man at a dinner party. He was funny, cute and divorced. We agreed to meet for a drink.
The date was at a crazily expensive, pretentiously trendy bar in Knightsbridge that was filled with 20somet hing women who l ooked l i ke upmarket prostitutes.
Rule one for single, middleaged men? Take your date somewhere not filled with women half her age.
Rule one for single, middleaged women? Always take your mobile and arrange for a friend to send you a rescue text message — this is a trick
taught to me by a dating girlfriend. Twenty minutes into the date, your friend will send you a text message. If it’s going well, you text her back the word ‘goer’; if you want out, you text ‘growler’.
This means they call you in ten minutes saying there’s an emergency — you’ve been sacked, the cat has died, London Bridge has fallen down. Anything to escape.
On this occasion, my date started off as the charming man I’d met at the dinner party. Three drinks later he’d turned into a ranting lunatic.
He was divorced, but only just, and his wife had fleeced him for everything. Penniless? Very unattractive.
It got worse. He said he wanted to stab his wife. She blamed him for one son being cautioned for assault and narrowly avoiding jail, and for their younger son being on drugs. The sons also wanted to stab their mother. The good news was that they were moving back in with him. Did I fancy dinner at his place that Saturday?
Rule two for single, middleaged men: never discuss your former wife with a date, except to insist you are great friends.
Thankfully, I was able to send my friend a text and my mobile phone rang ten minutes later — a plant had died and I had to rush home.
Rule two for single, middleaged women: never date a man until two years after his divorce. There won’t be enough room in the relationship for you, her and his anger.
One evening, I met a man in my local corner shop. Not very romantic, you might think, but think again. Dating experts say that supermarkets are a good place to meet men. Go around 8pm, as married men are home with their wife by then, and you can inspect shopping baskets for signs of a woman (singleserving readymeals are a dead giveaway he’s single).
It was late, M&S was closed, so I rushed to the corner store to get some eggs, milk and cat food.
Arms laden, I dashed to the till and crashed into a tall, handsome, welldressed man.
My shopping smashed to the floor, he bent down to pick it up, as did I, our heads knocked together, a lightning flash went off. He was undeniably gorgeous and a knight in shining armour. In Londis.
Wiping egg yolk off my shoe and his leg, he said: ‘This was meant to be, I can’t believe we met like this, can I have your number?’ It was like a movie.
I said I didn’t give out my number to strangers, h o wever attractive, and he said I owed him a drink at l east f or ruining his trousers with splattered eggs.
He had a point. And I thought what the hell. If he turns out to be an axe murderer, at least he won’t know where I live. I gave him my number and he called me just minutes after I got home. He was funny, flirty and full of potential, aged 48, worked in the City, divorced. Single, sexy and solvent. What more could a girl want? He called later to say goodnight. Sweet. He called again in t he morning. Hmmm, a bit keen. And again the next night. During his next latenight call, he said something that was a double entendre Still a bit dizzy after having met someone so apparently suitable, I simply let it go, giving him the benefit of t he doubt.
But no, he was a phone sex pest. Every morning, noon and night he’d call or text, up to ten times a day, with a stream of puerile sexual innuendos, wanting to know what I was wearing, the colour of my underwear, whether I was in bed.
The night before we were due to go on our first date, he called and wanted to have phone sex. We hadn’t even met properly, never even kissed, and he wanted sex already. Needless to say, we never met again.
Fortunately, I did then meet a lovely man my age in the traditional way through work and mutual friends.
We had shared interests, took it slowly and had a couple of very happy years together before it fizzled out. We never had sex in the bathroom with the lights on.
I can only assume that Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding has not been on t he middle aged dating scene.
THE truth is that in 50something single world, there are as many men as women searching f or l ove, and they’re not ecowarrior toy boys.
They’re just men whose marriages have ended, often bitterly, like our own, who are somewhere between keen and desperate to find a new partner or wife.
They carry as much baggage as we do post50 and usually have angry, vindictive former wives, just as so many women have resentful, vengeful former husbands.
Then there’s the minefield of their children and yours, their friends and yours, with you both trying to patch together what has taken a lifetime to build in an instant relationship.
The endless diary juggling between your workload and his, your children and his, takes the organisational skills of a wedding planner.
We’re all looking for that lightning bolt, the person who will change our lives at a time when we’re set in our ways and l ess able to offer the compromise any relationship needs.
When you’re young, it’s different. You’re starting off in life with no hinterland, just a future together.
There are no bitter divorces, crippling maintenance payments, downsizing after a breakup that’s obliterated a lif etime’s savings, resentful stepchildren who would prefer their parents to be still together, however miserable they were. The next chapter f or me happened four years after my big breakup. I got lucky and at 55 I have a lovely boyfriend who does not live in Britain, which rather suits us both.
We get to see each other when we can, have no rows over where we live or the stepchildren, and when we meet we have fun. But has it been plain sailing? Hardly.
Judging by the reviews of Helen Fielding’s new Bridget Jones instalment, t he book is as unconvincing as 51year old Bridget’s love life.
It has been derided as l acking authenticity, but its worst crime is to pretend that returning to the dating scene in your 50s is anything other than pure purgatory.