All women should lie about their age!
NOT since I was a mere 30 years old have I told the truth about my age. Whi c h may have been ten years ago, 20 years ago, or more. Maybe even less.
As far as I’m concerned, my real age is no one’s business but that of Her Majesty’s Passport Office.
Lying about it is a liberation, especially romantically. As a writer with 16 books to my name, my age doesn’t affect my professional ambitions — but, if it were made public, it would certainly play havoc with my personal ones.
For example, not many years ago, I found myself enjoying dalliances with a 35-year- old man and a 70-year-old (not at the same time — though, admittedly, in the same week) and gave each varying accounts of my birthdate to suit the occasion and the vanity of the man in question.
Today, I’m still not prepared to r estri ct my amorous adventures by telling a man my true age.
After all, I might feel obliged to act and behave accordingly. For society f orces us to become prisoners of our age.
Whether ticking a box on a form, shopping for skincare or picking a year from a dropdown menu on a website, the minute you declare your age, assumptions are made about who you are and what you should be doing at that stage in your life.
I have friends in their 30s who are bombarded with onli ne adverts f or life insurance ‘so your children will always be looked after’ — despite not having children.
ME A N WHI L E , other fr i ends have hit 50 and found Saga cruise brochures tumbling onto their doormats — never mind they’re more likely to be jetting off on actionpacked ski holidays than sitting sedately at the captain’s table.
I’ve never understood why society is so obsessed with age. Oscar Wilde was spot on when he said: ‘ One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.’
Sometimes I claim to be older; sometimes younger. Over the past five years, on different occasions and i n different situations, I’ve claimed to be 45, 55, 65 and 75.
For though I’m honest to a fault in every other area of life, I don’t feel the least bit obliged to give an accurate account of my age any more than I feel obliged to advertise my bra size or my weight.
Fibbing about age is, indeed, something of a family tradition. My mother never admitted her age to anyone and, throughout her life, my grandmother, who lived to 90, referred to ‘my older sister’ — even though she was the elder by several years, a fact only discovered on her death.
One friend, a beautiful writer in her — well, I’m not sure what — has been with her partner for the past 30 years, but he still has no idea of her true age. Nor has he asked.
I truly believe that it is a woman’s prerogative to fib, whether that’s shaving a few years off or adding them on if, for example, you want to be taken mor e seriously.
And f ar f r om being unusual, nowadays it is a positively fashionable stance to take.
Singer Nicole Scherzinger has admitted to knocking a few years off her age in the past, and model Agyness Deyn started out in fashion lying about her age. Meanwhile, pop icon Cyndi Lauper has consistently refused to confirm or even discuss her age. ‘ What am I?’ she asks, defiantly. ‘A car?’
Like Cyndi, I don’t want my date of birth on a website — so I also understand the actress who sued the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) for publishing her age.
Once a person knows your age, they size you up, put you in a box, expect certain things of you — then are shocked if you don’t l i ve up to their expectations. This is especially true for women, who are judged unattract i ve and are i gnored the moment they admit they’ve hit middle age. Internet dating, which always requires a woman to answer the age question on her profile, is a case in point. Why on earth would anyone tell the truth?
On the few occasions I have used dating sites, I’ve always fibbed, but admitted doing so the moment I met someone with whom I wanted t o pursue a relationship. Without, of course, revealing the real figure.
Interestingly, each and every time, the man confessed that he, too, had fibbed about his age — suggesting it’s not just women who are reluctant to be classified by a number.
Dating aside, the internet is a cruel place for women not in the first flush of youth. Dare to post a photo of yourself and you face the judgment of trolls who will harp on about your appearance — and apparent age — with the greatest glee. If you claimed to be 100, they would crow that you look much older. You just can’t win against such mean spirits. The best way of fighting them is to be upfront and honest about your refusal to reveal even the slightest clue to your age. But there is one thing I can be honest about. My unwillingness to come clean isn’t just because I don’t want to be pigeon-holed or limited romantically, but because I’d rather not admit my age to myself.
I believe passionately that the moment you do so, you are married to i t utterly and completely, with no chance of a divorce. However much you rail against it, you can’t help but feel oppressed by society’s expectations of what someone your age ‘should’ be doing.
In short, I’m with actress Sandra Bullock, who once said: ‘After a while, you have no idea how old you are because you’ve lied so many times.’
Wendy Leigh’s latest novel, Unraveled By him, is published by simon & schuster.