I always thought the growing desperation of finding a partner and settling down was a female-only experience. Rooted in fear and spoon-fed to us by our elders, it’s predicated on the idea that we’re running out of time and must be picked ASAP before we hit the wall.
As soon as I entered my twenties, my mom and grandma wasted no time narrating the steady trickle of the hourglass sand timer. With every birthday came a familiar update:
“When I was your age, I had a one-year-old and was pregnant with my second,” which the following year would become, “At your age, I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old.”
Feeling the pressure, I tried to fast-track fate.
I thought if I exclusively dated older men in their late thirties, maybe mid-forties, I could avoid the whole gray area of what-are-we’s, bypass boyish tendencies, and leap straight into a mature, fairytale-like age-gap romance that came with a lifetime guarantee of partnership.
On the one hand, I can’t complain—I got what I asked for. The older men I dated were definitely more eager to settle down than men my age. I also appreciated that they humored me in my sweet-but-bland idealization of the white-picket-fence lifestyle. “Whatever you want,” they’d say.
One thing I wasn’t expecting to feel was put off by their eagerness. It seemed more desperate, more ravenous than mine, a way different undertone compared to the pressure-driven urgency felt by women.
A woman’s yearning for love and partnership stems from a starry-eyed vision of the future—a dream sold to us by the media and culture. We’re just little girls who grew up being told that the only end goal worth pursuing is a wonderful marriage and a perfect family.
Older men’s desperation for partnership isn’t typically as frilly. It hinges on loneliness and the need for a legacy. They require pregnancy as proof that their bloodline is worth continuing. Uterus hunters, basically.
I recall two particular dates that sparked this train of thought: one was 38 years old and the other 44, both of whom I met on dating apps.
The 38-year-old was a straightshooter.
On our first and only date, he told me all about how children are the missing piece in his life, how he wishes to have a wife who isn’t preoccupied with her career but who’d rather be a present stay-at-home mom, how he owns a manufacturing firm and is financially stable, and how he’s willing and able to make all of my travel dreams come true.
He was saying all the right things, and we definitely bonded over our shared desire to start a family.
As I nodded in approval to his dreams of domestication, the way he looked at me shifted. It wasn’t me he was seeing, but the idea of who he needed me to be. I was just someone to slot into the pre-cast roles he’d already decided needed filling in his life: ‘wife,’ ‘mother of my children.’
Whereas I wanted to build a family with the right person, he seemed eager to start one with whoever agreed to have his child.
Despite this, we exchanged phone numbers and kept in touch. But over the next few days, he became extremely overbearing.
He’d send me constant check-ins of his day-to-day—from driving into his driveway to arriving at the office—and expected the same from me. Unable (and unwilling) to keep up with this rhythm, my late replies were acknowledged with pitiful woes like, “I thought you forgot about me :(“
My last straw was the barrage of pigeon nest videos he kept taking outside his workplace, each one sent to me daily with some variation of the same caption: “FAMILY!” give or take an emoji.
Needless to say, that was the end of that.
The 44-year-old was just as eager.
He was an American passport bro whom I matched with when he was still in the US. We’d chatted for a month before he flew to my country with his parents—a pitstop en route to a wedding he needed to attend in the Middle East.
During our chats, he told me he wanted to start a family because “the time has come,” that he was sick and tired of the party girls, and that he was ready to find someone with traditional family values.
After video chatting for hours on end, combing through potential visa hurdles, and considering what a move to the US might entail for me, we decided to give it a shot.
It all seemed great on paper: There was a lot of alignment, and he seemed serious about building a future with me. He even introduced me to his parents during one of our video chats. And despite not being my type at all, I thought our shared goals, lifestyle needs, and the power of love would (eventually) be enough to overcome that. I have never been one for looks anyway; I believe anyone can grow on me like a tumor under the right circumstances.
When he finally arrived, we went on our first date. And in true American fashion—or lack thereof—he wore a colorful Hawaiian button-up, cargo shorts, aviator Ray-Bans, and Converse.
Two hours into our date, he’d already called me his girlfriend, given me a ring as a birthday gift, and taken selfies of us to send to his friends.
Given our almost 20-year age gap, I expected to be fawned over, looked at with utmost adoration and sheer gratitude. However, the rate at which everything was happening was alarming. He was getting too comfortable, too fast.
Three hours in, he farted.
“Did you just fart?” I asked, trying to seem slightly amused, not to embarrass him.
I hoped he’d try to save face and deny it, perhaps claiming it was the squeak of a chair or a slip of the foot on the tiled floor. Anything but the ugly truth.
“Yup.”
Noted.
Four hours in, he kept telling me how he had to rearrange his boxers because of me. Mind you, we hadn’t even kissed.
The thought of seeing him again after that made my stomach turn. And when he suggested we go for dinner with his parents as a second date, I was out.
When I got home, I said I couldn’t see him anymore, that things happened too fast, and it was all too intense to bear.
He texted me paragraphs saying I should reconsider because everything was going great, that we should work through it, that I’m making a huge mistake because we clearly work so well together, how he knew he shouldn’t have dated this young but decided to give me a chance, and that I may end up regretting it later on.
I told him I was sorry and couldn’t go on with this, and we never spoke again.
Six months later, he was engaged.
After a bit of digging, I discovered he was talking to me and his fiancée—now wife—simultaneously, keeping us both warm until one of us said yes. Charming.
We’re used to the trope of women clinging onto dying relationships, pushing for marriage, or trying to turn a meaningless situationship into something more significant. But my attempt at speeding up my happily-ever-after showed me what it’s like to be on the flip side of things, with the man being eager to use anything with a pulse as an incubator.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my age gap ventures, it’s just how off-putting desperation can be. The worst part is you can’t even hide it; it’s insidious. It’s in the way you talk, your mannerisms, and your overall energy. And no amount of acting cool and unbothered can conceal it enough.
Now, I’m not saying we should go into dates acting as though we couldn’t care less if our date lived or died, but I believe we should be at peace with the possibility of being alone for the rest of our lives before seeking a partner.
It may sound extreme, but facing your fears head-on is the only way to regain your equilibrium. At the end of the day, energy goes where attention flows. If you’re so focused on finding the one, that energy festers inside you and leaks as desperation. And who knows, perhaps the reason I was attracting desperate people was because I reeked of desperation myself.
With this clarity in mind, I remind myself of one harsh but powerful mantra to keep desperation at bay and discernment at the forefront during dating:
I’d rather die alone than extend the bloodline of a man whose lineage should’ve ended with him.