Age Before Beauty

So, in true Carrie style, 'I got to thinking...' (when plastered on a bottle of red the other night, obviously - usually I never think of anything much, other than what to have for lunch - please say it's macaroni cheese day in the canteen; what excuse I should afford myself for not going to the gym and whether or not going out with a vampire is a good idea when you work in a bar and he can only go out after dark, thus affording you few opportunities to hang out much together - yes, True Blood is my new guilty pleasure TV).

Back to the point (I'll endeavour not to sprinkle this diatribe with too many tortured metaphors and similes, a la Ms Bradshaw) - my drunken thoughts turned to age. Is it just a number? Maybe it is. Maybe you can define whoever you are and whatever age you're at these days with a blithe shrug. But I think, as a woman, you can't actually. There are a whole set of prejudices that come along with your late 30s if you're female. Look at all the dating sites if you don't believe me. You'll see legions of men approaching 40 with not-very-much-of-their-own-hair left (best not look to see if they have their own teeth), professing to like 'going out as much as they like staying in', declaring that they want to go out/stay in (remember, they really like doing both! Wow, imagine finding someone like that! They sound absolutely unique!) with women who're between 20 and 30. Because presumably they think 20-30 year old women haven't heard the alarming, Big Ben-style ticking of the biological clock and therefore aren't thinking about marriage, babies, commitment and all those other curtailing-of-your-bachelor-lifestyle things. And these women would simply love to go out with a (probably) balding man who's (undoubtedly) lied about his height and has so little imagination that he thinks that declaring that he spends his time oscillating between the twin excitements of going out and staying in qualifies him as having some sort of character or personality.

I've got to question whether they're even telling the truth on this most basic of points. Because I might be going to the wrong bars (it's not beyond the realms of possibility - my usual haunts being the gloriously cheesy Be@1 in Balham, with occasional forays to The Loft in Clapham), but I never meet any men who are over 28 in these places. Really, you'd think there was some sort of age limit enforced by doormen in London bars. Where are all the over-30s blokes? Where do they all hang out? Are they in some men-only bunker, laughing at how they're denying 30+ women an opportunity to meet them? Guffawing at their own bachelor ingenuity? Because they're not out in any kind of 'talking to available women over 30' way that I can ascertain.

I haven't been chatted up by a man over the age of 28 in about the last three years. And the last one who did (41), I've been emailing on an almost daily basis since I met him in January, we've been on three outings which may or may not have qualified as dates (the first one definitely did, the latter two were very vague on that front) and he still hasn't so much as raised an eyebrow at me. And yes, as far as I know, he's single, straight, thinks I'm funny, clever and pretty enough not to get a job as a witch (long story), but is clearly hell bent on being very platonic friends.

Back to the question - is age important? I've got female friends who are in a panic about turning 30 (they're 28). I'd kill to have my 30s again; I never thought of 30 as a terrifying signpost that, once reached, defined you as either 'On the Road to Pastville' or 'Turning Left for Desperate Town' . There wasn't anything, personally or career-wise, that I thought I should have achieved. I certainly didn't feel in any way old until this birthday. This year, I'm properly staring 40 in the face. I've got a year till I'm officially going to be middle aged - if I assume I'll make it to 80. I'm lucky in that I never wanted or felt that I had to get married or have kids (I've always believed I'll get married at 80, in a nursing home, and have 18 blissful months with a man named Harry before he shuffles off this mortal coil - as men die earlier than women - leaving me back with my cat again until I cark it).

So, there's no biological imperative to get anything done, and no social pressure to get hitched. Far from it - lots of my most long-standing female friends are part of the army of long-term singles running to the loo every time it comes to the 'throwing the bouquet' moment at the cavalcade of weddings they have to attend. On their own, because we 'understand that numbers are tight'. Have you met Sarah's boyfriend of three months? Either of you? No, thought not, and yet, there he is, taking up one of the famously hard-won spots at your nuptials. Sometimes a platonic plus one, for much-needed support, would be a very generous gesture to a singleton with no hope whatsoever of copping off at a wedding.

I suddenly feel that if you're a woman and you're 40 (even if you don't look or feel it), it's vastly different going out and being (or saying you're) 35, or 37. You can look 'amazing for your age', or even just a straightforward 'hot' (get drunk, don't divulge your age to 27 year old men, choose bars with dim lighting and 'ironic' 80s soundtracks. They think it's hilarious that you know all the words to 'Don't You Want Me Baby', you think, 'Oh God, that was my early relationships'.) At 40, you spend a lot of time doing the maths. 'I could properly be your Mum', you think, as you're snogging a bloke and debating the pros and cons of taking him home. (Although actually this has already happened to me - three years ago at a party, when I found myself snogging a 20 year old. I told him how old I was, and he professed not to care. I really don't know how Demi Moore does it, mind. I felt like at any moment a reporter from the Daily Mail was going to shop me for being a pervert).

Is it unnecessary to feel a tiny bit desperate when you're at parties with all these 20-somethings (with girls who all seem to be unfeasibly tall, with amazing hair and legs that go on for days, in their teetery heels and with an air of insouciant confidence) and you're hoping someone might fancy you? 'I can pay for a taxi!' you shout into a young man's ear, proving what an independent woman you are (certainly this is the approach to take if you want to conform to the popular stereotype of that predatory female the Cougar). But I'm not a Cougar. God no. My favourite item of clothing is a cardigan. Cougars wouldn't be seen dead in a cardigan. I've got friends who've been on those Cougar websites - they said that all the 20-something men were really handsome, with impeccable manners. But I can't shake the inequality of it. The feeling that they're going to ask you about the 'good old days', when people had to arrange to be somewhere without the aid of a mobile phone and when businesses thought the height of modernity was a smudgy fax. It's like being an artefact on Time Team.

I've come to the conclusion that what I'm after is a 30-something chap unburdened by divorce courts, alimony payments or overly-bacheloric mates, who doesn't think I'm desperate for babies (for which just read 'desperate') or massively inferior to some lithe 25 year old. In short (probably very short - men seem to have shrunk these days on top of everything else), I think I want the 21st century equivalent of Julia Child's husband, Paul, as played by Stanley Tucci in Julie and Julia. Julia Child was, by her own admission, somewhat of a galumpher, being 6' 2", a truly massive woman with, if one's to believe Meryl Streep's performance in the film, and why wouldn't you, she's Meryl frickin' Streep, accents are what she does, a swoopily weird voice and an eccentrically huge personality to match her giant stature.

She got married pretty late for a woman in the 1940s (she was 34) and managed to find a man who clearly adored, supported and indulged her, no matter how loopy she appeared to the rest of the world. When Paul toasted her at one party as 'the butter on my bread' in the film, you could feel a whole cinema-full of women going, 'Ahh'. Perhaps I need to stop making cupcakes and perfect my duck a l'orange after all.