A 60-year-old woman has revealed how she was once booed in the street for dating a man 20 years her junior.
Anne, from Melbourne, was married to a man who she’d been involved with for two decades before the couple decided to call it quits.
At the age of 39, when the marriage broke down, she realized there was a societal expectation that getting married was a “given” and she didn’t necessarily agree with it.
“We’re not really taught how to choose the right person for us,” Anne told news.com.au ahead of her appearance on SBS Insight’s Taboo Relationships episode.
“We don’t understand that love is about more than your emotions — you have to pick someone who’s going to be right for you long term.”
She said there is another layer when picking someone who was going to be the father of your children. Anne said her ex-husband was relatively traditional, and she was a free spirit.
The 60-year-old said it was a weird experience to start dating again after her marriage breakdown, as many men expected her to jump back into the role of the wife when the relationship was relatively new. She said it was so much pressure — so much so that it led to a panic attack.
But, while being out with girlfriends playing barefoot bowls, a younger guy started chatting to the Melbourne local.
“I was just being friendly to this guy, and we were getting on well. My girlfriends said he was hitting on me big time, but I thought he was just being friendly,” she recalled.
But then he asked her if Anne wanted to go to another event after that. She made excuses due to his age, and her friends questioned why she did that.
“I sort of stood there and asked why I said no. I was facing my own ageism at the time, and I started to think about what would happen if I didn’t say no,” she said.
Anne said forgetting societal frameworks around age allowed her to have more meaningful relationships with people who had the same values, energy and attitudes as herself — rather than “rushing to pick rocking chairs”.
She believes younger men actually enjoy relationships with older women because they’re not trying to “hunt them down” for marriage and babies.
But, that doesn’t mean society doesn’t still have something to say about the relationships she’s had with younger blokes.
“I could be walking down the street and see a man and a younger woman and no one would flinch — but I was once walking down the street with a younger guy and was booed,” she said.
“It was so judgmental.”
Anne said one of the women that appeared alongside her on Insight was a sex worker who paid to take place in role play.
“She told me I was brave, and when I asked why she said, ‘Of all the taboo subjects — an older woman with a younger man is the ultimate taboo’,” Anne recalled.
“I’ve definitely had to face it myself — but her who’s had all kinds of experience with fetishes even acknowledges it’s a hard one.”
Anne said a lot of people project into the future — asking what she will do when she’s 90 — or make ridiculous comments like: “When you were 20, he would’ve been a baby”.
She said at the end of the day, everyone involved is a consenting adult and who you are matters a lot more than age. Anne also called out language such as “toy boy” which implies the relationship is all about sex. She said she doesn’t use dating apps, and all connections are organic, adding typically the age gap is about 10 years.
