The Battle of the Sexes

I had a psychology professor in university who felt that women were definitely the stronger sex. I was in my late teens or early 20's at the time and I didn't really believe him. But his "philosphy" must have registered somewhere in the back of my brain. I can always remember his telling us that women were tough and that's why they had babies. Or maybe having babies made them tough. Hell, I can't remember his exact words but I took his Psych 101 class once a week for a year and he hardly ever neglected to comment on his favourite subject.

My roommate Colleen and I just finished watching three back-to-back episodes of the "Sex and The City" on DVD tonight. In one of the episodes, Carrie (the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker) asks, "Are we the new bachelors?". Colleen and I howled at this one because we think it's true! Lately the men we've been meeting are all about relationships and commitments and "making love" and we just want sex! Is there ever a point in our lives when men and women are on the same wave length?

When we're young girls and women, we dream of getting married and having babies. I never actually "dreamed" of getting married but I did it 'cause everyone else was doing it. I feel it was a relationship that "went too far". In retrospect, we should have never gotten married. Then, in my early 30's and after my divorce, when most of my school chums were raising their families, I was single and still trying to have relationships with guys my own age. For the most part, they hadn't been married yet or, like me, had been married for a short period of time with little or no prodigy. We went to "meat" markets, partied a lot and tried to form relationships with people we barely knew. It was a sad, lonely time for many of us and I never want to repeat that decade.

Once I turned 40, I was well entrenched in a successful career, was close to buying my first home and living a somewhat sophisticated lifestyle downtown Toronto. Most of my friends were female, in their 40's, divorced with no kids, single and professional. We ran around in packs and had fabulous, boozy dinner parties in each other's homes or went to the theatre or out for dinner to the newest, hottest clubs and restaurants. Once in a while, one of us would get tangled up with some guy but it never lasted, especially if the "girls" didn't like him. They were my barometer against which I measured all my men. And not many measured up.

It was in my late 30's and early 40's that I discovered the unique experience of dating younger men (Dad, if you're reading this, you might want to go get a drink of water or something!). The first one was nine years younger than me and he was SO sexy, with his tattooes, multiple piercings and Harley. When he came to the office one day to show me his newly pierced nipple, the girls I worked with went crazy! He was lean and handsome in a rakish kind of way, with long black curly hair. We had absolutely NOTHING in common yet I dated him for almost a year and we stayed friends for a long, long time after that. I think I passed him on to one of my girlfriends.

Since then I've dated guys of all ages but lately, just those much older or much younger than me. Guys my own age seem to be in short supply. Most of them are gay. The rest are married to my girlfriends and therefore, become great friends to me but nothing more. Ideally, these would be the guys with whom I have the most in common but there are none available. The older guys I meet might be financially stable but they can be quite boring. The younger guys I know provide fun and excitement but they are often starting to think about having a family and I'm not!

I've decided I'm not cut out for a long term relationship. I like to sleep alone too much! And the older I get, the harder it is for me to meet someone who can stimulate me on all levels. I need about four different men to keep me interested -- someone intellectual, someone to confide in, someone to get zany with and one muscle-bound sex machine. But if I had to choose any one of the above, I would choose the last one. Less complications that way and my girlfriends can fill in for all the others! :)