Thirty Is the New Dead (Apparently)

By Haley Strack

Friday, April 05, 2024

 

Heartbreak is sometimes better regarded as mystery than as tragedy. “Why me?” instead of “Poor me” turns heartbreak into a challenge — a puzzle on which to dwell while you await the crushing, inevitable blow that some heartbreaks are inexplicable and unavoidable. Dolly Alderton’s latest novel, Good Material, explains this experience. When Jen dumps Andy, who is smitten with her, he is positively wrecked. He relives every moment of their relationship, searching for answers in a sea of confusion.

 

On the advice of his therapist, Andy makes a list: “Reasons why it’s good I’m not with Jen.” It’s a long one — clearly written by a spiteful and anguished man trying to persuade himself that the woman who just broke his heart is a stranger, not the love of his life. Andy tries to convince himself that Jen wasn’t as good as he thought; that her quirks were too annoying (“refuses to get to the airport a minute earlier than ninety minutes before a flight takes off,” “talks at the cinema,” “comes from a family who go on long circular walks and play board games”). Toward the end of the novel, after much reflection and booze, Andy’s list has shrunk down to just one item: “She didn’t want to be with me.”

 

So there is Andy, a 35-year-old trying to rationalize his way out of heartbreak. Eventually, he realizes he can’t. “She didn’t want to be with me” is fine. Andy’s fear of being 35 with no family or long-term romantic relationship doesn’t seem as bad as being 35 and committed to the wrong person.

 

Love’s doubts often arise at the most inconvenient times, as when a couple starts to discuss marriage and children. By the time you’ve reached your 30s, there’s a gnawing feeling that you should have life pretty well figured out. Alderton’s character’s unease at still being unsettled at 35 — the feeling that it’s already too late — is one increasingly embraced by certain Republicans desperately trying to correct America’s marriage drought. They ought to learn from the novel’s message that love is beholden to more than a time frame.

 

Enter (unfortunately) Charlie Kirk, who said this week that women should realize they become less “dateable” as they age and factor that into their relationship choices.

 

“In their early 30s, [women] get really upset, because they say, ‘You know, the boys don’t want to date me anymore.’ Because they’re not at their prime,” Kirk said at an event. “And people get mad when I say that, well it’s just true. If you’re in your early 30s, I’m sorry, it’s like, you’re not as attractive in the dating pool as you were in your early 20s.”

 

Kirk, like many among the online Right, faults women who haven’t married by the time they’re 30. Some of these creatures of online don’t understand why his comment has become controversial. But Kirk wasn’t making an observation about fertility rates, which, owing to biology, are higher in younger women. He said that a woman in her 30s is less dateable.

 

This observation, if you can call it that, doesn’t line up with Kirk’s experience. The political commentator met his wife, Erika Frantzve, when she was in her 30s. Frantzve spent her “prime” years playing college basketball, earning a bachelor’s, then a master’s, and then a doctorate in Christian leadership. She also founded Everyday Heroes Like You, an Arizona-based nonprofit that raises money for under-recognized charities, and won Miss Arizona USA. The couple now have a little daughter.

 

Are a woman’s 20s a waste of time if she’s not married by the end of them? Does she become less attractive when she hits 30? A variety of traits factor into attractiveness — confidence, social and intellectual maturity, life experience. All of these are usually helped by age.

 

There’s no science to love. There’s no rationalizing your way in or out of it at a time most convenient for your biological clock, and there’s no magic formula that propels young adults to marriage or parenthood. I used to wish for such a thing, hoping that conservative commentators who told women to “get married and have babies” might also devise a ten-step plan to get me there.

 

Then I fell in love, young, and fell right out of it. Failed serious relationships teach you better than anything that love is worth waiting for until you’ve got it right. It doesn’t matter at what age it comes. Marriage is, yes, a sacrament ordered toward child-rearing, which is easier the younger one is. It’s also first and foremost the sacrament by which you unite with another person — God forbid you hasten that decision for fear that you’ll lose your chance by 30.

 

It can simply be difficult to meet someone. Some young men are wildly depressed and/or hopelessly addicted to pornography, making it hard for women to find the partner they seek. Men and women are being divided by politics and values, thanks in part to social media. Still, almost 70 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 say they want to get married someday. A loneliness epidemic may be afoot among America’s youth and young adults, but there’s clear desire to remedy that epidemic. Writing off 30-something women who haven’t yet found the right mate is a counterintuitive, not to mention callous, response to a social dilemma.