Mantalk: Ladies, please run away from the 30+ bachelor

Do not do it. Do not do what? Do not go out with that over 35 man. It’s me who is telling you?

Wait. Put the pitchforks down—let me ease you in slowly, with a personal anecdote. Recently, someone’s daughter texted asking me who we are. Who we are? Well for starters we are the children of God. Another, we never fail to remit to Caesar what is owed to Caesar (at least I don’t). I understand the need to define things, but we just met? I don’t even know if you put pineapples on pizza which is a deal breaker for me. And on behalf of all men, stop eating salad when we know you want meat. Life is short. 

What’s also short is the patience on what you would consider these “must-get-a-piece-of” men. These are successful, 30+, well-groomed, well-spoken, stable (mentally and financially) men with the old-fashioned charm of a vacuum cleaner salesman who are, curiously, still single. They will tell you they are waiting for the one, but I have seen certain governments pass the lie detector test more. Look, ladies, if he doesn’t ask you to be his girlfriend/fiancé/spouse, do not think that he is waiting for a sign from the heavens to surprise you. You might as well be waiting for Godot because the only ring that will be coming your way is suffering.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why that eligible, in-shape, wallet-looking-right man is single? At 35? Do you think no one else has tried to snap him? That he was waiting for a unicorn—like yourself—to grab him from the destitution of singleness? If you believe that then I have a dam in Kimwarer to sell you.

Like the perfect aria leading seamlessly to its inevitable cadenza, the older you get the more crystallised your beliefs. In my experience, I have come to love my space too much and anyone who messes with it is on a short rope. I have the Biblical impatience of an Old Testament prophet, and as the modern-day philosopher Beyonce said, ‘I could have another you in a minute.’ I really could.

That’s the thing.

Popular literature exists as a totem to the lone wolf persona of the bachelor creature, as seen in his many forms. He is a prima donna, he lives life on his own terms, and he is a rugged swashbuckler, artist, or writer. His sex appeal? His detachment from society and his snubbing of the social caste system—an Alpha male, so to, ugh, speak—make him the hottest ticket in town. 

He never compromises for a woman, but everyone knows he’s compromised a lot more to fit in with other men, and by that, I mean, he has a lot of unhealed trauma that has left him with an emotional range of a piece of furniture. For every crisis of masculinity, there he is, a bachelor ready to throw down the gantlet to a woman by beating her at her own game: domesticity.

Those who say things say, “If you love somebody set them free.” These are the men then who really love you loads because they will set you free once you get deep when all they are looking for is a nice carpet to shove important conversations under.  

In your 30s and 40s, the clock is ticking. The party is nearing its end. For single men and women who are in their 30s, the connecting tissue they both talk of is carrying around a lot of emotional baggage. So they withdraw from one another. Who has the time to keep going on dates and rehashing the same old lines, wasting energy, just as bachelor parties, you might have noticed, are wasted on the no-longer bachelor? 

We have become general with our morals and picky with our desires. We are looking for an intelligent thug, a praying stripper, and someone who can get us a quick tender. Even the language has changed: we look for partners, not soulmates. We avoid deal-breakers. We have become highly transactional—we want someone who we can eat with, and someone who looks good on our news feed. 

We are all trying to optimise the process of falling in love, but as we now update our personalities to brands, we have lost the very essence of humanity—that which cannot be faked, created, or curated. Writer/Journalist Christine Mungai said it better: “Viewing oneself as a brand implies a need to conform to a specific image or persona consistently.  

You can pray all you want but eventually, David had to pick up a stone and act against Goliath. And the Goliath is that some men never grow up. Some men will never grow up and this isn’t reserved for the lithe and young. Time teaches you that getting old is only the second-biggest surprise of life; the first, by some distance, is our unceasing need for deep attachment and intimate love.

That said, let that not be your Damascus moment to think you can change a fully grown man. In fact, the only man you can change is the one in the mirror (hehe). We started with a personal anecdote, it’s only fair we end with one, albeit confession: I am petty, I am vindictive but by Jove I whip up great pancakes. But if I am a bachelor by the time I am 35, please avoid me. Si it’s me who is telling you?

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