“My mother always spoke, not contemptuously, but pityingly of those men who ditched their partners of long-standing in favour of a younger model. ‘I don’t understand it,’ she’d say. ‘At every stage of my life I’ve really only been attracted to men of my own age.’ Of course, some may say that this is all a matter of taste: there are those who relish a disparity in age just as there some who are drawn to others from different countries, or of different races. I’m not so sure; after all, if the analogy were really to obtain, we would have to concede that by and large our culture promotes one ethnic stereotype of beauty – because most certainly that is the case when it comes to age.”
To read the rest of Will Self’s Big Issue article about ageing, go here.
