Published 2010-11-16T16:29:00Z”/>
Serena Cervantes
There is an aesthetic eeriness in the movie “Elegy,” starring Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz, where a professor falls in love with one of his students.
When I first saw the movie, it was like a reflection of my own dating experience was being held up to my face.
I’ve dated countless men, mostly in their 30s, who I always assumed were a matured version of the males my own age. However, I’ve learned that, just like Kingsley’s character, older men can be just as piggish in what they desire.
The film depicts a love that seeks to justify itself between the age difference of an older man and a younger woman, while at the same time tries to make sense of the difference between love and sex. Whereas the latter may be familiar to most women, the former may be foreign – but not for me.
What I’ve gleaned from my relationships with older men is that age does not always equal the enlightenment of life experience. I’ve often equated an older man’s education, steady job and total independence with a high level of status I thought could fulfill my own personal expectations.
But whereas a 25-year-old waiter at Monks Wine Lounge & Bistro who looks like a male model openly admits that he wants a family and wants to eventually teach high school history, the men I’m dating in their mid-to-late 30s cringe at the thought of settling down. When the waiter told me this, he also confessed nonchalantly that he could potentially sleep with a new woman every night, but he gave me a look that suggested he didn’t.
My ideology of older men is officially crumbling along with my understanding of guys my own age.
Men in their 30s are alluring because they have a natural air of maturity around them that most men in their 20s don’t have the ability to exhibit – it’s the corner of Fifth and Ivy streets versus Duffy’s. But the older man’s clout does not necessarily mean that he’s ready to round up the younger girls as long-term partners.
Perhaps men are just like clothes – not to trivialize them, but a woman needs to “try” men on to get the full spectrum of the rainbow. While men often times see women as “one size fits all,” a woman will go hunting for the perfect fit.
As my gay brother would say, “You just need to find yourself a non-caveman man” – and he’s qualified because his lifestyle affords an insider’s view of the world of male sexuality.
A non-caveman man is a genteel type of male that is looking to date because he has hopes for a future. His intentions are pure from the start – meaning he wants the best for both of you and will openly communicate this.
What is failing in our culture is the ability of men and women to openly communicate what their intentions are. Men and women need to know what they really want – sex or a relationship – before they start sizing up partners based on age, status or beauty.
As my grandma would say while slapping one hand on top of the other, “Communication, communication, communication!”
Communication was certainly nonexistent in “Elegy,” creating in its view a defeatist, somber outlook of relationships.
Perhaps then, older men are like weigh stations for women – a stopping ground for women to experience the future before arriving there with a guy her own age.
One can see this in the movies “Shop Girl” and “Lost In Translation,” where Steve Martin and Bill Murray serve as embodied ferries that coast women out into the sea of the older-man world.
As Kingsley’s character says, “I’ll be like the old man who gave her some culture on the way,” even though I often feel like “the young girl who made them feel young again.”
These bland emotional statements are the epitaphs attached to relationships like mine – the characters die away, yet the inscriptions remain, and the memory of the affair makes for nothing but damn good drama.
Serena Cervantes can be reached at [email protected]
