I hope you enjoy this brief excerpt from my new book: OTHERHOOD: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness from a chapter entitled: Where Are the Suitable Men?


I’ve made plans to meet Daniel, a platonic friend, for dinner at The General, a popular Asian restaurant in the Bowery, to ask his thoughts about the scarcity of suitable men. Daniel is a successful businessman in his early forties. He’s one of those rare Jewish men who is super tall and, until recently, super single. He wears his salt-and-pepper curls trimmed neat, right up against his scalp. He has great taste and is always dressed in a beautiful suit and tie. Even on Sunday nights, he wears a sports jacket with jeans. Daniel is most definitely a suitable man.

“How was your date the other night?” Daniel asks, referring to my date with David. I consider Daniel a good friend and I’m not surprised he’s remembered to ask about my date.

“Thanks for asking. Really nice guy, but we’re not for each other,” I say, not offering any further explanation because I don’t want to sound critical of a kind and generous date.

“Hmmm . . . Seems like you don’t meet too many men you are interested in,” he says, perhaps as if it’s my fault. “Any other prospects coming up?” he adds.

“Nope,” I say flatly, but I can’t help but feel defensive. Daniel seems to find new women to date much more often than I find a man to go out with.

I don’t want to pick a fight with Daniel, but like a scab that’s itching to be scratched, I ask him why he thinks there are so many more single women looking for love than there are men in New York City.

“There are no suitable men,” Daniel says matter-of-factly. He takes a swig of his Vodka Soda as a period to his point. I guess I deserved a frank answer.

While Daniel and I have been friends for only a couple of years, I know how hard he’s tried at relationships. He treats women well, always willing to indulge in a famed new lounge or restaurant. He’s even been known to scout for good date places; he wants to find places he thinks women will enjoy for the ambiance and he will enjoy for the top-shelf liquor selection. He takes good care of his dates.

And in typical fashion, Daniel is about to take care of my dating problem.

“Here’s the deal. I’ll be honest with you,” he says without a pause. “Single guys can be jerks. They either have no interest in dating anyone seriously and are just looking to sleep with you. Or they are looking for something serious but have no interest in dating a woman your age.”

It’s a sharp point.

“Sorry. It’s just the truth,” he says. “You should date guys in their fifties,” he adds with another swig of his cocktail.

It’s important to note that Daniel and I are the same age.

“Isn’t your girlfriend in her midthirties?” I reply, one eyebrow cocked.

“Yes, but it’s different for guys. We date younger. Karen is ten years younger than I am. But a forty-three-year-old woman . . . you have to make concessions.” And then Daniel says, “I think you should look for men who are fifty-three to fifty-nine.”

It’s not so much what Daniel says, it’s the tone of voice he’s using. It’s as if he’s telling me I have an incurable disease and the only way to survive is to date men at least ten years older than I am. I understand that if a man wakes up at fortysomething and realizes he wants children, he will look for a younger woman who has more time with her fertility, as troublesome as that is to admit. The problem is that men wake up at fortysomething suddenly ready for marriage, and the fortysomething women have now aged-out
for them.

Ironically, there was a time when we dated only people our own age. High school, college, even in our early twenties, we dated men around our age. At some point, as men get older, they want younger women. First it’s a year or two younger. Then it’s a few years. Then, when they get to their late thirties, women in their twenties are their target.

Unless a man is divorced with children and wants to be in a relationship with a woman he knows will be a good stepmother to his kids, men check out younger women. Much younger women. Women of the Otherhood become more than invisible to them. Men become completely insensitive to us, as if our age is something we should understand is unattractive to them and therefore we should not be hurt by the things they say or do.

“I’m just being honest,” Daniel repeats as I remain silent. He can tell I’m hurt, and somehow he believes his honesty should make me feel better.

Read Part 2 here.

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Excerpt from Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness by Melanie Notkin. With permission from Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2014.