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“I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY!” – The Beatles
Have you read this yet… “The Case for Marrying an Older Man
A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help," by Grazie Sophia Christie? Oh, you must! Seriously! And oh, how I wish we could discuss her transactional approach to marriage afterward, cocktails in hand.
Before I read, and reread, Chrisrtie’s 4,000-word essay on New York magazine’s The Cut four times, I was intrigued reading "A Latina Harvard grad advised women to marry older men. The internet had thoughts," by Raul A. Reyes for NBC News.
According to Reyes, “Online, people who commented on Christie’s essay called it “an insult to women of any age,” “a sad piece of writing,” and “pitiful in so many ways,” “Some readers wondered if the article was a satire or a joke. One of the kinder comments on New York magazine’s website said: “This is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever read. I am truly mortified for the writer.”
By my third reading, I wondered whether it had been written by a man…it was so reminiscent of conversations I had with male colleagues who were Harvard MBA’s.
See what you think after reading this excerpt:
“The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.”
Right? So clinical and dispassionate.
To my own amazement, by my fourth reading, I was able to become dispassionate myself and realized that, although I didn’t buy what Christie was selling, she was a master marketer!
What Christie had presented was a SWOT Analysis and Marketing Plan.
The goal? To attract and marry a wealthy older man, complete with strategy and tactics…all of which apparently worked.
When I was looking at colleges that had great writing programs, my parents said, “you’ll never get a husband by being a writer!” To which I responded, “I’m not looking for a husband, I’m looking for a career doing something I love!” That was several decades ago, which is one of the many reasons why utterly gobsmacked by Christie’s POV. She is 27 years old!
While we may have come a long way, evidently we still have quite a way to go!