There’s an old saying that Red Pillers have made their own: “Men age like fine wine; woman age like milk.” Red Pill lore states that women are at their peak attractiveness in their teens and early twenties, after which they “hit the wall” at age 30 or so and rapidly lose their looks, ultimately becoming attractive only to the most desperate of men.
So what happens when Red Pill men accidentally find themselves attracted to a woman over 30? Let’s take a look at one interesting case study, courtesy of the relationship_advice* subreddit.
“My (28F) BF (30M) is having some kind of meltdown after finding out my friend’s (36F) age,” writes an anonymous woman.
I’ve been dating my boyfriend Mike (fake name) for about four months and everything has been great up until now. This post is gonna make Mike sound kind of crazy but up til now he’s been the nicest, most laidback guy I’ve ever dated.
Smooth sailing so far but the iceberg is about to hit.
About a week ago I was on a Zoom call with two of my friends, who we will call Annie and Sarah. Sarah is 27, Annie is 36. I was talking to Annie and Sarah and Mike leaned over my shoulder to say hello. Because of the pandemic he hasn’t met either of them in person yet and it was his first time actually meeting Annie at all. I wanted him to get to know my friends a bit so I invited him to sit next to me and stick around.
It did not go well.
Sarah was talking about her dating woes and how the pandemic has made it harder to date than ever. Mike made this weird joke about how Sarah needs to find a guy quick because at 30 she’s gonna hit the wall and no man will want her anymore.
He said it in this joking voice, but both Annie and Sarah looked weirded out. I was too to be honest, Mike’s never said anything like that before.
Yeah, but he’s thought it. And OP here is only two years ahead of her (alleged) expiration date.
I guess Mike picked up on the awkwardness because he started trying to explain himself and started saying all this stuff about how women age like milk and it’s not the same for guys and men tend to date younger because after 30 they hold all the cards and can pick and choose.
It may be easier, relatively, for men to date when they’re a older, but it’s not like 30-year-old women are dying on the vine on Tinder.
Annie said “I haven’t had any trouble meeting men” and Mike said “Just wait until you hit 30 and lose your looks, it’s all downhill from there.”
Mike has clearly played his trump card. But it’s not so trumpy after all:
Annie just kind of laughed and I had to tell Mike that she’s 36. And obviously hasn’t lost her looks if he’s mistaking her for a twenty something.
Red Pill dogma, meet reality.
I said it kind of jokingly but Mike just went silent and then walked off into my bedroom and slammed the door.
I guess Mike doesn’t like being seen for the idiot he is.
That night and ever since then he’s been very moody and short with me, and keeps making passive-aggressive comments about how I’m “always” against him and never have his back. We’ve never even had an argument before this so I don’t know where that’s coming from.
How mature of him.
I’ve tried to bring up the Annie thing several times and he either clams up and refuses to talk about it or turns it back into me, Annie and Sarah ganging up on him and bullying him, which I don’t think any of us did. The rest of the time he’s just very short with me and keeps picking fights over tiny stupid things like my tone of voice being wrong.
Sounds like someone who needs to be dumped.
What do I do here?
Dump him.
I really want to talk about what happened and about his views on women and men and ageing because that’s kinda concerning.
Dump him.
I don’t understand why my sweet, cool boyfriend has suddenly transformed into this weirdo because he got politely corrected once. How should I solve this?
Dump him.
“Dump him” was the consensus of the Reddit commenters as well. And you’ll be glad to know that she took this advice. In a followup thread, she explained what happened after her first Reddit post.
First of all I want to say thank you. I didn’t expect my post to get such a big reaction, but seeing everyone basically unanimously tell me Mike was bad news was the wake-up call I needed. …
I also called my dad after the Reddit post and something he said basically cemented my decision to end it with Mike. He and my mom are the same age and have been happily married for 30 years. He said “If you stay with this man then on your 30th birthday you’re going to be worrying he’ll never find you beautiful again instead of celebrating the milestone. Don’t waste your time with someone like that. Every time your mom has her birthday I feel happy that she’s choosing to spend another year growing older with me.” And basically, that’s what I want. And obviously I wasn’t going to have that with Mike.
Nope. You would have a man who got more and more bitter every birthday, whether yours or his, because it’s likely that — despite the whole “men age like wine” thing — .he’s worried about his own aging.
Anyway, long story short I did break up with Mike. I texted him asking to meet up and talk and when he asked what about I told him we needed to discuss the Zoom call and how he’d been acting this week. I got more of the same stuff about how I’m a bully and ganging up on him and HE wants an apology from ME and even though I had wanted to do the break-up in person I realized he was going to keep trying to turn it around into being my fault, so I just told him over text that I didn’t want to see him anymore. He sent back “Whatever. Grow up.” and hasn’t contacted me since.
“Grow up” … but not past the age of thirty, says the guy who seems stuck at an emotional age of ten.
H/T — thanks to @redditships and @yetanotherlefty for bringing this post to my attention
*The fact that this post is from the relationship_advice subreddit means there’s a non-zero chance that it’s made up. But this one seems pretty authentic to me.
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Ugh I really hate the wine/milk thing with a vengeance. It’s super blatant projection on the part of the men who say it IMO. So many guys go from looking like a dream at 25 to looking like a hog at 35, with awful skin, awful beards, not showering half as much as they should… They don’t take care of their bodies and let themselves go completely to seed, and then have the nerve to blame women for not being attracted to them, while bashing our looks even though almost all of us – including lesbians, and including girls like me who never wear makeup! – put in a bunch of time every day into appearance, presentation, looking good for others.
PoM is right (as usual) about the issue on the larger systemic scale; the obsession with women’s appearance needs to die. But on the smaller and more personal scale the hypocrisy just kills me. Not least as someone who’s into dudes, and would like maybe a liiiiiiitttttle more cultural emphasis on men being presentable if they want a date.
Off topic, but is anybody here following the second Trump impeachment trial?
way to many factors go into how “well” someone ages for it to just simply be a man vs woman thing.
Thirty. Heh.
Mr. Parasol and I got married a few months before he turned 30, and we joked about it, but always with the framing of “I met you when I was old enough to have a long-term relationship, and young enough to (hopefully) spend more of my life with you than I spent without you.”
Our silver anniversary is this summer. Our life plan is that at some point after our 80th wedding anniversary, we will turn to each other in bed and say, “Good night, sweetie,” then drift off in our sleep together. Do not talk to me about this being unrealistic. We’ve already had one occasion where we thought that life was going to leave Mr. Parasol alone. Thankfully, I got better.
@rv97
I concur on this. I’ve seen a lot of couples where conventionally attractive women are with men who aren’t, but it’s very rare to see the inverse.
@rusalka
Spot on. He just couldn’t handle being wrong about anything, so it had to be everyone else’s fault.
@Victorious Parasol
I wish both of you the best of luck in this plan.
@LollyPop I envy other twentysomethings and late teens for being doing what they want and being free to be themselves. Once you reach 30, it’s all business and bore, and with narrow exceptions you’re forced to look ugly and gender conforming, especially if you’re assigned male at birth.
Policy of Madness
I met my hubby when I was 16 & he was 18; I’m now 68. The funny thing is he still looks like the same person he was when he was 18. Just with some wrinkles…
@Naglfar
Thank you. I hope our luck holds out.
VP, that’s incredibly sweet. I hope you and your fellow Parasol have many more years of happiness.
@Victorious Parasol
Also adding my good luck to you both with that, too. I truly hope it comes to be that way.
@VP – I hope it works out for you and Mr. Parasol as well. But not for many more years!
@Cyborgette
It’s hard to square “men age like fine wine” with the relentless marketing of meat, junk food, supersized fast food portions, caffeine drinks and hard liquor to men. Alpha men are discouraged from eating salads, soy, and vegetables, but it’s women who age like spoiled milk?
If I was Trump, I might be yelling at my lawyer on TV right now.
Maybe the lawyer got tired of rambling and just decided to read out something from the impeachment managers’ notes?
Alan – 100 years from now, people will be commonly under the misconception that Trump’s defense lawyer was the same guy as the cat lawyer, who was also an actual cat.
For anyone not familiar with the recent “cat lawyer” incident, it was a Texas lawyer who attended a court hearing via Zoom while trying to figure out how to turn off a filter that made him look like reasonably realistic kitten in a suit.
Basically this (SFW) Oglaf strip come to life:
Caw! (oglaf.com)
as a trans lesbian, when i was younger (and thought i was a cis guy) i was really worried about catching the “only attracted to 20-year-old women” thing, that i’d be another leo dicaprio. it was honestly much to my relief when i started having the hots for 30-/40-somethings. it’s much happier to not be hung up on youth
A happy ending! And hurray for the dad! He handled that in every way right. And he could because he obviously already had a positive and respectful relationship both with his daughter and her mother.
I’m only interested in women who’ve hit the wall and crossed it. It would be terribly lonely to be with someone who I can’t relate to.
I know I’m late to this post (haven’t been writing here in a while & should get back to work soon), but it’s also possible to look younger than you are without being super hot (points to self).