Gerontophilia Rejected; Sisters Move On Alone

  In my travels I keep running into single women over forty. As I am facing a thirtysomething birthday, alone and single, in eleven days, this is very interesting to me. What all of these women have told me is that they are alone because the reject what one calls "gerontophilia." The possibility of dating men as old as their fathers. Evolution or society or some combination of the two tend to favor age disparate relations for many women. But many women would prefer to be alone than slip into bed with someone worried about having (another) heart attack in the process.
  If you look around at thirtysomething women dating men you see some pretty disparate relationships. You see a lot of highly accomplished competent women dating men who are barely hanging on. When one friend of mine who was a brilliant university researcher began dating a part time drummer with a drug problem and a son he could never afford the 40$ bus ticket to visit, I openly questioned what was going on. 'On what planet do these two people even meet each other?!' I kept asking. Apparently, all over this one. The Chinese call the phenomenon A1 women and D4 men. If you are a leftover single it is usually because you are an awesome woman or a sucky man.
  I often wish someone had explained how to negotiate these realities to me. I  recently have been having nightmares and fits of stress when aawake at the prospect of growing old alone. I must note I have found one website interesting and helpful. Gateway-women.com focuses specifically on childlessness, and the woman who founded and runs it, Jody Day, claims she has moved on to happily ever after all by herself. Women who have managed to do this are heroic. The nasty way society treats us is not apparent to those without partners and children. It is the assault of a thousand details from nasty comments, and social exclusion to legal marginalization.
  What I have discovered in my conversations with many single women, is that actually we got that way because we were true and honorable. Ironically, it is married women who often took the easy dishonest way out. Obviously, not all married women are guilty of anything less than true love. But many are. Some faked pregnancies. Some faked attraction to richer men. Some just wanted someone else to support them, or fix their problems. Some pretended they were perfect until the ring went on. Some got pregnant on purpose then claimed it was accidental in order to get married. Some stole their husbands from other women. Some claimed doing a few hours of housework was so draining they needed a man to make most of the money. And so on and so on...Speaking to my older single sisters, I'm getting a much more realistic take on what really happens, as opposed to the myth of crazy defective women ending up alone. I am actually starting to be proud to be a single woman.