Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

The other day I answered an ad in Craig’s List that couldn’t have received, in my mind, a more appropriate response. But I got no response.

The ad’s heading was: “Arise, fair sun! (45).” That quote is from Romeo and Juliet, which I have spent weeks reading and discussing with my classes. I opened my book right to those lines to find a response. The body of the ad was Romeo’s soliloquy when he espies Juliet on her balcony. It begins: "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. / Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.” It even includes the lines I have been repeating in my head for the past few days, “It is my lady, O, it is my love!” O, a romantic!

I was so ready with my response. I wrote back what Juliet says when she hears an as yet unidentified man in her orchard talking to her, “What man art thou, that, thus bescreened on craigslist, / So Stumblest on my counsel?” I mean how more appropriate could a response be? It even showed wit. Except, except I wrote my age in the subject line. Maybe he really is looking for a Juliet (which would be a 13-year-old), or someone closer to her age than I am.

Except for the twenty-year-old who responded to my ad saying that he always wanted to have sex with an older woman, my age doesn’t generally act as bait. And if a man discounts a woman just for her age, then I might as well be upfront about it.

I have a ten-year age range: five years younger or five years older than me, that seems about right on a superficial level. But the “men” seem to have a different idea. Forty-year-olds seem to not want women in their forties. I, obviously, can’t be sure why men don’t respond to responses. Maybe they are intimidated by responses with no spelling or grammatical errors? But my declaration of age—yes, I am as old as you are (maybe even a year older!) and so, probably, as potentially graying, decaying, and burdened as you—may not be what they desire.

At this point, I am not looking to enter into a November-August relationship (that would be he is November). I would like to meet someone who is approximately where I am in life, with similar challenges and concerns. Why would I seek out someone who is looking for a retirement home in Florida? (I am assuming that, keeping with men’s desire for younger women, my age would be attractive to this age group.)

Oh, it was so easy when I was in my twenties. I didn’t have to entice anyone online; I didn’t have to reveal my age and body type to strange strangers so that they could cross me off since I didn’t meet their requirements. I could just walk down the streets of New York and Israel and Ireland and meet men. Yes, I had the power! But now, now I’m not sure what I have, but it’s obviously not the power. (Except with one man, but he turned out to be married, so that kind of negated the whole “you’re the woman for me” thing.)

I was 24 when I got married; I got married young not just because I met the love of my life (I hope not!), but because I looked forward to sharing my life with someone. The sharing of lives and dreams (theoretically, since it obviously didn’t work out that way) was what I sought. Maybe because I have always been an independent spirit that groundedness of being part of a couple was good for me (at least initially). So this solitary life, while it suits my personality, does not bring me joy. And so I am compelled to see if there is someone out there, if there is a truer love, even though each non-answered response tears at me. At this age—47—I should have developed thicker skin, but it is just as sensitive as when I was younger, but at least then the encounters were kinder, at least then there were encounters.

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