Preempting past-it

The past-it-ness of women at or just past legal drinking age is one of the topics-du-jour. Or was, before Ms. Paltrow's riveting occasional tobacco use took its spot.

I'm trying to remember if I felt old at 22-ish, but that was a while ago, and my memory isn't what it once was. With the help of WWPD archives, I learn that in 2005 I found it hilarious that John Derbyshire thought women past 20 were over the hill (as well as disturbing how enthusiastic he was about 15-year-olds). Oh, and that some Northwestern frat boys announced a preference for freshman girls, the point being that any older and the Freshman 15 may have made an appearance. So I suppose it was around this age that I first realized there were, in the world, a subset of adult men, who were not strictly speaking pedophiles, for whom I'd be too old.

But I wasn't losing sleep over this. As a senior in college, I don't remember ever thinking that my peers lacked romantic options on account of haggardness, and indeed this was when some of my female friends got serious boyfriends. Part of this no doubt had to do with the relatively large graduate school, as well as with UChicago undergrads liking grad students. I do remember thinking I looked old when I would commute to my post-college office job, sleepy and in office-clothes. But I also remember fearing I looked too young when, at 24, I started teaching undergrads. Plus, I read the same magazines as everybody else, heard the same anecdotes: One hears of 50-year-old women ditched for absolute children of 36. 'Younger woman' is relative.

I crossed over from Girl to Woman at 26 or 27, when I started getting ma'am'd. That did make an impression. There was no pretending that because of whichever superficial young-person traits I still had/have, the overall impression is such that I could pass for a high-school student.

But from that point on, I probably have been guilty of what is apparently a "SWUG" ("senior washed-up girl") attitude (although I'd never heard of it until skimming that article): assuming, prematurely, that I've reached the age of female invisibility. We're meant to call this "SWUG" thing anti-feminist and offensive, and it may be both of those things (as I said, I only skimmed), but it might also be something real, and experienced beyond whichever clique at Yale.

I suppose part of the appeal of a "SWUG" stance is wishful thinking. Most male attention isn't of the respectful, uplifting, Keanu-would-like-to-get-coffee-with-you-if-that's-OK variety. Some is downright menacing. And once one is wearing the married-jewelry, once one is known to be married online and off, this somehow filters out any flattering/innocuous male attention and leaves over only the creepy and inappropriate, because - apologies to Dan Savage's "monogamish" brigade - that tends to be who hits on the married. Single or coupled, there's something to be said, in certain situations, for projecting "hag."

But some of it is probably also a way of psychologically preparing one's self for the day when one really is, well, old. 29? Not that old. And that's probably where self-deprecation - see the "old age" tag - enters into it. I've heard enough times, not from PUA bloggers, not from contrarian defenders of street harassment, but from reasonable women, and not ones who were once supermodels, that the day comes when the attention stops, and that it's depressing when this happens. Although it doesn't happen to French women, so perhaps one can just move to France. But point being, there is a certain temptation to preempt the whole thing and declare one's general-audience allure kaput before it really is.