However, young women have been sold a bill of goods. They think that if they hold out and continue to believe, something miraculous will happen. A recent story about Marina Keegan, a Yale graduate who tragically died in a car crash, highlights this.
The problem with young women today is that they internalize this “anything is possible” attitude and don’t lose it until it really is too late for many of them. They think they can do better at 30 than at 22, which, in most cases, is simply wrong. Some might say that family and men are not a priority for these girls, but women for whom this is really true throughout life are an insignificant minority. In fact, most women are holding out precisely because they think they can get a better man later, perhaps when they have a better job and work with more powerful men.
But these girls are not going to change fundamentally, and in their early 20s are at the peak of their beauty while still retaining an innocent charm. Nothing about their looks or personality is going to make them more appealing at 30 than at 22, and the men available to them are not going to get any better, either.
And what of the men? At 25, is he serious, responsible and cautious? There you have a man who will probably have a good, but perhaps not remarkable, career. Does he prefer smoking weed and playing video games in his spare time? There you have a future couch potato. Is he competitive, materialistic and a smooth talker? Sounds like a salesman. Does he charm his way into bed with you and then drift away after a couple months of passion? Well, in that case you just got gamed.
The point is that neither men nor women change fundamentally past a certain point, and the same guys young women have available in their early 20s are generally the same guys that will be available at 30, only they will be older and, due to marriage, there will be far fewer of them.
It’s time we started being honest with the young people around us. When I was a kid, we were force-fed the message that we can do and be whatever we want from before kindergarten. Too many of us find out the hard way that this was a lie, but fortunately when it comes to career and getting by in life we tend to survive it. However, when it comes to family, the results can be far more cruel, especially for women. Time tends to accelerate past a certain age, and the 25-year old woman soon finds herself 30, and then 35, and at that point she’s got precious little of it left. Perhaps at 22 she was laughing about the “comical” notion that it could ever be too late, but after a certain point it is no longer comedy, but tragedy, and her laughter turns to tears.
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