‘So is that your dad?’ Does dating an older man work?

An illustration of a couple at a table with barbed wire for the man's head and flowers and a butterfly for the woman's head.

By Sarah Garrod

Aug. 9, 2024 5 AM PT

The outside tables at Figaro Bistrot are far too close to one another. A group of women is seated beside us, drinking white wine and leaning together to murmur while giving me side-eye. My date gets up, excuses himself and heads to the bathroom. One of them leans over: “So is that your dad?”

I’m pretty sure I turn bright red and simply reply: “No.”

When he gets back, he places his hand on the thigh poking through the slit of my dress. The women’s eyes widen, and they look at one another and giggle. I’m not sure if I’m really into him. There’s a part of me that twists with disgust at the whole situation. But I ignore this — and ignore the giggles.

The conversation up until then revolves around a film he once wrote. “I spent about 10 years trying to get it picked up. But hey, it worked out in the end,” he says. His film won a number of awards and was widely critically acclaimed. “Everything I’ve written since then I haven’t really cared about.”

It shows. He hasn’t written a single film since his first that wasn’t panned. But I still feel a sense of pride that he wants me, this lowly grad student; maybe this is what it really means to date in L.A.

Until then, most of the men I’d dated in L.A. (who were around my age) were starving artists, aspiring filmmakers and musicians who worked in the meantime as grips and waiters.

Their dreams were always endearing, and having money doesn’t particularly matter to me. I was just never a part of their dreams. The previous men I dated always told me that I deserved better, that they weren’t looking for anything serious (always after a few months of dating, and it always turned out that I wasn’t the only one they were dating). I wasn’t sure whether I was looking for something serious either, but what I really wanted was someone who would see me as girlfriend — or perhaps even wife — material. There’s nothing more important than being lovable, even if the basis for this is being young and decently attractive.

My date is about two years younger than my father (who didn’t have me at a particularly young age). However, he has an Instagram and an iPhone and is a writer, which makes me feel like he isn’t too dissimilar to me after all. He finally asks me about myself: “What is your research about?” As a master of none, I never really know how to answer this question, so I recite a list of areas I’ve dabbled in. One of them is the bildungsroman.

“What’s that?” he asks. My image of him crumbles a little.

It dawns on me that the real reason I’d taken the upper limit off my Hinge settings and agreed to this date is that I thought I might find someone like my former professor, whose class on the bildungsroman was my main motivation for applying to grad school. I had a major crush on him; he had the exact same taste in music as me (think classic college-radio male manipulator), made stupid jokes and had a smile that made me melt. He was from Los Angeles, and I can’t deny that some of the motivation for me applying to USC was a subconscious desire to trace his steps.

But this man, my date, clearly wasn’t him.

Then he asks me if I want kids. “No,” I firmly reply. But then I find myself backtracking: “At least, not now.” I’m surprised that I say this. Am I scared that he won’t want me anymore if I don’t want kids, even if I’m realizing that I don’t want him?

“Women always say that. Why is it that every woman I’ve met has said that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m not really in the position to support a child right now.”

“But I am.”

He grins, and the twist of disgust grows. There’s something sinister about his smile that makes me realize that maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. But I find myself ignoring this.

“I guess we’ll have to see.”

The evening turns into night, and we end up inside the restaurant, sharing the same side of a booth. At one point, he asks to take a selfie. I oblige.

Should I be on a date with this man? I’m not attracted to him and I don’t find him interesting. But he seems like a man who actually wants me even if he doesn’t really know who I am. The other reason I agreed to this date is my deathly fear of aging and losing my attractiveness to men. I remember the first time I looked in the mirror at age 21 and realized that I was deteriorating.

Since then, I’ve religiously followed a retinol and sunscreen regime, but I still found the bags under my eyes growing and growing. I asked Reddit what I should do about this, and I was recommended under-eye filler. I debate the pros and cons of this every day. It pains me to know that one day it’ll be too late. As a decently attractive but still somewhat average woman (r/Rateme classified me as a 6 or 7, and in L.A., that means a 4 or 5), youth is mostly what I have going for me. And I know all too well that L.A. men aren’t interested in my pursuit of a PhD in comparative literature, which might even be intimidating.

The next day I apologize to him over Instagram. I never got his number. I tell him that I had a great time, but I don’t think we have enough in common.

“I think we have more in common than you think. I’m always here if you change your mind.”

A few hours later, he sends me the selfie he took.

Beside him, I look like his teenage daughter, and in a sick way, that makes me happy.

The author, a comparative literature PhD student at USC, lives in Studio City. She’s on Instagram: @sarahgarrodwrites

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.

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