We were told we’d peak in our twenties. That aged poorly.
I SWEAR WE WERE SOLD 30 LIKE IT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
And then we got here. Apparently everybody has a better haircut, a nicer ass, actual taste, and considerably less patience for bullshit. So what the fuck happened? Because I distinctly remember growing up with this idea that your twenties were supposed to be it. Your prime. The decade where you were supposedly the youngest, hottest, most desirable version of yourself before the horrifying process of getting older began.
Thirty felt like a deadline, especially for women. You were supposed to have figured everything out by then, but simultaneously, everything that supposedly made you desirable was already starting to expire. Get married before thirty. Have babies before thirty. Wear the tiny shit before thirty. Take the bikini pictures before thirty. Do whatever wild thing you wanted to do before thirty because eventually you were going to have to grow up.
Then somewhere along the way, women actually turned thirty and collectively went… wait. This is fucking better.
GETTING OLDER IS KIND OF HAVING A MOMENT.
And maybe its just me that’s been noticing that? But, I fucking love that for us. Because now, getting older has somehow become… trendy? Hear me out.
It’s funny because I remember turning 30 used to be talked about like this thing women were supposed to dread. Like 29 was cute and then the clock struck midnight and suddenly you needed to try every anti-aging routine recommended on TikTok and at the same time have a small crisis about where your twenties went. Now? I swear women are almost excited to get there. And not in the corny “age is just a number” way either. Thirty is fucking hot right now. Being a grown woman is hot right now. Knowing what you like is hot. Having standards is hot. Having enough life behind you to have some stories is hot. Even getting older itself feels like something women are having a lot more fun with instead of this thing we’re all supposed to quietly fight.
Which is why I keep thinking about how weird our obsession with looking younger actually is. Because “you don’t look your age” has been considered one of the best compliments you can give a woman forever. And listen, I’m not going to act like I’d be offended if somebody thought I was younger. Like ill never not blush a little when the bartender asks me for my ID. But why is looking 25 at 35 automatically better than looking really fucking good at 35? Why have we always treated the number as the unfortunate part people are graciously overlooking?
Maybe I don’t want to look twenty four forever. Maybe I want to look really fucking good at thirty six. Maybe I want someone to know exactly how old I am and think, “Damn.” There is something significantly more appealing to me about owning the age than successfully disguising it. It’s giving yuck just saying that out loud.
SO MAYBE WE DIDN’T PEAK. MAYBE WE JUST GOT MORE SPECIFIC.
I don’t necessarily think women magically become more confident the morning of their thirtieth birthday. That would be convenient as hell. You can absolutely be thirty seven and still have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. But there is something that happens when you have enough years behind you to start collecting evidence about yourself.
You’ve worn enough terrible outfits to know what you actually like. You’ve had enough bad haircuts to know which one you are never doing again. You have probably tried at least one beauty trend that made you look objectively worse. You’ve dated someone you absolutely should not have dated. Maybe twice. You’ve bought shit because everybody else had it and realized six months later that you never actually liked it. You’ve been embarrassed. Rejected. Desired. Overlooked. Heartbroken. Loved correctly. Loved incorrectly. Maybe you’ve had children. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe your body has changed dramatically. Maybe it hasn’t.
Eventually, though, you start collecting enough information to recognize yourself. And I think that is where a different kind of attractiveness starts showing up. You become more specific. Your twenties can involve a lot of asking, “Does this look good?” Then somewhere along the way the question starts becoming, “Do I fucking like it?” And that difference is enormous. And honestly, It’s not that you suddenly stop caring what anybody thinks. I don’t even know if I believe most people who claim they genuinely do not care what anyone thinks. We’re human. Of course we care sometimes. I just think the opinions that actually get a vote become a much smaller group.
SO MAYBE WE DIDN’T PEAK.
Maybe, we just stopped expecting to stay the same… forever.
I don’t necessarily think women magically become more confident the morning of their thirtieth birthday. That would be convenient as hell. You can absolutely be thirty seven and still have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. You can still hate everything in your closet. You can still get the haircut and immediately realize you have made a terrible mistake. You can still date the wrong person, question yourself, change your mind, start something and quit it six months later because actually… never mind.
Maybe you know yourself better now. Or maybe you’ve realized you don’t actually have to keep being the person you spent your twenties becoming.
I think that’s the part of getting older I’m starting to find really fucking attractive. There’s so much pressure when you’re younger to figure out who you are, like eventually you’re supposed to arrive at this finished version of yourself and stay there. This is my style. This is my career. This is what I want. This is what my body looks like. This is who I love. This is the kind of woman I am. Got it. Lock her in. Except… why?
Maybe at 32 you decide you fucking hate the career you spent your twenties building. Maybe at 38 you dress completely differently than you did three years ago. Maybe you spent years swearing you’d never get married and then meet somebody who makes you reconsider. Maybe you thought you wanted children and decide you don’t. Maybe you didn’t want them and suddenly you do. Maybe you cut all your hair off. Grow it to your ass. Get tattooed. Stop drinking. Start lifting. Move somewhere new. Get divorced. Fall stupidly in love. Become quieter. Become louder. Become a woman your twenty five year old self would barely recognize.
Good.
I don’t think knowing yourself means knowing exactly who you’re going to be forever. Maybe it means trusting yourself enough to let her change. And there is something really fucking freeing about realizing you don’t owe your younger self continuity. She made choices with the information she had. She liked what she liked. She wanted what she wanted. She got you here. You’re allowed to want something completely different now.
AND THEN THERE’S THE CONFIDENCE THING.
Confidence gets talked about like it means walking into every room convinced you are the hottest woman there. I don’t think that is necessarily what happens as you get older. I think you just stop needing to know. And that might be one of the sexiest things about age. You do not necessarily become convinced that everybody wants you. You simply become considerably less interested in whether everybody does. There is a difference.
When you are younger, somebody not liking you can feel like information about you. Eventually, sometimes it is just information about them. You’re not their type. Okay. You wore something they wouldn’t wear. Okay. Some random man doesn’t find you attractive. Devastating. *eye roll*
That does not mean insecurity suddenly evaporates with age. Of course it doesn’t. Women in their thirties, forties, fifties and beyond still compare themselves. We still have bad body days. We still occasionally stand under dressing room lighting and wonder if you have a valid lawsuit against the mirror company for emotional damages? We can still see a photograph of ourselves and immediately zoom in on the one thing nobody else would have noticed.
The difference might be that insecurity stops having quite as much authority when you have lived long enough to realize feelings are not always facts. You can feel unattractive on Tuesday without deciding you have somehow permanently become unattractive. You can dislike a photograph without deciding your entire face is wrong. Maybe confidence with age is not becoming completely at all. fearless. Maybe it is knowing yourself well enough that one shitty moment does not get to rewrite your entire fucking story.
BEING DESIRED HITS DIFFERENT WHEN YOU’RE NOT AUDITIONING FOR IT.
There is another part of getting older that I don’t think we talk about enough. Attention starts meaning something different. When you are younger, being desired can feel like proof. Proof that you are attractive. Proof that you are doing something right. Proof that you belong in the room.
And listen, attention can still be fun at thirty five. I’m not about to sit here and pretend women eventually evolve beyond enjoying being told they look fucking incredible. Please. I hope somebody is still grabbing my ass when I’m eighty.
But attention can become dessert instead of dinner. You can enjoy being looked at without building your entire understanding of yourself around who is looking. You can like the compliment without needing it to confirm something you were desperately hoping was true.
And ironically, I think that is part of what makes women so interesting as they get older. There is less auditioning. Less “Do you like me?” and a little more “You can if you want.”
That energy is hard to fake because usually it comes from living through enough shit to realize somebody else’s approval was never quite as valuable as you once thought it was.
MAYBE THERE WAS NEVER A PRIME.
And I think this is where I disagree with the whole idea that thirty is suddenly the new age when women become hot. Because if we are not careful, we just replace one stupid deadline with another. I don’t want a twenty seven year old reading this and thinking she apparently has three more years before she finally becomes interesting. I definitely don’t want a forty five year old thinking she somehow missed this supposed second peak too.
So maybe there was never supposed to be a peak. Maybe women just keep becoming more themselves. Twenty five can be hot. Thirty four can be hot. Forty seven can be hot. Sixty can be hot. And none of those women have to be the same kind of hot.
That might be the part we are finally starting to understand. Getting older does not have to mean desperately preserving the youngest version of yourself for as long as modern skincare, Botox and a suspiciously flattering bathroom light will allow. You can change. Your face can change. Your body can change. Your priorities can change. Your definition of sexy can change. Your taste can get better. Your standards can get higher. The things you once desperately wanted people to notice about you might not even crack the top ten anymore.
And you can still catch yourself in the mirror one random morning and think, “Oh. There she fucking is.”
Maybe that is why getting older is having such a moment. Women are not suddenly discovering that thirty is hot. Thirty was always hot. So was forty. So was fifty. We’re just living through a particularly fun moment where women seem increasingly uninterested in pretending youth is the most interesting thing they have to offer. And thank goodness.
Because I have absolutely no interest in spending the rest of my life trying to look like the youngest version of myself. I’d much rather meet every woman I become next.
