Женщины, выбирающие мужчин моложе себя - статья Times с русскоязычными подсказками

Women who date younger men – женщины, выбирающие мужчин моложе себя

More and more professional young men are marrying their Mrs Robinsons*. But are they looking for a wife or a mother?

*Mrs Robinson - a term used to describe an older woman who likes to seduce younger men (ex. Stifler's mom in American Pie)

Daniel Dench’s bathroom shelf is so crammed (набита) with aftershave (средствами для ухода за кожей после бритья), he could open his own duty-free. There’s Calvin Klein’s Eternity and Jean Paul Gaultier for casual dates (случайных свиданий), and for more special occasions (более особых случаев), Dior Homme or Carolina Herrera’s 212. As he gets ready (пока он собирается/готовится), his bedroom fills with the heavy, musky scent of expectation (наполняется густым мускусным запахом ожидания). What will she be like (какой она будет)? How will the evening end? When he is showered, dressed and looking his best, knowing that in a bar across town a beautiful woman is waiting for him, he feels like Richard Gere in American Gigolo (чувствует себя Ричардом Гиром из «Американского Жигало»). Bartender (бармен), drop another olive (закинь еще одну оливу) in that dry martini.
Blond and blue-eyed (голубоглазый блондин), he admits to being a seasoned, if not serial, dater (признается, что он искушенный - если не серийный – устроитель свиданий). He knows how to prise (получить) a phone number from a reluctant (сопротивляющейся) woman, and how to extricate himself from a date (освободить себя от свидания) with one he doesn’t fancy (с женщиной, которая ему не по душе) – without hurting her feelings (не ранив ее чувств). “I get my brother to ring me and pretend he has lost his passport,” he says. It’s a practised ruse (уловка/хитрость); the women never twig (догадываются). In the business of dating, he has a wisdom beyond his years (он мудр не по годам).
But that’s not the only thing beyond his years (это не единственное, что можно охарактеризовать как «не по возрасту»). So are the women he sees (Это относится и к женщинам, с которыми он встречается). Daniel, a 28-year-old, is a frequent visitor to the dating site (частый посетитель сайта знакомств) Toyboywarehouse.com, which offers to pair “gorgeous women” with younger men (предлагает «роскошным женщинам» найти пару из числа молодых парней). Here he can read about Gillian, 42, who likes to hook up (кадрить/заводить интрижки) with men 10 years her junior (на 10 лет младше нее), or Rajveen, whose Indian parents despair of her having reached 38 without a husband (приходят в отчаяние от того, что в свои 38 она до сих пор не замужем).
Dench has rarely dated females his own age (редко встречался с женщинами своего возраста) or younger. “I like the maturity (зрелость) and conversation you get with older women,” he says. “I don’t think there’s anything weird (странное) about it. It’s not that I wouldn’t date someone my age, it’s just that they can be pretty needy” (не то, чтобы я не стал бы встречаться с человеком моего возраста, просто они могут быть довольно убогими). Dench describes (описывает) the twenty- and thirtysomething (за тридцать) women he meets at work as “alpha males” (доминантные самцы) who drink a lot and brag (хвастают) about the size of their bonuses: “I don’t find that behaviour appealing (поведение привлекательным). It’s not very feminine (женственно). And often, one of their first questions on a date is, ‘Do you want to have a family?’ I don’t think that’s a good start.”
His last relationship (отношения), with a TV producer who had two teenage children, lasted (длились) a year. She was 36 to his 26. “We broke up (расстались) because we had different interests,” he explains (поясняет). “We didn’t live together and neither of us wanted to settle down (обосноваться/ «осесть») with the other. I don’t think the age difference (разница в возрасте) was a factor (причиной). I got on very well with (хорошо ладил с) her children and it never felt strange.” Another lover, Eleanor, was a 37-year-old management consultant from Guildford. “I like spending time with her and we had a good relationship. But eventually (в конечном итоге) I found her too possessive (собственнической). Again, her age was irrelevant (неважным/неактуальным).”
Dench, who read politics at Nottingham University, has had at least a dozen (дюжины) dates with older women in as many months, yet remains optimistic he’ll soon meet “the one” (ту самую). So we will leave him in the bar of the Sanderson hotel, cocktail in hand, waiting for his next companion, and go west across town to where Nathan Sedgewick is waiting. A 32-year-old City trader, Sedgewick is also a frequent visitor to the Toyboy Warehouse site. Like Dench, he is attracted by the sophistication (его привлекает утонченность/умудренность) of the older woman.
“Women my age want to get married and have kids. But I’m not ready for that. And I don’t enjoy dating younger women. We soon run out of conversation (не о чем поговорить).” He finds himself drawn to (он чувствует притяжение к) older women. “I don’t want to be tied down (быть стесненным) and neither do they (они – тоже).”
Like Dench, he has developed his own dating etiquette (выработал собственный этикет свиданий). If he is serious about someone, they never sleep together on the first date. And he never suggests dinner on a first meeting – just in case he needs to cut and run (удирать/спасаться бегством). Instead (вместо этого) he takes women on what he calls his “Knightsbridge circuit”(«круг» по Найтсбридж), starting with drinks in the Harvey Nichols Fifth Floor bar followed by cocktails at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park. Depending on how they’re getting along (в зависимости от достигнутого прогресса), they may end up at the Townhouse opposite San Lorenzo restaurant in Beauchamp Place or the Blue Bar at the Berkeley hotel – always a winner with women from unfashionable postcodes (немодными местами проживания). “Girls from out of town (девушки из деревни) are always impressed (всегда под впечатлением) by these places.”
Neither Dench nor Sedgewick gets teased by colleagues (коллеги не дразнят ни Денча ни Сэджвика) for his predilection (пристрастие). “If you can have friends who are older than you, why not girlfriends too?”, says Dench.
Why not indeed? (а почему бы и нет, в самом деле?) That explains why Toyboy Warehouse website, whose motto (девиз которого) is “See where the chemistry takes you (посмотри, куда ведет тебя химия),” has hit upon a winning formula (неожиданно нашел формулу успеха). The brainchild (детище) of 47-year-old Julia Macmillan, a painter and sculptor, it has been trading for just over a year and has nearly 10,000 members scattered throughout the country (разбросанных по всей стране), each paying £10 a month. The gender split is 60/40 in favour of men (соотношение по полу – 60/40 с перевесом мужчин). In March alone the site had more than 33,000 hits (посещений).
She began the site when, newly single in her forties (став одинокой после 40), she joined a number of dating agencies (агентства знакомств) and found she was repeatedly matched with retired accountants (ее постоянно знакомят с вышедшими на пенсию бухгалтерами). “There are a lot of women over 40 who look fabulous (потрясающими) and are very attractive to younger men. I think the whole idea of age is becoming increasingly irrelevant in our society (само понятие «возраст» теряет свою актуальность в нашем обществе). There are other things to consider (есть другие факторы, которые стоит принять во внимание) such as attitude and energy.”
Macmillan dates “downwards” (встречается с людьми младше себя), as the sociologists put it. So do her friends. So do her friends’ friends.
The Americans call these age-gap unions (союзы с разницей в возрасте) “May-December” relationships – one half is in the spring of life, the other in winter. At least it’s slightly more poetic than “cougar” (пантера), a term coined (термин, используемый) on the West Coast for the predatory older female хищных немолодых женщин). “I don’t want to think of myself as a predator (хищнице),” says Wendy Salisbury, 62, the British author (автор) of The Toyboy Diaries (Дневник молодого любовника), an account of her dating experiences (описания своих похождений).
Twice divorced (дважды в разводе), she has been dating younger men for the past 20 years. One relationship, with a man 21 years her junior, lasted seven years. “At my age, society dictates (общество диктует) that I should be with men who are 65 to 70,” she says. “They don’t appeal to me (не привлекают меня). I am slim and fit (стройная и в хорошей форме) and all they do is sit on the sofa and flick channels (переключают каналы). I think energy levels have a lot to do with attraction (уровень энергичности в большой степени имеет отношение к привлекательности). And I don’t want to be somebody’s nursemaid (сиделкой).”
So what is the prognosis (прогноз) for such relationships? The larger the age gap, the greater the challenges (чем больше разница в возрасте, тем больше проблем). In time he will be wrestling with his career and she with gravity (когда он будет бороться за карьеру, она будет бороться с гравитацией (являющейся причиной морщин). What if the twentysomething man (мужчина за двадцать) decides he wants children and his wife hits the menopause? Will the glue stick then? (будет ли их что-либо объединять тогда?)
Daniel Dench says “Not being able to have children is a risk you take with any woman. The important thing is the quality of what you share together. Love is meant to conquer (любовь призвана победить) all, isn’t it?”