To feel that I have to compete with younger women?

[LastHope30Something]

Ever feel like that? Yes I’m still kinda young (early 30’s) but when I’m out I feel I have to compete with women 10 years younger than me to be accepted and be taken for younger than I am and to recreate my youth

I don't feel like that, no. I'm nearly 50 and I'm okay with my lines and my experience. I'm a different creature to a 30 year old. There's no competition.

You're causing non-problems to be problems in your head. Social media success? What a joke.

Find some confidence, it'll do wonders for you.

I am 35 and have never thought I had to compete with anyone, I don't even know what you're competing for? Male attention?

What is social media success? Genuine question. I have no idea. For me, social media is something I scroll through when sitting down with a cup of tea. How do you achieve success in social media?
Honestly, you need to change your thought processes around this. You're not competing with 20 years old. They're simply at a differebt stage of life to you. You've had your time being in your 20s. Enjoy what you have now.

What the fuck are you on about?

I never felt like that, even in my forties and fifties. Why would I? I was a confident woman, well liked. I'd had my day of being young and carefree and enjoyed the company of younger women.

You are still fairly young, op. There's no reason for you to be competitive with women a few years younger, it's silly. Just be colleagues - and friendly.

Manchesters comment nails it!

Plus it makes no sense because one day those young ones will be older too god willing.

Never felt this but I’ve always felt confident in myself and think I am great 😀. Even when I’m 50 and my team mates are 25.

The best part of getting older is realising you don't have to compete with anyone or be accepted by anyone... and having absolutely no fucks to give about it.

But didn’t you say it was your disability and family circumstances that restricted your choices when younger? How would having a do-over change any of that?

Do you spend a lot of time on social media, looking at the instagrams of influencers? That way lies the road to hell.

That’s lovely. I’m adding it to my vocabulary. 😀

Women aren't competing with you OP, they're just people

I agree. It may be unpalatable but we are animals underneath our oh so shiny and special facade, and young women are competing with other women of breeding age for the best mates. Just as males are competing with males for the best females to impregnate and pass their DNA on. This is just on the dating side of things. Why do you think the beauty and cosmetic surgery industry is so huge!

Then bearing in mind that so often male employers will value beauty and health (often associated with youth, but not always), women are potentially competing with each other in employment too. When I was young I know for a fact I got a job based on my looks, and 25 years later I doubt I'd be as attractive to that boss.

I'm pretty sure studies have shown that physically attractive people do better in life than their plain/physically unattractive counterparts, so there is competition.

OP already has a male but my reading of her post is that she isn't happy with him or her family, which is why she is lapping up compliments from a man from an ethnic minority whom she is confusingly not allowed to date ( but she already has a husband?

This is why I cant understand the post. Not because I am politically correct!

@Andsoitbeganagain

Totally agree! I'm the only person in my race and I don't care what others are doing.

Roald Dahl said, ‘If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.’

He also suggested ugly people are ugly due to their nature, which is a little less positive.

The full quote;

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

― Roald Dahl, The Twits

But it sounds as if you didn't have much control over your own life when you were younger and there are lots of areas where younger women are not taken seriously or valued.

And let’s not forget, his witches are bald, clawed, toeless and square-footed, and go to considerable length to cover this up in terms of typical ‘feminine’ self-presentation with gloves, wigs and pointy-toed shoes, which cause them considerable discomfort and skin rashes. Added to this, the Grand High Witch is not just hideous, but also old behind her young and pretty false face.

I’d like to think Dahl was satirising the ‘rules’ of approved feminine self-presentation, and the amount of work traditionally expected of women to create it, but let’s face it, he was no feminist.

Well I am not deliberately obtuse to not see myself competing with 20 something females. I have never competed with females for jobs, and definitely not on looks. I am a software engineer and I have never competed with women for work. I would guess all the other candidates are likely white males. It is lovely to see younger women in our graduate program and I genuinely hope they don’t think they get their jobs on looks.

Youth is of course a benefit and older workers are often out of work. But my experience looking for work is that those on their 30s and 40s are the most in demand. They are young and have the experience needed.

The OP is early 30s which means she is very early in her career still.

Ahhh, is this the same Mr Dahl, who wrote most of the 'Tales of the unexpected', in which he excels at inventing the most extraordinary ways of killing your spouses, relatives and betraying of friends, probably the most warped mind of all writers. His ideas were so warped, that the director of the horrid Hollywood 'Jeepers Creepers' said he borrowed the idea of killing people and plastinating their bodies for display purposes as 'mementoes' from him, from one of his 'Tales of the unexpected' filmed in the early 1980s. (Nothing wrong with murder plots, but Mr Dahl's speciality was the mechanics and details of gruesomeness and vileness).

You are barking up one of the wrong trees. Surely you can envisage a scenario when a hypothetical husband leaves an amazing 40-year old software engineer for a 20-year old badly trained useless software engineer?

Good riddance then. The 40 year old woman would have a much better life without him using her lovely software engineer salary and if she is amazing as stated will likely have great friends and a fulfilling life.

The OP said she’s competing with 20 years old on career, travel and social media success. She didn’t talk about attracting men. I would agree 50 year old men will find a 20 year old woman more attractive. Though I think they probably are more attracted to early 30s women (the OP age) than 20 year olds.

I am also talking about my 30 year old self. Now at 50, I would prefer to stay single if DH leaves me. I can’t be bothered with dating and I’m happy with myself. I also have my children and my 30 year old self was childless.

Jesus, I expected you to say you were two decades older, at least