Letter To My Younger Self #5: Trust Your Heart. And Tinder

At 55, Anna Graham Hunter assures the 47-year-old, newly divorced version of herself that there's more and better sex coming her way than she might ever have dared to dream.

Congrats on your fabulous life! You’re 47, in love with your husband of fourteen years, and recently traded New York’s crappy weather for the sunny skies of L.A. The two of you take walks along the beach most evenings, after which you post pictures of the sunset to show how happy you are. What more could you want?

Well, sex for one. You’re lucky if it happens twice a month—you always initiate, and half the time he turns you down. His rejection leaves you lonely, sad, and so pent-up you could scream.

When he tells you he wants a separation, you feel sick. But by the time he asks for a divorce two months later, dread has given way to excitement, because a friend has been telling you about this thing called Tinder. It’s about to open the door to extraordinary amounts of sex. Surprisingly good, howling sex.

Your first day on the app, you match with lots of guys, most of them in their 20s. They tell you how hot you are, and when you freak out because they weren’t born when you had your first job out of college, they smoothly assure you that “age is just a number.” 

When he tells you he wants a separation, you feel sick. But by the time he asks for a divorce two months later, dread has given way to excitement, because a friend has been telling you about this thing called Tinder. It’s about to open the door to extraordinary amounts of sex. Surprisingly good, howling sex.

Which is how, fifteen days after the divorce conversation, you end up with a 22-year-old UCLA water polo player in your bed. It’s fun! And hilarious. In the awkward first few minutes, you actually ask what his major is (psychology). But then he suggests you watch a movie, and a few minutes in, he says, “I just really want to kiss you.” It all flows from there, and you finally understand the benefits of “Netflix and chill,” the phrase from so many profiles: it’s easier to start fooling around when you have the distraction of a movie in the background.

Turns out, you have a knack for Tinder. Those first few months, you learn what to look for: thoughtful eyes, swagger, and an interest in what turns you on and gets you off. Over the next eight years, you’ll sleep with more than fifty men, most of whom will be in their 20s and 30s. Black, white, Asian; hipsters, models, jocks—you hook up with anyone who seems like they’d be fun in bed.

“Profile pictures and texts from guys I’ve matched with. When I first joined Tinder, I was shocked by the number of young men who wanted to sleep with older women.”

There’s a college football player who looks like Chris Hemsworth in his long-haired phase and leaves you reeling, which you attribute to the human sexuality class he took sophomore year. There’s a Dom who takes you to an adult toy store on your first of many dates and doesn’t hold it against you when you can’t call him Daddy without laughing. One summer you’ll hang out with a trained masseuse who mixes his own THC-infused topical oils. His Hollywood apartment is alarmingly filthy, but his weed and touch are so powerful that each night with him feels like travel to another dimension. There’s even—god help you—a 20-year-old Greek film student. You’re convinced you’re going to hell for this one, but in your defense, his profile said he was 21. For reasons you’ll never understand, your chemistry with him makes you dizzy, and you’ll continue hooking up every once in a while for the next five years.

If people slut-shame you, they don’t do it to your face. Instead, their disapproval and occasional disgust come masked as concern. Women your age who are either partnered or celibate—who haven’t dated for decades and get their information about Tinder from articles describing its horrors—never tire of telling you to “Be careful!” To which you respond that while you have experienced sex without consent, both times were in college with men you knew and thought you could trust. The only “bad experiences” you’ve ever had on Tinder have been with matches who were either annoying or inept.

You finally understand the benefits of “Netflix and chill,” the phrase from so many profiles: it’s easier to start fooling around when you have the distraction of a movie in the background.

Some friends worry that casual sex is nothing but post-divorce grief avoidance. At first, you agree with them—which I wish you wouldn’t—nodding along as you say of course it’s a rebound reaction; after all, you joke, your ten-years-younger husband was 23 when you met, so you must be picking up where you left off. You say you know it won’t last because you’ll either get bored of the young guys or they’ll quit being attracted to you.

Early in 2022, after you’ve been doing this on and off for seven years, one friend tells you, with great authority, that if you don’t open yourself up emotionally with sexual partners, you’ll never grow. By this time, you’ve mostly quit second guessing yourself, and your response is, “Why does sex have to be life school? Can’t it just be fun?”

Other friends aren’t concerned so much as skeptical. They want to know if you feel old and self-conscious. The truth is you usually don’t—only in certain light and never in bed—but you understand it’s expected for a woman in her 40s and 50s to loathe her body, at least a bit, so you hedge. One married friend comes right out and asks, “I don’t get it. What’s in it for them?” So you start asking your dates: “What do you like about older women?” The answers are consistent: “better sex,” “no games,” “you know what you want and ask for it.” Part of the appeal, for sure, is experience that comes with age, but another bonus is that, in most cases, a woman who’s sleeping with men decades younger isn’t shopping for a boyfriend. When you’re not thinking about the future, you can focus on having a deliriously good time in the present, because you don’t care what the other person thinks of you or your desires. Perhaps paradoxically, it’s this indifference that allows you to be uninhibited and comfortable in your own naked skin.

“Words and pictures from my profiles over the years; more texts. My phone was full of dick pics until I made it clear in my profile I didn’t want them.”

Still, there’s no escaping the message that women your age are supposed to be invisible and unfuckable. On the one hand, you are invisible in public; it’s been years since a man has told you to smile. But once you start swiping on Tinder, you’re not only seen, but desired. Sometimes, as you’re walking through your neighborhood in your standard uniform of no makeup and loose clothes, you’ll pass a cute guy and know it’s possible you could run into him on Tinder. You come to believe that this—the power to appear and disappear at will, receiving male attention only when you want it—is one of the greatest gifts the app has to offer.

I wish I could tell you that you reach a point where other people’s doubt quits seeping into your head, but you’re not there yet, because the near-universal assumption that monogamy is the only healthy framework for straight sex is overwhelming. No matter how many times you say you like sleeping around, people still express disbelief that you’re single—"But you seem great!”—and want to introduce you to potential boyfriends, just because they’re single too. It's insulting the way it is when a queer person's straight friends and family try to set them up with another queer person with whom they have nothing in common. You wish there were a cultural model for what you’re doing besides Samantha on Sex and the City, who’s too campy and arch to be relatable.

Early in 2022, after you’ve been doing this on and off for seven years, one friend tells you, with great authority, that if you don’t open yourself up emotionally with sexual partners, you’ll never grow. By this time, you’ve mostly quit second guessing yourself, and your response is, “Why does sex have to be life school? Can’t it just be fun?”

It’s true you loved your husband more deeply than you’ve ever loved another romantic partner, and while the idea of falling in love once more sounds fun, it’s now hard to imagine wanting one person to be your lover, best friend, travel partner, roommate, and co-steward of your finances. Your libido waxes and wanes, with times when you want to have tons of sex (which, now, at 55, means every two or three days) and long stretches when you don’t want another person in your bed or your body. How would it be fair to ask someone to either keep up with you or leave you alone? Nor would you want to compromise, no matter how much you loved them—both your sex life and your solitude are far too precious.

Then there’s this: as much as you still like sleeping with them, men don’t hold the same interest for you they once did. Maybe it’s menopause, but more and more, it’s women who intrigue you, whom you pursue relationships with, and whom you can’t wait to talk to.

Back in your 20s and 30s, when people heard you didn’t want kids, they often countered with, “You never know!” All too often you accommodated them, smiling and saying, “You’re right, who can tell?” But that wasn’t true. You did know.

Believe what you know in your late 40s and early 50s, because it’s still true at 55: Your life is far richer now than it was when you were married. You can have as much or as little sex as you want, when you want it. You’re surrounded by people who love you and care about you, friends and family with whom your emotional intimacy continues to deepen. And waking up in your own apartment to your own company never stops feeling like a luxurious gift.