Is There Still Sex In The City?- Candace Bushnell (2019)

“That evening, Sassy came into the city from the Village to meet up at what was supposedly a popular singles bar located in a hotel on Park Avenue. As I entered, I was taken aback. The bar was filled with attractive, age-appropriate men.

            I joined Sassy at the bar. One guy in particular caught our eye: a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair. Sassy and I decided to try to get the guy’s attention the old-fashioned way: by catching his eye.

            Fuck. We couldn’t even catch the eye of the female bartender.

“Either we are old, or we’ve become invisible,” I said, longing for a glass of white wine.” – Candace Bushnell

            Has it be it really been 20 something years since we have been graced with the humorous, gritty romance of the ‘Sex and the City’ world? Candace takes on the sex guru role once again, only this time, trading in cosmos for white wine and what its like to date in your fifties, sixties, etc. After her marriage unravels and she has gone through a divorce, she must come to terms that dating might have to be in the cards again.

            The book is deemed “Fiction”, but you know this must be a memoir taking on some liberties or enhancements…Mona Lisa style. (You will learn all about what exactly it is to get a ‘Mona Lisa’ in this book as well.) Along with also being introduced to cubbing, MAM, supermiddles, MNB, and Tinder after 50.

            Bushnell takes you on a wild ride of bicycle boys and dissecting what Tinder is all about for those over 40. The best scene in this book is Candace having over girls in the 20’s and 30’s for champagne and Tinder talk. As they ask her how it was once for her, meeting someone at a bar, exchanging numbers, waiting a few days for them to call, and then after having a nice chat on the phone (land line much less) they set up a date and time to meet up for dinner, Candace is informed that is dated and some may say even corny. It is just not the norm anymore. Enter Tinder.

            Reading this book, gives you some humor but also makes you feel really sad for women after the age of 50. And, as a woman myself a little scared for the future. No woman is really safe, unless you had your own career and money set aside.

            The book is entertaining, but also, a real cautionary tale. Candace does do her best to wrap it up in a hopeful bow, but you can’t shake the lingering feeling that those happy endings in later life are not meant for all. At an age when you once were suppose to be mellowing out, enjoying life and security, sharing the next chapter with a long-term love one, is now not the normal case anymore. Now, you may have to repeat your life over again, dating, starting a new career and all at 50 and 60?

            “I knew- or I was convinced I knew- that I was not going to date a seventy-five year old man no matter how wonderful he was. What if he fell down? I didn’t spend my life working this hard to end up taking care of a strange old person. But every time I tried to explain this, I realized how ageist and judgy and anti-love hopeful I sounded.”