Like everyone else, I spent this weekend binge-watching Netflix’s new 10-part rom-com series, Nobody Wants This.
Starring Kristen Bell as Joanne, the perennially single co-host of a podcast about sex (from which the show gets its name, Nobody Wants This) and Adam Brody as Noah, a recently single rabbi, it follows their relationship as they find themselves inexplicably drawn together despite being worlds apart (hence it being dubbed our generation’s When Harry Met Sally). And while yes, I was charmed by a grown-up Seth Cohen (what self-respecting millennial fangirl wouldn’t be?!), what struck me most about the show was that it so accurately depicts the realities of dating in your late thirties and early forties – a theme not often explored in any truly authentic way on screen.
Both aged 44 in real life, the age of their characters was also important to Bell and Brody, who didn’t want to pretend to be decades younger, as is so often the case in Hollywood. Speaking on Bell’s husband Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, Brody explained: “I'm very comfortable with my age. I just don’t want to pretend that I'm 10 years younger. I want you to reconcile that you're casting me and you've got to account for the amount of time that this person has been on this earth and why they are in this position.”
“I’ve had enough of being lectured on it by people who met their partners 10 years ago the old-fashioned way.”
As a 36-year-old single woman, I also appreciated that their characters’ ages weren’t ever a major plot point – or even referred to – either. More often than not, when dating in midlife is explored on screen, it’s seen as a last-chance-saloon type of thing. At least one of the characters is divorced or widowed, for example, and are now having another crack at this romance thing (see: 2013’s Enough Said, or 1998’s You’ve Got Mail). Or it’s an age-gap thing, such as in the recent Anne Hathaway film, The Idea of You, in which she plays a forty-something single mum dating a twenty-year-old Harry Styles-esque popstar (which is also so unrealistic as to be frankly annoying). Worse still, it’s played for laughs: enter The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
But what if that isn’t everybody’s experience? What if some people in their late thirties or early forties are just still single? Like Joanne and Noah are? And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, thank you very much.
Joanne has a long history of dating the wrong men, something which provides ample fodder for her podcast, while Noah was in a long-term relationship with the woman who his family told him was right, but who he never really felt that spark with. And while there’s an ongoing misunderstanding at the start that Noah is engaged, he’s not – instead, his ex-girlfriend simply found his grandmother’s engagement ring himself and started wearing it, an event that actually prompts their break-up.
More often than not, if you are single at this point in your life, people assume that there’s something ‘wrong’ with you. I once dated someone who said as much – that he was always looking for girls younger than him because the ones his own age, like me, were the ones that had been “left on the shelf” (suffice to say, we didn’t see each other again). Of the men I have dated in my mid to late thirties, I couldn’t find anything specifically ‘wrong’ with them. A commitment-phobe or two, sure, but that’s par for the course. And there’s absolutely nothing but bad luck on the side of my female friends who are yet to settle down. That’s not to say that there aren’t some problematic men out there – I’ve encountered my fair share of those, too – but it’s certainly not the norm.
Allowing someone else to control how and when you move on will only delay your healing process.
In a city like Los Angeles, where the show is set, much like London, it’s all too normal for men and women alike to pursue their careers and enjoy everything that city life has to offer, rather than settling down, particularly as there are seemingly endless options out there. As Bell explains on the same podcast: “They tried to give evidence for that [why Joanne’s still single]. Saying she’s in a bustling city of podcasters and influencers and hot stuff, so you can push your desire to settle down much further down the line.”
(Side note: while the show’s title – and Joanne’s podcast – isn’t a direct nod to this concept, the name ‘Nobody Wants This’ could just be as easily applied to a 37-year-old singleton).
There’s also this common misconception that when you’re dating in your late thirties or early forties, you’re suddenly doing things in an altogether more mature way. From my experience, you’re not – and I say this as someone with a two-year-old daughter. Dating in my late thirties has been much like it was in my late twenties – there’s the same crushing feeling when your date doesn’t respond to your funny text, and the three dots disappear. A first kiss can still be just as fireworks-style magical. You still Insta-stalk the ex. And second guess when is the right time for the ‘first’ time. And get the ick.
N.B. All of these experiences are seen playing out on the show.
Of course, there are also additional pressures unique to this stage of the game – to settle down, to get married, to have children – all while still looking hot with perky tits and no wrinkles or greys in sight. As a single mum, I also have to have the so-do-you-want-kids convo fairly early on – both because I already have one, and in case they desperately want their own. I’ve definitely been on a few first dates which are soundtracked by a biological clock – mine and its knock-on effect on them.
By casting two icons of millennial teen television (Bell voiced Gossip Girl, while Brody, as if you need me to tell you, was the Manic Pixie Dream Boy, Seth Cohen, in The OC), they are clearly targeting women like me, too, who will no doubt be nodding along and feeling empathy for Joanne and Noah alike. Joanne, who is so career-driven, she’s neglected to really stop and think about the trash men she’s dating, or Noah, who stayed so long in a relationship that he thought was the ‘one’ that he never questioned the fact that they had zero chemistry – because at some point, you’re just stuck in the decision. At last, these are the every-man and every-woman single characters us fellow midlife singletons need. Roll on season two!
It reveals a lot about their character.
