As I get older, the friends who indulge me become fewer. I don’t know when everyone falls through the hidden trap door, becomes an adult, and magically knows how to refinance their home. At thirty-four, I don’t look, sound, or think that different from me at twenty-three. Neither, I reason, would the men I date. Still there’s an unwritten rule that women between twenty-five and forty are supposed to like Don Draper. Dudes have got to have a lot of body hair, and you’re supposed to spend like the next thirty years combing through it looking for a pot of gold or a sharable 401k plan. You have to hit fifty before dating someone half your age is considered cool, something Diane Keaton would strip off the old turtleneck for.

I know everyone goes through this particular heart attack at one era-tagging age or another. I have a roommate who just turned fifty-nine and is musing on being sixty already. I’ve felt forty for most of thirty-nine. And we both agree that twenty-five had us wanting to jump out the window.

Of course, we have balconies now so the stakes are a lot higher.