What Off-Campus says about Aging Women

on college, menopause, and romance.

Scroll through any social media feed and you’re going to be inundated with the beautiful cast of Off-Campus, the Amazon Prime series based on the beloved books by Elle Kennedy that begins with The Deal. Besides reading all the books, I committed to watching the show. I loved it the first time through and started a re-watch with my husband, so I can attest to the hype. As I scroll through social media I’ve tripped across a bunch of “hot-takes” from GenX and Millennial women about why they love it. The usual claim is that we’re enamored with nostalgia, with the memories of when we were in college and experiencing the joy of first love.

Yes, but I think their claims are missing the and…

Here’s my AND…

GenX and Millennial women aren’t just missing the nostalgia of new love, I think they are missing the joy of that love in their existing relationships. Let’s face it, unless your partner (and you) have really put in the effort to keep that kind of magic alive, that newness fades into comfort. For many women as we slide into perimenopause and the cessation of reproductive imperatives of our lives, it’s more likely that our relationships are either so comfortable we’ve become roommates—hormonal magic on hiatus—or they’re in the death throes as the hormonal rose-colored lenses are stripped. Of course aging isn’t only happening to women. Men go through their own mid-life change which is often why we see the starter wife phenomena.

I’m not going to blame all men, but I’m going to insist they share this responsibility.

In the hetero-normative, cishet relationship glorified in Off-Campus—the hot athlete and the focused co-ed who find their perfect match—men knew how to chase. Case-in-point, my then boyfriend (and now husband) used to write me letters. I have them all tucked away in a decorative box that I like to pull from the shelf. We dated, we laughed and flirted, we fought, we fucked. It was glorious. This magic captured in Off-Campus does stir up the nostalgia for what was, but I also think it has stirred up awareness of what’s missing.

We’re missing being chased and wanted.

We’re missing the conversations of getting to know one another (because we don’t stay the same).

We’re missing the focus of our partner.

We’re missing the hungry sex that centered our pleasure.

We’re missing being seen as a desirable woman.

We’re missing the random acts of “I see you and you’re important to me.”

I don’t think any GenX or Millennial woman believes that her relationships should be the same as it was at the onset of dating. We’ve been through so much with our partners, so ideally they should be richer, right? We share experiences, in some cases children and all the complications of raising them, the difficulties of living life with jobs and job changes, financial failures and successes, aging parents and the drama of shifting friend groups. Granted, hopefully we’ve faced these challenges in healthy ways contributing to the complexity of our relationship. So as aging begins to clip at our heels, those rich relationships should be what we turn to.

Except . . .

Did you know that divorce rates among menopausal women skyrocket to 60% . That statistic tells us a story. Women removed from the hormonal haze have unmet expectations with their partners. The failure of the relationship lies in what women are missing and in many instances, I would argue that their partner is failing to answer. Whether this is due to patriarchy, misogyny, the lonely-male epidemic, or some toxic belief that men think they need to remain their 21-year-old self, partners have ceased courting their life-partner, digging stubborn roots instead into the predictable soil of comfort.

I don’t remember the last time my husband wrote me a note.

I’d venture a claim that most GenX and Millennial women aren’t content to root up in predictable soil. Our bodies and minds won’t allow it. Instead, we’re being tested to redefine who we are. It’s inevitable because our bodies are in combat. The violence of perimenopause is a grind and the trauma insists on change. We can’t avoid redefining ourselves. This means taking stock of our needs and truly understanding ourselves. What worked when we were twenty (and dating our college sweetheart) doesn’t anymore. What women—myself included—are longing for are all the things we are missing (see the list above) but now enhanced by the supposedly rich relationship we’ve grown together. I would guess that most of us communicate these new needs to our partners. “Honey, I miss you. I miss our flirty dinners. I miss being told I look amazing. I miss your touches . . .” [fill in the blank]. And our requests must be unable to chop through those too stubborn roots that don’t want to change. Our partners fail to act, leading to disillusion and loneliness… and divorce.

And, this is why I believe that Off Campus is so popular among Millennial and GenX women. We are not only nostalgic, we are grieving.

I’m not a relationship or a marriage expert. I’m just a writer and an educator, but I am an expert in being a woman. I know, without a doubt, that just because I am aging, just because I am a mother, just because I work outside the home, just because I chase my dream of being a successful author, doesn’t mean I don’t want that beautiful magic of new love to fade away. I want the magic, and as the popularity of Off Campus proves, frankly, don’t we all deserve the magic no matter our age?