I want you to jump into your time machine and transport yourself back to 2002. The charts are full of European electronic house and UK Garage, the millennium bug hadn’t dissolved technology, Eminem was one of the most talked-about people in the world, and Sex and the City reigned supreme. It was the most fashionable and most talked-about TV sensation of all time, or so it felt, at that moment in time.
I’d sneak myself off to my parents’ bedroom, away from the living room, and watch it so they wouldn’t think I was gay or into watching sexual content. I was far too young to be watching this show, but I felt magnetically pulled to it. Samantha Jones was my idol, role model, and everything | pictured my future being.
One day, I’d tell myself, I’ll have men eating out of the palm of my hand, whilst wearing fabulous outfits and drinking cocktails. That came true, for the most part, which is something I’d love to be able to go back and tell my younger self.
Now, I want to laser-focus that time machine’s dial on one event:
Season 4, Episode 11 of Sex and the City: ‘Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda’. This aired in early 2002, and I caught it live on Channel 4. It’s quite an intense episode, as (spoiler alert) Miranda finds out she’s pregnant. That’s a great storyline, but there was one part of this episode that stuck with me, where the ladies discussed their ‘scary age’- the age that they’re scared of reaching, for whatever reason – and we all have our reasons.
Miranda’s scary age was 43, and I remember deciding that my scary age was 37. Thirty-seven. I was 12 years old and had no business worrying about ageing or what that would mean for my life, desirability, or body. But, as with pop culture, we are exposed to things at times that mature us beyond our need to be. I decided back then that 36 sounded youthful and 37 sounded more severe, serious, and like a wave goodbye to the idea of ‘youth.
Now, jump in that time machine again and fast-forward to May 2026. The world is an abject fucking disaster, UK Garage has made a mainstream resurgence, mostly thanks to PinkPantheress – Kim Cattrall is still fucking fabulous, the Sex & the City reboot is, erm, not to my taste, and Eminem dyes his goatee dark brown.
But also… I’m 36, about to turn thirty-fucking-seven next month in June. Writing that age down doesn’t feel real. I remember being told as a child that as you get older, time just slips away, and I had never taken it seriously. But here I am, about to land balls-deep inside my scary age, when it feels like I was 25 last week. And it really does.
Ageism in queer spaces is something we don’t talk about enough. Dating apps filter out anyone over a certain age like spam. Nights out in certain venues now feel like auditions for a youth club you’ve quietly aged out of. I’ve been guilty of it myself at 25, l probably had an age cap on Grindr, I’m not proud of. But something shifts when the number starts applying to you.
Because here I am, about to turn 37, and I’m now asking myself a different question entirely. Not what will lose when I get there… but who didn’t get to.
Think about the LGBTQ+ people lost to the AIDS pandemic. Vibrant and full of the future, gone before they could worry about a grey hair. The young queers who never made it out of the closet – because the weight of hiding became unbearable. Gay boys who never got their Samantha Jones moment, as I did. Never got to be 37, facing their scary age – and alive.
Ageing, for us, is a privilege violently denied to so many in our community. And we’ve somehow allowed it to be turned into a source of shame.
So, to make my point (as it is my column): I’m going to wear this age like Samantha Jones (a woman, older than the rest of her cast) wears everything literally – with confidence and absolutely zero apologies. One, because I’m not ashamed of it, and two-because l am lucky.
Every year I get to add to my life is one that someone else didn’t, and I remind myself of this a lot. Every smile line and every morning where something clicks that didn’t used to-that’s evidence of a life being lived -and trust me, I have LIVED, and don’t want to become someone who takes that for granted. I would find that an insult to those who’d have done anything for another month, week, day, or hour. Those who died in unfathomably cruel and unfair ways – for simply being who they are.
I believe that thirty-seven isn’t a goodbye to my youth. I don’t want to be ‘young’. It’s proof that I made it. And in a community that has lost so many beautiful people far too soon, that feels less like something to mourn – and a hell of a lot more like something worth celebrating.
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