I could have been highly offended, and justifiably so. Instead, I made a conscious decision not to be. His words, although definitely not seasoned with salt, summed up for me in a nutshell the shared plight of many women over 40. This particularly applies to those of us who, either by choice or by circumstance, remain single. Fostered by a youth-enamored society, the assumption is that rather than being in any way enhanced by age, women are tarnished by it.