Age Ain’t Nothin' but a Cradle Robbery (or an AARP membership)

At various times in my single life I have found myself dating someone who was not quite my age. Sometimes I wonder if I have a sign posted on my back that says “Hit on me little boys, I’m a cougar.” This has particularly been common in my travels. In Brazil I had countless 17 and 18 year old boys hit on me, scream “Ay laaaab yoouu, keeees meee!” and then go in for a wet one before I could even make sense of what they were trying to say in English. I felt the need to look up the local laws on statutory rape in the county before even engaging in a conversation with a young suitor (as simple conversations are often misconstrued as make out invites in Brazil). I would then, naturally, require proper government issued ID’s of my suitors before things went any further.

Back on the State side I did recently date a 25 year old. 25 going on 19 that is. He basically lived in a frat house and I cringed the first time I went over there. After a long 2 weeks I decided that being a teacher, I do enough for the kids and figured I didn’t need to date them as well.

On the other end of the spectrum, I dated a guy 15 years older than me a few years back. But I honestly don’t feel I am qualified to write about my experiences dating an older man simply because he acted more like his shoe size than his actual age.

Recently however I went on a date with a man who I assumed was in his early thirties only to find out he was actually 40. That made him 13 years older than me and in a TOTALLY different life stage. Somewhat needless to say this was our first and last date. Part of me regrets not pursuing it beyond the first date (especially because of the aforementioned lack of qualification to speak on the topic of older men) but every time he told me stories about when he was in his twenties I couldn’t help but think “That was 2 decades ago! My age was still in the single digits. Mr. Belding had a full head of hair then and the internet didn’t even exist” (side note, what the EFF did people do then??).  While doing math problems for the paranoid single girl in my head I was also trying to figure out if this guy was a walking endorsement for Just for Men and Botox or did he really just age that well? Damn those are good genes! I should have his babies. All of this left me with too much in my head to focus on the actual date. Plus I was juggling the “I’m really listening intently” brow furrow and pensive wine sipping so I really didn’t focus on what he was actually saying AT ALL. 

The point is, younger or older, I find that men are still boys. They will still act immaturely when they don’t get their way and no matter how much they age, and they still don’t seem to know how to deal with women. Or maybe I just don’t know how to deal with men, but that’s a whole ‘nother post to write.