In Praise of Older Men

I have a stack of women's mags sitting on the ottoman in my 2ft-by-2ft living room-- some a friend gave me and others I bought myself--that I've been leafing thru in order to discover what sorts of articles I could write for them.

(aside from the fact that most won't take articles from freelancers, but that's besides the point--it's not something that won't necessarily stop me)

What's had me most intrigued is the dating advice for women over the age of 40. Since I had to start dating again at 40--something thrust upon me due to divorce and not anything I ever wanted for myself--I read the articles in order to compare the information in them with what I learned over these past four years.

The most important matter of business in these articles has to do with the types and kinds of men women of 40 and beyond *should* date. According to the authors, men our own age are of no use to us. They're in midlife crisis and looking for younger women. They can't handle a woman who's got success and they assume she does not need them. They're stodgy and not much fun anymore because they're worried about heart failure, hair loss, and high cholesterol.

So, if we want to feel our cheerios, we older women should date younger men. After all, if younger women can make older men feel youthful, can't it work in reverse?

My sense is, if a woman's never dated younger men, then she should give it a whirl. I'm sure dating someone between 5 and 10 years one's junior can indeed make one feel young and desirable again.

Me, personally....well, for most of my life, wherever I went, I accumulated a "fan club" of younger men. All I had to do was open my mouth in a class or social group and they'd be sitting at my feet in no time! Therefore, attracting and going out with younger men has never been a problem for me. Perhaps it's my youthfulness, perhaps it's a mommy-vibe. Who knows; and I never fully understand the mechanisms of attraction anyway.

Older men, though, rarely bothered with me. Perhaps because when I met one I looked at him like he had 3 heads and wondered what his "problem" could be chasing after someone as young as myself. Perhaps it was a case of terminal uniqueness--after all, I was always so edgy and artsy, what could a square older man offer (never met any cool ones)? Perhaps it was because I'd had it ingrained in me that older men would somehow hurt me--not that the ones my own age didn't, mind you.

I'd dated guys who were 10 years older than me when I was in my 20's, and they were always so transparent--they were looking for "wild punk sex," as one outright told me.

Okay, if that wasn't an insult, then I'm not sure what could have been.

While I was at Smith, I asked one of my housemates what she thought could be the reason older men didn't approach me. She told me that one of the reasons they might have stayed away from me could have to do with the fact that I was rather "frivolous" and "flighty"--just not serious enough about life.

As if studying theology wasn't a serious enough pursuit....heck, there were times when I was as serious as the Pope!

Yet I would think that a midlife crisis dude would have been seriously attracted the frivolous part of me. Guess I was wrong.

So, when I felt ready to date again, I didn't esp. look for anyone older. Besides, I was doing the goth thing, and, even now, it's kind of hard to find guys over 40 who are into that sort of thing.

And the older ones *definitely* stayed away because I was flaky. As a buttermilk biscuit....

Once I started to settle down a bit, and accepted that I wasn't happy with young ones, and that I didn't need to play dress-up to prove myself to any person or group, I started to cast a wider net. Profiles I put up on websites listed an age range of 35 to 50. I wanted to see what would happen.

Naturally, as what happens with alot of sites, I got my share of guys my age who were, I later found out, married. After a few of those, I figured out how to screen profiles and figured out the lingo a married one would use. I also figured out that if a guy was long-distance rather than local, and always seemed to be very, very important and unavailable or traveling, that he wasn't necessarily some high roller with money, but was married.

Or he was "poly"--as in polyamourous....which, for many, is just an excuse for cheating on the wife or girlfriend. With permission.

After a bit, I started to get email from older guys. Some were definitely not my physical type (then again, that was the problem with young ones too), but a few were the strong, athletic type I preferred.

If there is one thing I learned about men from both marriages and a barrage of boyfriends is that athletic men are far more attracted to me, and I to them, than the nerdy techie or average desk jockey. Sometimes a combination of athletic nerd works, but the athletic part is paramount.

Before I could go on a date with an older guy, I had to drop my rediscovered pretentiousness and get a little more down to earth. Not a problem--being goth at 40 was alot of work and I don't like being high maintenance.

Once the facade melted away, I found that I liked the company of older men far more than younger. First, I didn't have to hide my smarts just to make them feel good. Younger men always said they liked smarter, older women--usually because it reminded them of their mothers and they want someone to take care of them or boss them around. With older men, it seemed more like we were peers--and some of them were smarter about life than me!

When I talked with them, I discovered that I don't really know it all--as the younger men like to believe I do. I can freely admit that there is alot about life I don't really know, and someone who has more--and different--life experience fills in the blanks.

I did, though, come across a few who were put off by my lack of professional accomplishment and personal means. Surprisingly, they wanted women who were financially stable and professionally well-situated.

So much for older men being threatened by independent, accomplished women.

I didn't mind the baggage they had either. I had my own, and found we could commiserate--as long as we didn't berate the other gender. I never held the philosophy that "all men suck," so that was easy. And I found that not all men who were divorced, even when the ex-wife initiated it, felt that all women sucked. The men I met seemed more able to chalk the bad marriage up to a bad choice of woman whose actions did not indict the entire group.

Now, that's a mature attitude, isn't it?

And as for worries about heart attacks and the like...well, I wasn't getting any younger either. Once women hit 40, we start worrying about the whole menopause thing--naturally, because all the magazines tell us we should. We also worry about our weight, our wrinkles, and our breast cancer risks. I found that as long as a man is, for the most part, physically fit, his worries and health problems are no greater than my own.

Actually, it's kind of comforting to talk with someone who's staring down the barrel of hypertension while I'm trying to outrun a spreading waistline. The common ground becomes a need for exercise, and we support one another's efforts. And being with an accomplished skier and hiker (like Steady Eddie) exposed me to activities I'd wanted to try but knew would be awkward to attempt on my own. After all, who wants to help a spazzy older woman?

Besides, we can laugh at the grey hairs we find on one another....and with me being the younger woman, he always has to find ways of keeping up. It keeps him young!

All the while listening to old Creedence albums and carping about hip-hop and video games.

In alot of ways, the women's mags, for me anyway, have it all wrong. I needed to stop being the all-wise older woman, the mommy substitute, running hard to keep up with trends and fretting over my inability to find the latest hip fashion style in my size. I had to find men who wanted me because I am smart but still something of a bimbo--who found the occasional corset exciting and who didn't really care about who was winning on Survivor. I wanted someone who was experienced with activities I wasn't, who owned power tools and knew how to use them, who had the patience to appreciate my particular brand of creative personality and wouldn't be threatened by anything I did that seemed grossly out of the ordinary.

And contrary to the advice of the mags, that acceptance came from an older, not younger, man.

Ah, women's mags...if they didn't regularly give me some piece of advice to refute, I think I'd be pretty bored.