A very rare fifth post on this Thursday, and perhaps my last until Monday — it looks like a busy weekend. Our first retreat with this year’s All Saints confirmation class runs Saturday through Sunday, and that will keep me very occupied. At what point will I tire of spending the night on a floor in a sleeping bag, listening to the sounds of snoring boys? When will I tire of trying to be a vegan while we pump the kids full of hot dogs and pizza? At the least, I think I need to buy an air mattress and pack some snacks; after all these years, my back muscles are getting a little less resilient.
On the subject of men and aging, a friend of mine told me a wonderful story yesterday. With his permission, I repeat it. My buddy "Sean" is 39, just as I am, and single. He goes to a Starbucks a few miles from here almost every day, and in recent weeks had been smitten with a very attractive, outgoing young barista there. She’s a Citrus College student and is about 19. For his (our) age, Sean is a handsome fellow; we originally met at the gym.
In any event, Sean and his young barista had been getting friendlier and friendlier, and Sean had been thinking of asking her out. (He didn’t tell me this beforehand, knowing my strong feelings about older men/younger women relationships.) In any event, on Tuesday afternoon, the pretty barista asked Sean a question after taking his order.
Barista: "Uh, can I ask you a personal question?" (Sean told me he was "stoked" when he heard this, thinking she might be getting ready to make the first move.)
Sean: "Sure."
Barista: "Are you single?"
Sean (now sure the gal is interested, and getting very excited): "Yes, sure am!"
Barista: "Well, I know this is weird, but you seem really great and I really want to introduce you to my mother. She’s really awesome, and I think you two would be perfect together."
Sean confessed this to me, and was more rueful and chagrined than devastated. I gave him a very hard time, of course, laced with compassion and humor. Until Tuesday, it hadn’t been driven home to him how younger women (mostly) see guys our age. But he’s starting to get that we are not as we were, and that’s not only not a bad thing, it’s pretty awesome. Sean says the barista gave him her mother’s number, and he’s considering calling. (She’s prepared her mom for the possible call.) I hope he does at least give it a chance, and I’m hoping that this little episode has ended his fantasy of eternal youth once and for all!
In any event, I’ve heard similar stories before (why do I think this scenario was in some sitcom, once?), but never from someone so close to me. And since like many 39 year-olds I’ve been ruminating a lot on getting older lately (and writing a lot about age-disparate relationships), this anecdote came along at just the right time.
Great story, but your post title kind of gave away the punch line. Maybe something neutral would have worked better.
Whoops, I’ll change that, Stephen.
Do men in their 30s/40s think twice before asking out women who are 10 to 20 years younger? Or is age a non-issue?
There are the Demi Moores of the world, but generally, I get the feeling many, if not most, women in their 30s/40s initially would hesitate to ask out a man 10 to 20 years her junior, or she would dismiss the idea altogether.
Did your friend notice this woman is young enough to be his biological daughter? If so, how did he feel about it? Did it make him uneasy, or perhaps did it add to his excitement?
I’d like to understand how men think about these things.
Sydney, I’ll post about that next week, particulary from the “male mindset” on the issue.
I hope he calls her mother. I know you all are into social constructs vs. biology, but it’s a fact that kids tend to look a lot like their parents. Plus, if the girl was raised properly she likely resembles her mother re. temperament. Sounds like he might get lucky, and no, I don’t mean it like that. Or do I?…
The inverse happened to my mother—a man in his early 20s works at a shop she likes a lot and he had a really obvious crush on her. One day a few years ago, he worked up the courage to ask her out and she replied, “Oh thank you but I’m getting married soon. But I have two lovely daughters if you’re interested!” I wasn’t there, but my sister was, and she was so mortified she fled the shop and bust a gut laughing in the parking lot. My mother’s stunning good looks are of the sort that we grew up a bit mortified at the interest of guys our own age.
Much better.
Citrus? Are you in Azusa?
I’m in Pasadena. My buddy lives in Duarte and works out near Azusa.
Without giving too much detail, is your friend a professional? If so (and I make this assumption because generally, birds of a feather flock together) what’s more interesting to me than the rejection is why he was interested in her to begin with. If he is indeed a professional middle aged man, why and how could he develop a crush on a barista (who either has no education or is in the process of getting one)? They are thus on vastly different levels of life and experience. Why wouldn’t he pursue someone who is more on his level (money-wise, education-wise…age-wise). The “dating down” deal has always fascinated me..
Heh, nice one. Here’s mine.
I have a most un-macho fondness for bright, cheerful colours. A good few years back I impulse-bought a bunch of multi-coloured plastic coat hangers at a local home store. At the checkout the teenage girl looked at them and asked “Are they for your little girl?”. I goggled at her and she hastily added “Your little boy?”. “They’re for me”, I said. “Oh, you like bright colours?”. “Yes”, I said and lifted my trouser leg to show my socks.
And that, children, is when I realised I was so old that a young woman would see me as a Dad-thing rather than a Man-thing. (I’ll pass over her assuming that I was buying coloured things for a girl rather than a boy.)
Lovely cautionary tale!
I still don’t know whether it’s a curse or a charm that we are (often) stuck with a much younger version of ourselves than our faces unambiguously reveal.
My husband once mistakenly heartily teased his mother for telling an anecdote about the “old man” who lived in her home village.
I was groaning inside as he doggedly pointed out the irony of her referring to anyone else as “old” – for some reason he remained immune to her increasingly irritated expression.
Poor guy. That must have been jarring. At least he’s a grown up and considering calling the mother – instead of running out to buy a sportscare or something.
Pardon my schadenfreude, but I’ve had the opposite problem – stragers assuming Mrs. X is my daughter – too many times to count, and I’m less than two years her senior.
Heh. When I was in college, my father came by the dorms once to pick me up for dinner while he was in town for business. One of the other students helped track me down, and asked later if that had been my boyfriend. Dad was so flattered to think he looked young enough to date a college student…And no, I wasn’t in the habit of dating older men!
Jas: I can’t speak for Hugo’s buddy, of course, but I can speak for myself, and that might provide you with some data. I’m a middle-class professional, college graduate, in my early 30s. I’m married to someone who is five years my junior.
I also find that I experience attraction to cute early twentysomething guys working in coffee shops. I would never *act* on that attraction, because (a) i’m married and (b) it’s inappropriate for the reasons you’ve outlined.
But the attraction remains.
I think part of it is that my self-conception hasn’t moved on; I still think of myself as being fundamentally the same person I was in my early twenties, so people in their early twenties strike me as being conceptually my peers, even though they really aren’t. But some of it, I am ashamed to admit, is shallow; men in their early twenties *look better* than do men who are older, and I react to that.
Huh. Since we’re in the anecdote mode. I’m reading Hugo’s blog in a coffee shop in Ann Arbor — 24 thousand undergrads — just had a youngish woman address me as sir — and it throws me everytime . . . . I need a motorcycle.
Stephen
Jas: If he is indeed a professional middle aged man, why and how could he develop a crush on a barista (who either has no education or is in the process of getting one)?
I’m not yet middle-aged, but I’ve never been able to choose how my crushes develop, and proximity and random chance, rather than suitability in any of its forms, seem to be more important factors by far.
It seems there’s something a little more troubling than “older guy digs younger gal” here. I’m only a few years behind Hugo and “Sean” (if that *is* his real name!
and I noticed some time ago that my tastes hadn’t aged along with my body. I had a similar sort of wake-up call when I realized “hey, I’m too old to be dating 20-year olds”! Or even, now, mid-20′s — and 30 is pushing it! On the surface of it, this seems like a feminist awakening — the whole power issue, the tradition of men “dating down” as someone called it (which, however, isn’t all that flattering to young women who are smart, ambitious, driven, and generally capable of making choices, even bad ones, for themselves, right?), etc. But I think Hugo’s touched on something else, equally feminist but rather more subtle, and that’s the sense in which we (as men? as a society?) feel much younger than we are. In our consumption-oriented and youth-driven culture, it’s easy to be, like me, mid-30s and still feel “of a mind” with 20 year olds — I often share new music and discuss recent films with my students, for instance, and not (I hope) in that creepy trying-to-be-hip way. Which isn’t to say I really am hip or anything, I’m just another person fully embedded in the popular culture of our society.
Certainly a part of this, though, is that our society gives me a license to be immature and irresponsible, because I’m a man. But I think this is a feeling shared with women my age, too — a lot of us simply never felt any decisive break with our youth. And so we continue to indulge ourselves with “Nick at Night” and action figures and Ring Pops, partially because it’s nostalgia but partially because that’s our taste, the aesthetic we continue to connect with.
This isn’t as simple, I don’t think, as saying “we never grew up” but rather that being a part of the society we are in seems to be flattening the experience of “grown-up-ness” so that, when it comes to cultural issues at least, there doesn’t seem like much difference between 20 and 40 — until, of course, we come face-to-face with the economic, political, and yes, biological realities of our social positions and physical age.
Stephen: as a polite lad, I always address people working in coffee shops, etc, as sir and ma’am, and occasionally I get *very* startled responses.
at least he was under 40, plenty of 40-70 year olds think the same way and would pass up someone their own age to crush on someone 20, 30, 40 years younger.
You know, I’d be a little creeped out by a guy who asked me out only because my kid wouldn’t sleep with him.
That aside, my spouse refers to this as the turning point where the cute chicks stop saying “Hey, that guy is checking us out” and start saying “That creepy old guy is staring at us.”
No motorcycle for you, Steve… what you and I need is breakfast. Call me.
Mythago, your last comment had me cracking up.
BTW, why is it considered not so cool to be called sir? What else are you supposed to call a stranger who is a man?
Jas: If he is indeed a professional middle aged man, why and how could he develop a crush on a barista (who either has no education or is in the process of getting one)?
This is off topic, but Jas, why do you assume that a barista has no education or is only in the process of getting one? I have two friends, one holds a Ph.D in Literature, and one earned an MA degree in Chemistry, and both have worked as a barista during their post-grad school lives. One merely had a hard time finding a job and the other was laid off. You should give people working in the both the food service and retail industries the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how much education they have.
BTW, why is it considered not so cool to be called sir?
It sure beats “Pops”.
I see older men with young women on their arms frequently. These men have one thing in common – MONEY! It seems to have an aphrodisiac effect on females. Go figure.
In many other cultures, it’s the norm for men to have wives half their age. This is not due to the evils of “Patriarchy”, it’s simply that a man remains fertile much, much longer than women.
Um, I hardly think the notion of a man’s long standing fertility is what causes younger women to want to date much older men. I’m pretty sure the real reason is a little closer to patriarchy than you think.
why do you assume that a barista has no education or is only in the process of getting one? I have two friends, one holds a Ph.D in Literature, and one earned an MA degree in Chemistry, and both have worked as a barista during their post-grad school lives. One merely had a hard time finding a job and the other was laid off. You should give people working in the both the food service and retail industries the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how much education they have.
It’s clearly an assumption, having never worked in either industry and not personally knowing any baristas. I assumed that regardless of how difficult it is to find a job, someone with a graduate degree should be able to find even the most basic office job, so they would never have to resort to food/ drink service. Regardless, this is off topic…
Hugo – are you vegan or vegetarian? Vegans don’t eat any dairy products right?
I could never picture a world without cheese…
Heh. When I was in college, my father came by the dorms once to pick me up for dinner while he was in town for business. One of the other students helped track me down, and asked later if that had been my boyfriend.
Off topic, but that’s better than what happened when my father came to visit me at college. The sequence of events goes like this:
Roommate’s brother comes to visit, and, since we can’t get him any other place to sleep on short notice, crashed on our floor.
My Greek immigrant father calls, early on a Sunday morning, to let me know he’s visiting and arrange to take me out to eat. Roommate’s brother answers the phone.
Roommate’s brother turns to me and says, “Some man with an accent is on the phone. He may be a wrong number.”
Um, food/drink service is much less degrading to some people than *any office job. I’ve held both, and take my M.A. to a retail gig,thank you.
I’m presently 45, and have had attractions to women aged 21 (ok, younger, when I was younger) to 55. Verified.
Hugo’s buddy’s bubble needed to be burst, and I hope he calls the momma, but I wish I were less aware of Hugo’s pleasure in the bursting. (Bubba, you posted about it. Sancitmony proved. Protesting only compounds the offense. Penance not mine to assign.)
My own parallel experience involved the wife of a younger colleauge, who wanted to know if I would be ok with being fixed up with her mom… (it was more complicated than that, but, eew.)
I am uncomfortable with the notion of *only* being attracted to one’s own age cohort for the simple reason that I’ve never *identified* with my own age cohort. I didn’t like the music that was popular when I was 14, why should I feel nostalgic for it now? The jocks i knew were thugs when I was 17, why should I celebrate them now? You (women of my age-cohort, as an aggregate) treated me like I had the plague when I was 15, why should I still be pursuing you now?
I, personally, will rejoice in being involved with any woman to whom I am genuinely attracted, and who is simultaneously genuinely into me. I draw an arbitrary line at age 21 because I want to share wine without committing a crime, otherwise, …
I’ve experienced genuine attraction to women from barely-legal to age 60, yes, including my age-peers. Fwiw, I never expect it to be reciprocal. My experience with my age-cohort taught me that much.
Oh, and I sometimes fantasize about how Kirsten Dunst or Scarlett Johansson might be when they’re 40 (humnmm ).
Take off the theory-goggles, and look at the people. ‘k?
I know this is weird, but you seem really great and I really want to introduce you to my mother. She’s really awesome, and I think you two would be perfect together…
-
This might be the unusual way to go in United States, but here in Asia introductions by friends and relatives are very common.
This includes also children, looking for a possible partner for a single parent after the death or divorce of their father or mother.
It is important for a family life in Asia, where often 3 or 4 generations are living together, that children (this includes grown-up children) accept the new husband of the parent.
To be introduced as a possible husband to the mother by the grown-up daughter might sound funny in the Western world, like in USA, where family values are not really important anymore.
In Asia life is more relaxed and more into family relation. It is perfectly OK to introduce a possible future stepfather to the single mother.
Regards,
Yohan
I realize that Asian cultures are much more high context, but I think it is a stunning amount of ignorance to say that family values are not important in the US. Families do care about each other here, I think the definition of “family” tends to be less blood-and-marriage.
Yohan, the point isn’t that one cannot point out other singles to one’s family as potential mates. The point is that Hugo’s friend thought that the barista herself was hitting on him, not hitting on him by proxy.
Yohan, if you’re trying to imitate a non-native English speaker, you should keep your mistakes consistent.
I am not a native English speaker, I never use English, neither at home nor in the office. There is no native speaker around me to correct my mistakes.
Yes, I got the point – the man was thinking, the young girl likes him and did not expect that she is showing up for the reason to introduce her mother. However here in Asia, introductions are often taken with a lot of humour and surprise. Such a story is not unusual in South East Asia…
Family values are not important anymore in the whole Western world if you compare them to Asia, this is for sure. Why is this ignorant to say that?
In Sweden, the political party FI (feminist initiative) made an inquiry to the parliament to abolish marriage. I found a big talk about children rights, father rights, women rights is going on in the US, however I never read anything about an obligation, like for children to take care of their old grandparents…
What I hear are talks only about rights among ‘equals’, but not about obligations between people, who are not ‘equals’.
I think it is not wrong to say, that in the Western world family values are not important and not appreciated anymore.
Hmm – probablyu in my case I’d ask for the introduction to her mother. Tried dating younger once. I was terribly bored.
I am not a native English speaker
‘Course you’re not.
Hear, hear, Gonzman. I’ve dated younger exactly once and it was a bad, bad idea.
Not because she wasn’t smart or anything, mind you – but the lack of 15 years of my life experience was a jarring wake-up call.
Exactly–and the lack of emotional maturity. (Which is not to say us fogies can’t be immature beyond our years, of course.)
I think that there is a difference between being called “ma’am” or “sir.” Being called ma’am is far worse in our culture. So called young and “sexy “ women are given power by our culture. On the other hand, it is power (be it physical, intellectual, or financial) that makes a man “sexy.†In a very real sense to be called “sir†is to be respected. That’s why subordinates respond with “sir†in the military. Most guys I know would rather be called “sir†than “boy.â€
Story: A couple of years ago a female friend and I went to a “nice†(and expensive) venue. The doorman stopped me and I took out my wallet to pay. He told me that I would have to show an ID. I handed him the ID and he proceeded to stare at it like the info was written in Greek. Finally, after the better part of minute he waived us through. He never checked HER ID. The place now had two annoyed patrons. She was mad because she thought that the doorman “thought she looked old.†It was a different annoyance for me. I don’t want to be taken lightly. I don’t want to be treated like a kid. Not only do I want them to “respect my authorita,” I want them to “acknowledge my gravitas.”
Dave, I wanted to add to your comments. While some women prefer “miss†and feel people who address them as “ma’am†are hinting they appear old, in some circles, ma’am is preferred and miss is considered to be insulting. An upper class white friend of mine from the South and a middle class black friend of mine from California (but who has roots in the South) say “ma’am†conveys respect. For both of them, “miss†is the insulting way to address grown women (though it’s acceptable for girls). One explained “miss†too much resembles “Now see here, little missy†in tone.
As for sir, my husband has been called both “sir†and “young sir.†(I feel “young sir,†as opposed to “boy,†which you mentioned, correlates better with “miss.†Being called “boy†probably better matches in tone with being addressed “girl.â€) The older the person is, the more likely my husband is called “young sir.†I don’t find either to be insulting, and neither does he. If anything, it simply establishes social context. Of course, for this to work, there has to be a generally agreed upon meaning of such titles, and it seems these days this agreement is lacking.
The jocks i knew were thugs when I was 17, why should I celebrate them now? You (women of my age-cohort, as an aggregate) treated me like I had the plague when I was 15, why should I still be pursuing you now?
Perhaps because neither you nor they are teenagers any longer?
I never really “connected” with my age-cohort in high school either, but high school was 30 years ago. I’m not the same as I was then; why should I expect them (or, by extension, other people in my age group) to be the same as they were then? And punishing ALL people in a given age group for the past actions of a few is… well, when people do it to racial or ethnic groups, we call it “profiling”.
That said, I will mention that I seem to have developed the habit of thinking of any adult person as if they were my contemporary, and am occasionally brought up short by generation gap when I’m hanging out with people in their 30s!
Hugo, you have a lot of prejudices.
Taking issue with MEN who are significantly OLDER than the women they prefer is discriminating by age and sex.
Ironic that a FORTY year old MAN would be both AGEIST and SEXIST.
Will wounders never cease in the world of self absorbed, navel gazing, delusion and denial enfused blogs.
I love women of all ages. I usually preferred to date women near my own age (now 60). I met a gal 13 years younger than me last year and just had fun dating and being non-romantic friends. Unbelievably, she fell in love with me!
She is drop dead gorgeous and we share cultural literacy values. Yet she loves to talk on and on for hours (she’s a good listener too), distracting me from my work and other responsibilities.
Sometimes I ask myself what she sees in me (I’m not rich, though have a good job [middle school music teacher]). She asked me to dye my hair which I did just a few weeks ago–I hate it and am waiting for it to wash out. I am convinced that she really loves me. I am flattered by the relationship. The sex is the best I’ve ever experienced (unbelievably–she turns me ON daily [or more]).
She’s only 13 years younger but she is young looking for her age so she appears to be young enough to be my daughter, plus I’m 6 feet and she’s 5 feet one inch.
This feels like true love and I’m committed to making it work (we got married a month ago). I feel like I’ve got to keep my belly from getting big and have considered wrinkle-removal surgery.
I’ve known her for a year now. we’ve had a few arguments but have worked them out through talking. We’ve both read “women:venus/men:mars” and use the strategies outlined there.
I’m happy :^)
Hi! I just found this forum and it looks really cool.
Now, I gotta run off and read some posts.