Me and Mr. Unavailable: Cougartown

After my brief dalliance with #121, the 25-year-old construction worker, I was game for further exploration of the younger territories. The night I was over at a mutual friends' and confessed what had happened with #121, I was emphasizing the relief of it all, a vacation from my usual pattern of getting super attached. With this, I said, I had no expectations. I didn’t have to worry about when he’d call or if he liked me or what was going to happen next. It was bliss.

The mutual friend, who’s 47 and has already done the marriage thing, likes the younger ones, too, but has shown an impressive dedication, formalizing her interest by joining dating sites for cougars. She gave me the lowdown on two sites, but, if I was interested, she said, she recommended I start with the free one, Date A Cougar. It turned out #121 had piqued my interest enough to make me interested in a site like that. Although not yet 40, I’m not technically a cougar, but it’s not exactly like you need a membership card. To make it look like I qualified, when I put up my Date A Cougar profile, I posted a photo that emphasized the lines around my eyes.

One of my first messages was from a 24 year old who lived in North Carolina with his parents and a pet bird: “Hey how you been beautiful? Evertime i see your smile i am instantly suck right in like a galaxy in a wormhole.”

And from a 24-year-old in Florida: “You are sexy as hell.”

But probably the most bizarre part—more bizarre than the penis photos, torso shots, multiple self-portraits in bathroom mirrors—was that a lot of the messages came from guys my age or older: 44, 40, 38, 35, 32. Did these guys miss the memo or were they just covering all their bases?

I carefully analyzed the messages and profiles of the men on the site, excluding the ones older than myself, and determined that there are two types of cougar-oriented guys, aka, "cubs": 1. Young men looking for drama-free, no-strings sex. 2. Men who genuinely appreciate maturity and self-confidence in a woman and are generally mature themselves.

The 24-year-old North Carolinian whom I drew in with my wormhole-like smile probably described it best: “Allow me to bring you into my world so you can get a better understanding why i adore women of your caliber. As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved.. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age.”

There was such a disparity between his first statement and the theory about older women that I suspected he plagiarized it from somewhere. Still, one can't deny the wisdom.

Because the next step was to go on an actual date, I eliminated the ones who lived with their parents or were clearly unable to grow facial hair and wound up with #124…