What It’s Really Like to Date a Man Half Your Age
How You Got Into This
You decided to meet him in the first place because his pictures are cute, and to be perfectly honest, dating (and dating and dating, and then marrying and divorcing, and then dating some more) men your own age hasn’t exactly worked out all that well. And you’re enjoying your independence — that feeling that you can, at last, do whatever you want, including going on a date with someone young enough to be your son (in fact, so young that you could have gone to college and started a career before giving birth to him). And if nothing else, this date will be an entertaining story for your friends.
But then you like him, and his follow-up text a few hours later shows that he likes you, too. And the first date leads to a second, and a third, and a fourth, and then a weekend away. And now here you are, in an actual relationship with the Young Hot Boyfriend.
Early on, you have a text conversation (of course, by text — this is before you managed to convince him that talking on the phone every now and again is a thing) in which you both explain that you’re Not Looking For Anything Serious. And you feel the relief emanating from the iPhone screen, in both directions.
But pretty quickly, it emerges that you have different definitions of “serious.” In your mind, “serious” means “exclusive,” and as long as it’s Not Serious, you can continue to reassure your friends you haven’t gone completely crazy — even though you’re dating someone younger than some of their offspring — because you’re both still allowed to see other people. In the YHB’s world, though, “serious” means what he sees his friends doing: moving in together, getting engaged, starting to have real-life conversations about marriage and children and forever. Somewhat ironically, you recognize that he’s the one facing the big adult issues.
So you realize that he does want to be with you; he just doesn’t want to move in together or get married. And that’s fine with you because, of course, you have no intention of doing any of that, with him or with anyone else. It takes a little time, and a lot of heartfelt conversations, but you gradually get on the same page. And you start to build a relationship based on the things that matter to you. Trust, and caring, and love. Whether you live together (you don’t) or get engaged (you won’t) or are “exclusive” or “serious” feel like things that matter to other people, but not to you. You’ve already shattered a pretty major rule in the age gap department, so you feel the freedom to toss out all the other rules along with it and design a relationship that feels custom-made for the two of you.
Your Friends
You both spend the first several months of your relationship getting completely intoxicated on each other and then bragging to your respective sets of friends about it. The shock value is HIGHLY entertaining. Your friends laugh and say things like “You go, girl!” and “Enjoy it!” His friends laugh, and you don’t know quite exactly what they say because, you assume, it’s mostly not repeatable in your company.
You’re honestly a little surprised by how supportive your friends are. Once they stop laughing, they’re just happy because you’re happy. And you’re very, very slightly disappointed at how quickly they stop being shocked and start to accept that you have this new boyfriend. And yes, they get it, you’re in an exciting new relationship, but they’re kind of done talking about it for a little bit, and can we please get back to figuring out the right strategy for dealing with their 10th-grader’s difficult English teacher?
Your Families
Your parents are mildly amused when you tell them about him, and then they promptly forget about it. At their age, they have more pressing concerns, health-related and otherwise, and they’re decades past worrying about any aspect of your life. They know from experience that you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, and as long as you’re healthy and your children are happy, they’re not very interested in your dating life. Or your life in general, really. You love them dearly, but you recognize that a heavy dose of self-absorption seems to come with the territory at their age, so you don’t bring it up much and go back to pestering your friends every time you have a good story to tell about your love life.
His parents, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. They’re heavily invested in the life, and future mating prospects, of their only son. Obviously, he doesn’t tell them about you. That would be asking for all kinds of trouble. But they start to figure it out anyway. They see your car in his driveway, and it’s not the car of someone his age (unless she’s borrowing mom’s car, repeatedly). You and the YHB are out to dinner, and you run into his parents’ best friends. The YHB’s parents ask him what you do for a living, and the answer doesn’t reassure them that he’s dating someone right out of college.
You feel for him because parental pressure is something you vaguely remember, but it hasn’t been any part of your life for such a very long time.
Your Life Experiences
Your new favorite game is trying to come up with the best way to age-shock each other. You spent your teenage years lying awake at night worrying about nuclear war, but he wasn’t alive when the Berlin Wall came down. You were 37 when the iPhone was invented. He barely remembers 9/11, but you were nursing a newborn and the whole period is seared into your memory. He has a hard time keeping Freddie Mercury and Prince straight (you figure it’s a royalty-theme thing?). You’re not all that clear on the point of memes. The name John Hughes means nothing to him. (You’re still trying to come to terms with that one.)
You speak differently, but you both like it. You’re secretly turned on every time he responds to a suggestion that he likes with the single word: “Down.” And he says it’s sexy when you use words like “conflate” and “gradations” in normal conversation. (He thinks that’s sexy! This one’s a keeper.)
Last, but Most Definitely Not Least…..
Ah yes, the sex. The sex is every bit as mind-blowing as you would think it would be. Frankly, the combination of his young body and sexual energy with your experience — and yes, sexual energy — is potent. But it’s not just that. The sex and the intimacy and the closeness is wonderful because you’re in love, and because you’ve both found the confidence to create a relationship that works for you with a person who makes you feel fulfilled. And isn’t that what we all really want, at any age?
