Return of the Cougar
When I started this blog, some readers took issue with the term “Cougar.”
“You’re too young to be a Cougar,” and “Cougars are trampy women in their fifties who hunt young guys and just use them for sex,” are some comments I received early on.
My rebuttal was:
1- Cougarism has less to do with age and more to do with having an affinity for younger men whom tend to have less baggage, and are more emotionally available (not to mention, not married.)
2- Hunting is in the eye of the hunter (and huntee). Just because a woman happens to fall for a younger guy, that doesn’t make it some strategic conquest. They might actually be good together.
3- While I may have had several young boyfriends, I surely never planned it that way. I liked those guys for their personalities (and other things), not their ages.
4- I’m a Cougel anyway, the sweet and mushy kind with old-fashioned Jewish origins.
OK, so none of those relationships worked out so well, and lesson learned, I made a pact to start opening myself up to more age appropriate men. My Jdate profile specifies my ideal match as “34-52.”
But that doesn’t stop the cubs from knockin, or change the fact that some men simply prefer older women. I’d like to believe that those that do are more mature. Women their own age don’t challenge them, or have enough going on in their lives to keep the relationship eventful (drama?) and rich (unstable?).
I guess it is inevitable that after a potential relationship with an older man imploded, I’d start idealizing the appeal of my ex-cubs and consider reaching back out to them. It’s impossible not to compare, or to come off one relationship and react to it by thinking your previous ones had more to them than you realized.
Coincidentally, the young finance cub (“YFC”) I met last month must have sensed where my head was going, because he started texting me again (I was not responsive to his earlier requests). He didn’t play games or bother with passive aggressive subtexts. He simply wrote: “YFC seeking fit Cougar for libation.” Followed by: “When can I take you out? Let’s make this happen.”
That kind of stuff (humor and candor) goes a long way at any age. But especially for someone ten years my junior….
…who looks fifteen years my junior, I realized when I met him for a drink. Was it in my head, or was the bartender looking at us funny? And then I saw some colleagues I know having drinks at the other end of the bar, and I considered hiding.
Conversation flowed. Great guy, I thought. The kind of guy with promise for the long term.
I’d go out with him again, but I should I? How many times do you have to burn your hand on the little stove, I thought, before you stop touching it? (I might have even said this to him after our second mai tai).
But “we’ll see,” “you never know,” etc. are my new mantras. Read: openness.
For example, the other night I went to a Jewish Fundraiser (I was invited last minute) at a Greenwhich Village club. I’m normally reluctant to attend such functions because the women there tend to look like they spent days getting ready, hair perfectly curled, and I usually feel like the odd tomboy out. But I was open. You never know, right?
I ended up hanging out with the cool girls at the coat check. And then an employee at the club started chatting me up. He was moving garbage pails around so I’m guessing he wasn’t the manager of the establishment. He was stocky and bespectacled, and in his early thirties.
“I like Cougars,” he said to me.
Really.
He proceeded to explain why he loves older women (I happened to agree), that he had been in the military, and has a wife and four children.
“What are you doing here?” he asked me. “You don’t seem like the other girls in there.”
“No kidding,” I said.
“Listen. Go out with me. Winter is coming up. I can keep you warm at night,” he said.
Luckily I could cut to the front of the coat check line without any problems.
So is the Cougar back?
Well I’m definitely not hunting young cubs, but seems to me they couldn’t care less.
Young Finance Cubs? Didn’t they have that “She drives me crazy” hit in 89?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSCJJkFgt_w
That was the fine young cannibals.
Two points: It’s nice to find someone who says “couldn’t care less” rather than the all too often used mistake “could care less.” Kudos.
Second, it’s nice to see things come full circle in your blog (I was wondering if we’d ever see the YFC again.) New York City has no shortage of beginnings…but it lacks meaningful journeys and endings…