Tags
age, Breakfast, Cougar, Dating, Grand Central Station, love, mature, older women, relationship, train, younger men
(Picture courtesy of http://www.free-animations.co.uk)
I am sitting in the usual car of my usual train this morning playing with my phone when I have this feeling one gets when you have a pair of eyes on you. I look up and I see this guy sitting 4 rows across from my seat staring at me.
I think to myself that dressing better on Thursdays is already paying off.
I don’t have to dress up for work. As a matter of fact I could wear pajamas if I wanted to, but as a courtesy to my fellow train riders and my fellow New Yorkers I normally wear jeans or something as casual.
I wish I had a uniform so that I didn’t have to think of what to wear every morning (or the night before). Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of clothes, specially now that I lost the chocolate weight and can get into a whole side of my closet that had been lying dormant for the past couple of years. I am just not creative when it comes to putting outfits together.
Because I know that if you dress better you feel better I figure I will start with dressing better on Thursdays, which happens to be my favorite day of the week. And hopefully that will get me motivated to add other days until, voila, I am dressing well the whole week! Also, dressing better is a way of saying to the world, and most importantly to myself, that I matter enough to be concerned with how I look.
Anyway, going back to being stared at in the train…
This is a good looking young guy. How young? I am not sure, but I would venture a guess of low 30s. Hummm, I am 46! So I am thinking to myself is he too young for me? Of course I am jumping the gun, for all I know he is staring at the lady behind me or next to me.
Why can’t I just relax and stare back? Well, for beginners, I don’t know how. I don’t know how to sultrily look at any guy flirting with me. I am a big flirt but only after I met someone. The moment I have a stranger’s eyes on me I start either giggling or grinning like a Chesire cat. I am sure guys are left scratching their heads thinking: what is wrong with her? When I was a teen my sister would say: Stop that grinning and giggling, they will think you have mental problems. Well, perhaps I do have mental issues because after 30 years my first reaction still is to giggle and grin.
Somehow I am able to hold my compusure and continue playing with my phone while attempting to give him quick glances.
The train arrives at Grand Central Station and I leave first. I have taken only a few steps and he is right next to me and says hello. Up close he is even more handsome. And YOUNG!!! He is just a baby! He looks late 20s max. I am disappointed, but still so flattered.
He asks me if I have time for breakfast and the only thing I say is: How old are you? Well I am nothing if I am not direct and to the point! There is no guessing what I am thinking.
He says: 25, almost 25.
Oh, good God, is this a test?
I giggle! there comes the giggling again and I say: I could be your mother!
Somehow I think he has gone through this before because he lists a whole bunch of reasons why it doesn’t matter:
It is only breakfast!
You look 30!
Age is just a number!
I was always mature for my age!
You can have breafast with a friend, can you?
I give him extra points for having the guts of approaching me. I find that a lot men are afraid of rejection so they don’t even try. Perhaps he is too young to actually feel rejected – lol. I politely say I am flattered but that it was best to skip breakfast. I wish him luck and go.
Now, I know that it was only breakfast and perhaps I missed a chance of making a friend, but believe me I have been there before. I have dated embarassingly young guys before, and in this case there is no such thing as just breakfast.
Still, I am flattered and more than ever motivated to dress up on Thursdays. And it got me thinking: What is my cutoff age? How old is too young for me? since I am 46, I am thinking that a 10 year difference in either direction is okay.
but of course that is not set in stone!
By the way, for the record, I hate the label “cougar”!
(please see http://listuniverse.wordpress.com/ for my list of 10 reasons not to date a younger man)