Younger Than You Are
If we’re going to be boomers … we mean, young boomers … we have to think young. And here’s something special for you young boomer girls: according to writer Marcia Barhydt, that means thinking about young men. Younger, maybe, than you are.
Marcia Barhydt
Okay, everyone, hands up if you tsk-tsked when you first read about Demi Moore and Ashton Kucher. You remember, she’s fifteen years older than he is? You remember, the time when you kind of shook your head and said, at least to yourself, “What is she thinking? Doesn’t she know how silly she looks? Is she that desperate for a guy?”
Come on, put your hand up, tell the truth! I know you thought that, just like most of the rest of us. We were kind of shocked, weren’t we, at such an outrageous partnering? Come ON, put your hand up! Because boy, I sure went tsk-tsk and raised my left eyebrow at the same time!
But now I’m repenting, recanting, and regretting. Because I see of course that I was being judgmental, that I was applying my beliefs to someone else, that I was being, yes, rigid.
The world is full of age-disparate relationships, and now with the disparity often on the other foot, with the woman the older of the two partners in a couple. It started way before Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, and certainly it started before Demi and Ashton. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, together at least for 21 happy years, have a twelve-year age difference; Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex were 33 years apart in age. In both of these, the woman is the older of the two. And I’m sure it goes back way way further.
I’m not talking about cougars here— a cougar is a singles term applied to a woman over forty who sexually pursues younger men, typically more than eight years her junior. I’m talking here about couples in lasting relationships, not based on sexual pursuit only. I’m talking couples that just might include your girlfriend or your sister.
So for those of us celebrating the better half of our lives, this becomes a very viable alternative to the way we were raised to the rule that your guy had to be older than you, to the concept that there was something wrong with you if you could only attract a younger man. It’s almost mainstream now I think. It’s becoming just as common as same-sex couples and we no longer tsk-tsk them, do we? Well, not all of us.
And the thing is, it’s part of my own life right now too. Now that I’m dating again, I’m finding that generally men who are older than I are, well, um, OLD! I’m finding that there’s a mindset in many guys born before boomers that seems to turn them into dull, unimaginative, uncurious, boring people. I do cap my lower age limit at a mere eight years younger, and yes, I have been told a couple of times that I’m too old (not moments I relish remembering). But mostly, the matches that I’ve had with younger men have been good, exciting, interesting times. They’ve had more active minds too, more curious minds, with more interests than retirement to the cottage or the condo in Florida.
Age is an outlook, an approach to life, an attitude, a behavior, a character, a frame of mind. If my mind is young, then I’m young.
Doesn’t it all boil down to the fact that age isn’t a number? Who I am, who you are, isn’t defined by our number in years. Just as we’re not defined by our body shape, our hair color, our social status, or our sexual preference, neither are we defined by our age. End of sentence.
So move over Demi and Susan and Elizabeth I! There are a whole bunch of older women now dating, romancing, marrying, and living happily with younger men. Including me!
© Marcia Barhydt 2010
Read more by Marcia Barhydt. Click here.
Filed Under: Baby Boomer Culture • Featured Story • Marcia Barhydt
