The Accidental Cougar

So... I maaaaaaay have had a date a couple of weeks ago with a boy. A young boy. A boy who was about 7 years old when I started college.

Ooops.

(And, as you can probably guess by the fact that I'm writing about him... I'm not worried about karma coming back to me on this one. Because while he is absolutely adorable, he's also most certainly not the Future Mr. Always a Bridesmaid.)

It all started quite innocently when I went out to dinner with an old friend. Because Mo and I don't get together all that often, we tend to stay out for hours when we do meet up.

And we did.

At one point in the nite while I was in the ladies' room, our server (who was adorable, BTW) approached our table and asked my friend what my story was, and whether she thought I'd go out with him. They conspired to have him leave a note for me when he brought us our bill.

And he did.

(It said something like, "It was a pleasure meeting you. We should grab a drink. The Cub. 555-TOO-YUNG." But, you know. With his real name and number.)

So, I called The Cub a few days later (and had to leave a message). And, of course, what did he do back? TEXT. Because all guys love texting, but the apparently the young ones ESPECIALLY do.

This back-and-forth communication went on for a few weeks, until our schedules finally matched and we could meet for a drink.

And we did.

After chatting for about 20 minutes, it suddenly occurred to me (based on the content of our conversation) that this kid seemed really young.

(Until this point, I had no idea how old he was. But, he knew my friend and I were in our early 30s from our dinner outing weeks earlier, so I assumed he was in the same general age range.)

So I asked, "How old are you?"

He replied, "Old enough." (With a sneaky little dimpled grin to boot!)

I immediately knew that his response meant I was probably approaching cougar territory. When I probed further, I discovered that he was ELEVEN YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME. Eleven. That he graduated from high school the same year I was celebrating my fifth anniversary at my second job. (And that he graduated from college the same year I celebrated my 10th anniversary at that same job.)

We had a good laugh about it. He even later commented about how he was with the hottest woman in the bar, and that he kind of liked that I was older.

But I know myself too well. If the maturity level of most 30-year-old men frightens me, I knew I couldn't deal with a boy who was a whole seven years younger THAN THAT.

(P.S. Did I mention that he still lives at home? And that doesn't really have any intentions of getting a full-time job any time soon? Yeah.)

And so went my date with The Cub. And my first foray into almost-cougardom.

Have you ever dated a (much) younger man?