Dating is a minefield!!
Regardless of whatever happens in life there will always be the daters who have no intention of getting emotionally involved and are only looking for sex whether that’s a one night stand or a ‘friend with benefits’ set up. How many times do you hear the phrase ‘they’re all the same’ which can be enough to put many of us off the very thought of dating let alone dating a younger man.
Hunters search for prey and as much as in the animal world, males are looking to plant their seed and move on, in the human world this can very often be mirrored, but how do we know when this is happening to us?
It is man’s instinct in general to play the field but like anything in life we can never tar everyone with the same brush but determining who’s genuine and who’s not can be an ordeal in itself!
In my early days of dating younger men it really did take some effort to sift out the genuine from the faux depending of course what it is we actually want to achieve ourselves. I wanted to spend time with someone who would make me laugh, who would have that verve and energy to stimulate my mind but who wouldn’t suffocate me with endless phone calls or text messages and felt proud to have me at his side.
It is daunting enough to take the step to date again after a long relationship but to date a much younger man also takes some confidence. Yet what I found was that it was usually the guys that needed the confidence to do something about it, not the other way around. However I did fall prey to the one guy who inevitably did only want one thing…
My naivety wasn’t helped by the endearing messages I was receiving and the excitement it gave me to find a new one waiting each day. If like me you’d been in a long term relationship/marriage, you’d know that tingling feeling and almost butterfly like excitement you felt when you first started dating and this wasn’t any different
There was quite a difference in age, 15 years to be exact but I had been working hard in the gym throwing myself into it as a means of dealing with the breakup so from that aspect I felt pretty confident. We agreed to meet after exchanging messages for a couple of weeks and like most ladies going on a first date, I took my time getting ready. We were meeting for lunch as I felt dinner was probably a bit too much to begin with and believed that if this went well, dinner would follow anyway
He was exactly as expected, charming, good looking, talkative and lunch went really well then inevitably the moment came once we’d exited the restaurant when you kiss for the first time.
It was soft, sensual, surprising actually but then he suggested that we should go somewhere a little more private to which I responded with ‘perhaps another time, I’m not sure I’m ready for that’. His reply completely floored me!
‘What? I’ve got to come back again?’.
In an instant I realized I’d been well and truly misled with those words cutting through like a knife knowing that all the charm, smiles and sweet talk was only to get me where he wanted me as quickly as possible. It was a major wake up call but rather than let it eat away at me, I changed the way I approached things
From then on in I took my time to get to know someone but also developed a much stronger shell not necessarily to protect myself but to allow my head to rule rather than my heart, at least to begin with.
With the trend today for young men to experience an older woman at least once in their life, we very often become an item on a ‘bucket list’, something to be ticked off which only adds to the task. If we look back to the film The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is seduced by his girlfriends mother, its easy to see why there is this attraction coupled with women now looking much more sexier, oozing confidence and younger for their years.
My experience taught me to treat younger men much the same as I would treat any man. The only way you can determine whether a man is after you purely for sex or actually interested in spending time with you and understanding how you tick is by talking.
Any man worth his salt will take the time and effort to understand you, find out about you, get to know you before looking to take things further and it doesn’t matter what age they are, he won’t push if he’s serious and if they do only want sex, believe me it won’t be long before you realize that!
Inevitably you will come across this from time to time but don’t ever become cynical and tarnished by history, be strong, be decisive, be the confident woman you are (one of the main traits young men are drawn to) and enjoy life!
There are some great guys out there but like rummaging through the bargain basket at a sale there are always the hidden gems, we just need to dig a little further to find them.
Enjoy digging,
Tanya x
