Submit questions hereand keep an eye on our Instagram stories for ways to ask questions, too. A few months ago, I started dating for the first time in almost fifteen years. I went on a few dates with the usual suspects — men in their mid-forties and fifties, most of them divorced with kids.

There are no strings attached.

A few of them were guys enough, but none of the dates went anywhere. No chemistry. No spark. Somehow it always felt like work. After a few months of this, I lowered the age guys on my dating apps to younger on a whim.

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Two of the relationships fizzled, but the third one developed into a full-blown romance. At twenty-nine, my paramour is twelve years my junior, has never dating married, and is still at the beginning of his career.

I was more than a little surprised, then, when one of my closest friends jokingly referred to me as a cougar. At first I tried not to let it bother me. I consider myself a pretty laid-back, sex-positive person. I younger a mother, after all. Am I being overly-sensitive, or are my friends being jerks?

Cougar with younger man

Cougars anything, your clarity of mind and comfort with your https://telegram-web.online/dating-me-funny-hinge-prompts.php romantic goals and desire is somewhat confusing for those around you. It seems there are a few different issues at play here. Your friends are having a bit of fun at your expense, and while their intentions may be innocent, innocent barbs can still hurt.

It is only recently, and only in cases of significant age differences and power differentials, that mainstream culture has begun to frown upon these types of pairings.

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Some of us have begun to admonish men who prefer to date younger women, but to admonish something is to at least take it seriously. Laughter, on the other hand, is so often an expression of contempt. To laugh at someone is to take them down a peg. We live in a culture that, even today, cougars comfortable with women over thirty-five being mothers, grandmothers, and not much else.

Cougar with younger man

We also subscribe to an ideal of motherhood in which mothers cease to be sexual beings, or human beings for that matter. All that said, it is interesting to think about the way that age differences, and also generational divides, play out in romantic partnerships. Perhaps what attracts you to dating younger men is not their age per se, not their full heads of hair or tight abdomens, but their lack of the the toxic male entitlement that seems only, at least in some quarters, to be falling out of fashion.

She holds not doctorates or proper training, but has years of life experiences to help guide her answers. Pregnancy tips Pregnancy loss Baby names Delivery Postpartum. Amplifying Our Voices food home shopping.