The couplet you quote by Franklin is also the refrain of a great blues song, "I Need A Young, Young Man to Drive Away My Middle Aged Blues", by Saffire The Uppity Blues Women

my hubby is only the second man I ever dated who was my age or older. Younger guys are awesome cause they automatically think women are smarter so older women are GENIUSES!

I would totally reccomend it.

be peaceful, be poetry
http://blaquepen.com/wobl

The largest gap was 7 1/2 years, which I found to be a bit too much for me. I'm always looking for someone who's a lot like me, and that always tends to lead me to younger men. Men slow down so much as they age, it seems sometimes. And sometimes I think it's a Gen X thing - that Gen X men my age or older are so damn angst-ridden.

The only problem I've had with other people's perceptions (I've noticed) is when I was supporting my partner (who stayed home and did housework, etc.). People tend to be really judgemental if a man doesn't have a "real job."

Hunky Actor Boyfriend is 34 in January, and I'm 37 in June.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess.

I've been out with men almost twenty years my junior and those ten years my senior. Younger men have obvious appeal, especially when one considers the sex drive of a woman in her early 40's (high) and a man in his twenties (equally high). Stamina counts for a lot these days! However, in my case, I simply couldn't get past thinking of myself as 'the older woman' even though my lovers made no reference to it. Then there were the cultural differences and the differences in status. My younger lovers never seemed to have much money and although that's probably a sweeping generalisation, it still meant I spent a lot of time footing the bill. Having said that I still sleep with quite a few men almost ten years my junior but it's just a sex thing. When it comes to the type of men I'd want as a primary partner, I think of a man my own age.

I had a slightly perverse thing for younger guys in my mid 20s. They just seemed like pure muscle and sexuality and not much else. At that time in my life, I thought that all men had no soul (you don't get much evidence to the contrary in your teens and early twenties), so if I was going to get involved, it might as well be with a hot 19 year old stallion. Well, that was my theory anyway. I never really acted on it! But then that Columbine thing happened. Suddenly younger, coltish men started seeming, well, scary to me. Top that off with being a TA for a bunch of horny little freshmen while getting my masters degree and that little obsession was ancient history.
Jake Gyllenhaal is about as young as I'll go, and he's not knocking down my door these days.

Dating Trooper
http://www.datingiswarfare.com

I guess I'm double standard. I LOVE older WOMEN. I think they are for the most part secure and very sexy. I don't often date men but when I do they HAVE to be younger. I don't even give older men a second glance. I've met some really cool older men as well but it just doesn't do it for me at all.

I also have to say that I dated a man who was 19 years old and he has his own business and makes very good money. He is and always has been a very secure person. Younger men and women both are kicking butt these days. My mother forwarded me an email recently and apparently FORBES has an entire list of millionaires devoted to people under the age of 24.

Hey, whatever you like go for it! I'm sure older men do it for some. But I think sometimes women and men fool themselves into thinking older men are the ONLY mate that offers security. I have also heard women say younger men stray. I have never had this problem. I think if you act like younger women are some amazing thing and feel insecure then you'll chase pretty much anybody away with that negative energy. Not just a younger man.

Anyway blah blah, younger men are HOT! Almost as hot as older women;)

Best thing about younger guys... 3 Pros And Cons of Dating a Younger Guy

Cheers and Love,

Chantelle

I came across this column. And I could not help but to make a comment. And I do so from the standpoint of someone who spent three years in a relationship with a girl roughly a decade older than my self. She was in her mid thirties and I was in my early twenties out of college when it began.

This is a really deeply personal and unpleasant part of my life I am still having a great deal of trouble dealing with. I am very angry. And if I sound long winded is is because of the massive amount of pain it has caused in my life. But I am being honest and I feel like it is a story that should be told.

I am posting here and I am curious if it will be removed. Or if the author of this column is actually interested in hearing some reality.

The nightmare began about four years ago. She sought me out and pursued me. In hindsight. Some year or so after the relationship ended. And looking back. I honestly associate her encounter in the same vein as a vulture circling overhead for easy prey.

I don't have fond memories of the experience. And for the most part I ended the entire situation with more of a disgust for females in general.

The thing that people don't point out is the circumstances and difference in psychological maturity between the sexes. And the fact that the world for a Man stepping into it for the first time is something entirely new. And regardless of societal changes. A man is taught from the time he is a child his worth is measured in his ability to provide.

A woman does not have the same pressures as a man to build wealth. And a woman is not measured by her ability to build business and come up with resources. I would date a cute cashier at Wal-Mart if she seemed like a nice girl. And I don't care what you say. Women look at what the guy does almost always as a deciding factor.

Women can see and target vulnerability. They are disposed to do so. Because the mate they actually choose for a long term relationship is almost always someone stable and strong with a sense of identity who can provide. In my opinion women who capitalize on youth do so for sex and are basically predators. Please read through this entire post before you make up your mind.

The girl I was involved with was very attractive. Very manipulative. Highly dishonest and deceptive. The truth of the matter is she had . . . as I imagine most do, a bad taste in her mouth from many failed relationships. Years of baggage and hatred for men. She did not have a skeleton in her closet. She had a graveyard. So for one of my first relationships I got a mouth full of hate, spite, etc. I was a vessel in which she could deposit her accumulation of hate through her divorce (Which she never told me about) her infidelities. Her rejections, etc etc etc.

I was living under one roof with her for a year before I even knew she had been married. I had keys to her place. And I trusted her. Which was a mistake. She was still signing court documents and getting in bed with me at night.

It still hurts today because I cared about her very much. I was nothing more than a tool. She began to basically turn me into her personal assistant.

One thing I can say is that if I have a son. I am going to spend a great deal of time warning him about the negative impact of this arrangement. And women in this age category still single carry alot of bags. And more often than not have a pattern of inability to reach any level of harmony with men. And I find on a repeat basis my being approached and solicited by women significantly older than me. I don't care how cute you are. Or think you are. Or how much better YOU think sex is with a woman your age because I have had women close to my age who were just as good . . . if not better. Your so much better because your a few years older right? Wrong. The best I have had was my age by a few months. And it was because of chemistry . . . and because younger women are highly exciting.

When you are young male trying to make your way in the world. You haven't got anything. Not much money. Not much security or stability. And an older woman will and does use this as a means of control and leverage. Because the fact and necessity of having this is engrained deeply into the fabric of a man's psyche. And it WILL come out in periods of disagreement. It is easy for her to make you feel inadequate to men in their thirties who have had time to accumulate wealth. Buy houses and cars and who have a higher order of financial security. They have a decade of career ahead of you. And it was one of the most degrading things I have ever endured in the name of "love". She was unable to love anyone but her self.

And I would say it is unfair. If not a stunt in a males natural progression in business and life to get involved in this negative arrangement. She will use like a kleenex. And if he does decide to get involved with older women. I urge him to look for little more than sexual gratification. Because that is all she wants and is probably capable of.

My ex was an absentee. She had been in enough relationships to know how to control one. Especially with someone young. And I firmly believe the reason she was still alone at her age was because of how aggressively controlling and manipulative she was. I associate her more or less with Dickens' "Great Expectations."

The other thing I will mention is the societal taboo. Which is not going to go away any time soon. Which was also used by her to maintain her single image to the world the entire time we were together. I am fairly certain she was courting older suitors the entire time looking for the person with the pocket book who could pull her up a class bracket and allow her to quit her job. And she moved onto someone older with more capital while still with me.

There was always a reason to tell people at her job. Or at social encounters that I was her neighbor. Or I walked her dog. And when we got into an argument about it, she always had some convoluted reason why this was appropriate and necessary. In hindsight it was just disgusting, damaging and abusive. And her charity would actually spend several days a year working with battered women.

To this day I know she was highly promiscuous and with multiple partners. And I paid for it with an STD. Her sense of monogomy had completely deteriorated to nothing. Men were just a bunch of players to her . . . but it was actually her who was base and immoral. She had given up.

She had a squeaky clean image. A fairly respectable job. The creator of a thriving non-profit charity to benefit the needy. I honestly thought I was getting involved with someone wholesome.

I was very faithful to her. The point in time when the relationship began to deteriorate was when I contracted a virus on my genitals called molloscum contagioscum. Which is now gone. But I had it roughly a year after the relationship ended.

The dermatologist told me it was sexually transmitted. And the kicker is the incubation period is about two weeks. I got it after we had been under a roof together over a year. And it came three weeks after she spent a week in the bahamas.

If you are a woman looking to go after a younger man. I would like to ask you why? Because I know YOU know you have no long term interest in him. He is probably emotionally immature. Incapable of providing for himself or you. He has no sense of identity because he has not established one. And is probably highly insecure. It is an easy thing for you to capitalize on for sex . . .

The only mistake I made was not taking it as such and actually trying to look at it as something more. What I can tell men my age is that women that age are considerably easier to hook up with. But many are jaded, broken, controlling, domineering, immoral and base individuals who hate men.

And I read some of the stuff written by other girls here about the choice of men at your age being like the clearance aisle. Look at your self and get over your self. You are no different than those men. You haven't got a mate either.

Men seek out younger women all of the time. I don't think it is incredibly different. But then again it is. The man is able to fit the bill and is usually considering something long term because he can afford to and provide for the other person. And regardless of what you may believe there is not 1/100th of the pressure on women to generate resources as men. The women I see going after men are not high paid CEO's that I am aware of. The ones approach me are always looking for absolutely NOTHING.

In hindsight I consider that mistake a negative life changing experience. And one I will probably have to enter therapy to resolve some of the anger it has left me with.

All the stuff your reading out there is a load of baloney. I consider that woman to be one of the lowest life forms on the earth. A predator and a vulture. And the reason she came after me was because she had weaved a path of disaster in every single relationship she had been in since her twenties. And she knew she could have what she had to . . . control.

She was just armed with the wiseness that comes with age and more experience that comes with relationships to manipulate and use with a high degree of effectiveness and precise execution.

She even got rid of my child. Though I wanted to keep it. And she pinned the abortion SHE WANTED on me. Possibly because I was not making $100,000 a year like her girlfriends husbands. We could have had the child and made ends meet.

I have no clue where she is to this day outside of what is on her non profits web site.

You ladies keep on telling your self it is okay and right if it helps you sleep at night. And that somehow men your own age are now unfit for you.

Let me ask you one other thing. Would you have a kid with the guy/kid your preying on? Are you rich enough to care for the child for the year or so necessary to give birth? Or rich enough to hire a wet nurse? Is he? Men's breasts don't swell with milk. And there are certain rules and realities nature and evolution have created as a means of survival.

I left feeling like I was not good enough to father the child. And she was a total waste of a human being. You ladies going after young men would never dream of putting your self in a position to be pregnant with the guy unless he has the money to keep it easy. Or you do. So admit what it is.

There are plenty of men your own age . . .

Wow, what a wide range of responses.  Liz is so right, if younguy stays bitter, bitter is what he'll keep getting from women of any age.  And, just to keep the perspective straight, I have known way more controlling, money-grabbing, manipulating young women than I have older women.  The one thing he had really right - he's going to need some serious therapy to get his life back in order.

Hmmm, my story is going to take a bit so I think I'm going to have to blog it to keep it current - I'll link back to here, though, this was a great starting point!

Achaessa - life in the extremely big city
http://achaessawrites.wordpress.com/

I feel horrible what happened to you.  I think love can put us in a situation of being manipulated.  Someone who is 34, who seems to attract younger men,  has been jaded by men her own age and much younger.  I'm just someone who wants to fall in love.

Those failures/expereinces with relationships have taught me to respect myself and be a better person, just as you have learned.

I can understand an older woman using ways to manipulate; such as paying for meals or expenses, however,  I don't.  I'm someone who will treat anyone according to the situation, but I know men like to step up and pay.

I actually hate when older men I date try to sponge off me.  Money is not only an issue for lovers, but friends.

 I agree, there should be chemistry.  I'm happy that you found someone your age and have great sex and are comfortable.

I have turned down younger men and older men based on knowing who I am and what I want.  They were clearly not who I wanted to be with.  I realized I'm better alone and learning, being adventurous.

The woman you had a horrible experience with should not be a measure of all women who date younger men.

I found out a guy lied about his age to date me.  I wasn't flattered or annoyed.  I just had a conversation with him and let him own up to who he is and what he wants.  We're on different pages, so I discontinued dating him.

I feel awful about the sexual diseases and the baby ordeals you had to suffer.

I learned young, not to have sex with just anyone- mainly out of fear.  I was sexually abused as a child, but I have learned to leave that out of my relationships with men because it makes things difficult.

I understand anger, hurt and frustration.  Bad memories are triggered at the strangest times.

Best of luck.

What initially started out as something to relieve a little boredom and to have some fun turned into one of the most beautiful experiences, one that I will carry with me forever...

I have met a lot of people in my life, and honestly thought that I would never meet the person who 'completes' me...one almost accepts that this is your life and how it'll always be...

That was until I met the most amazing man on a sugar mama/sugar baby dating site. He was 13 years youger then I. It's still fairly new but I knew from the moment I saw his eyes, (the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen) that he would take me to a place I've longed to be and bring back my smile forgotten... and he does this at least once every day routinely.

I now firmly believe that there is fun and adventure after the age of 40-50 and it's only after you stop looking for something, that it'll eventually find you!

There aren't words to describe him really... he is someone/something you have to experience to understand... a passionate lover so youthful yet mature, the most intense eyes, beautiful smile, personality like no other, the deepest of souls, a heart you can't help but love yet so mysterious that you keep coming back for more... he is my enigma and I his sugar momma.

Where this road leads, one can't be sure but I know in my heart that it's been worthwhile as my life has been enriched just by knowing him...

In the old end... I'll always be able to look back and smile...

Thank you ShugaMama.com

And he's 8 years younger than I am. First guy I ever dated who was significantly younger. Now we've got two kids to show for it too. When he was 26 and I was 34 it seemed like a chasm between us in age. Now that he's 32, not so much.

Although I do still cringe when I mention my favorite song from high school and he tells me he was six when it came out. Grrr.

Mom-101

I met a guy when he was 22 and I was 41. There was such chemistry right from the start. We would talk for hours and really enjoyed each other. We started having a physical relationship and it was amazing, the best I ever had, sadly enough. We saw each other for over a year and then I started dating someone older. We would talk online over the years and after 7 years, he contacted me again. Again, the chemistry was still there and we have been seeing each other for a few months. I didn't realize how much I missed him. It's been great. I am now 48 and he is 31 but age doesn't matter to either of us. He even introduced me to his Mom and his friends, something he wouldn't have done when he was 22. I see anything wrong with two people who care about each enjoying a relationship that seems to work.

Well, I may be the woman with the biggest age gap between myself and my partner. 30 years and I am 55. I can hear the shocked gasps. The fact that I'm polyamorous and my other partner is one year older is probably of little importance here, but I wanted to throw that out there in the interest of  disclosure.

I had a hard and fast rule--I was never ever going to have a relationship with anyone younger than I, not even five years. I felt I would have nothing in common with a younger man and that all he could possibly want from me was sex, and umm..."weird" sex at that. I was full of ageist and socially indoctrinated predjudices. I had been with my partner of 11 years when I met this younger man. It began as a friendship with a lot of sassy flirting on his part and a lot of trying to deflect it on mine. Gradually, he began to challenge my beliefs about younger men. My own level of honesty with myself nagged me into examining what I thought I knew and I realized I was scared to death of having feelings for him. I was also afraid of the cougar label; worse I was afraid of becoming my worst nightmare--an old woman trying to hang on to youth through a young lover.

We have been together over a year now. We share many interests in common, and we learn from each other. I don't worry about what things will be like when I'm 65 and he's 35 or when i'm 70 and he's 40. Yes, we've talked about that reality. He is not flighty, unrealistic, or empty-headed. He is not rich. He's someone I share my spiritual path with on the deepest level, someone I relate to in ways I did not think possible with a partner.  He challenges me to be true to myself at all times and he gets the same from me.

He has taken no small amount of grief from his peers and older people in his life who think there is something deeply wrong with wanting a romantic relationship with a woman my age. Because most of my friends are poly, I have taken somewhat less, but even within the poly community there is agism. We ignore it because frankly, it's none of their business.

Our relationship works because we are completely open and honest with each other. We share many interests and those we do not share, we are at least open to learning about. I've taught him about art, music, and goddess culture for instance. He has taught me about urban culture, music, and Manga. We respect one another. We trust each other. When things go awry we talk it through. There is a committment to always come to the table because we are more than lovers. We are partners and we are friends.  

Don’t mind the destination, don’t mind the end. Learn from the past, but grab hold of now. Now is always evolving. ~Rumi