Dating a younger man

My inbox was humming yesterday after a story I wrote a couple of years ago about dating younger men popped up on Yahoo’s home page (the piece originally appeared on Match’s online magazine, Happen).

In the story, I talk about the good, bad and ugly of a Michael May/Debbie December match-up. On the up side, dating someone young helps keep you young (and yes, the sex is usually great), although on the down side, younger guys can sometimes be tres immature (one gal’s boytoy used to call her at 3 in the morning, asking her to bring over pizza).  

My readers, however, had a few additional insights (most of them quite positive) about life in what some like to call “Cougar Town”. Check ’em out:

I met my wife of now 13 years when I was 20 and she was 43 and we started seeing more and more of each other (dating, I guess) when I was 24 after we found so many common interests. Even as a man, I knew early on I didn’t want kids, but I did go through the mental struggle for a period before I realized that I’m too selfish … One of the more interesting points in the article was the woman who didn’t want a man who was trapped in adolescence, so to speak. Even as I crest over my 40s (and she’s 69 and still the love of my life), I’m still that kid at heart, making decisions fit for a 20 year old. My wife is always telling me to grow up, but I keep reminding her that I’m going to be 12 forever, so she’s going to have to grin and bear it. Just thought I’d let you know how an older woman/younger man’s relationship is doing so far well into the next decade of marriage. — Michael

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This is story you wrote is about me, but the ending has changed. I never was looking for younger men, but if someone did interest me, I didn’t really care about their age. When I started seeing Brian, he was 30 and I was 42. We started seeing each other in March and were married by June. I had moved to the small town where he grew up, so he knew everyone, and I think his family and most of his friends thought it wouldn’t work. In addition to the 30/42 age difference, he had a 5-year-old son and I had an 18-year-old daughter. Plus, he is Catholic and I am Jewish. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but we will have our 22nd anniversary in June … I don’t know how we got to 22 [years], but I don’t think our differences would have pulled us apart. Keep up your good work.  — Norma

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I have a few friends who have married older women and have been with them for over 20 years. There is one thing you did not mention about their future together: their health. I have a friend who is now 60 and has been married to his wife, who is 80, for over 20 years. He is still very vital and she can hardly get around. He feels like he is married to his grandmother. —  Bruce

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I’ve been dating a woman 17 years my senior for over 5 years now. I’m 41. We met online, and she didn’t believe I was in my 30s until we actually met. All I can say is dating an older woman is AMAZING! First, because you’re curious, the sex is amazing.  I can barely keep up with her … Second, there is no worry about a ticking biological clock, which is a big downer when dating a woman in her 30s. Third, she knows all about herself, so she’s relaxed and not worried about what her friends might say. Hell, her friends are jealous. — Steve

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So, what’s the scoop with you, dear readers?  Have you ever dated someone significantly younger than you? Did it work? Not work? Cause you to question your sanity? Cause you to pull a groin muscle? Enquiring minds, as always, want to know.

Are you a spreadsheet dater?

I got an email the other day from a writer from some British magazine, asking me if I had ever interviewed anyone who’d used an Excel spreadsheet for dating. She’d read one of the stories I’d written about how to keep your dates straight and was hoping I could connect her with a spreadsheet dater.

I didn’t think much of it until I got online and I stumbled onto a slew of stories about Excelgate (Spreadgate? Dategate?), the latest dating scandal to rock the online dating world.

Apparently, some poor sap back in New York (aka David Merkur, a 28-year-old banker with a thing for organization), made the mistake of telling a woman he was out with that he kept all of his online dating activity in an Excel spreadsheet. And not just any spreadsheet — one that featured names, email addresses, photos, 0-10 rankings for “online appearance,” comments regarding communication, reviews about meet-ups, etc.

That in and of itself isn’t completely over-the-top. A little wonky and anal, perhaps, but not downright stupid. But then Merkur’s date de jour asked if he would forward her the file (apparently, they were both heavy Excel users), and he did.

And that’s when the sheet started to hit the fan.

The date de jour promptly forwarded the eerily-detailed spreadsheet onto a few friends, who sent it on to their friends, until the whole thing ended up on Jezebel, ABC News, the TODAY show, The Huffington Post, and, who knows, maybe Portlandia sometime in the near future (“Put a spreadsheet on it!”)

According to the latest, one of the Merkur’s many potential online dates is even considering legal action, not against the banker but against Miss Trustworthy, the woman who spread the spreadsheet around, since it’s causing the woman so much grief. Apparently, Miss Trustworthy failed to redact any personal information like real names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. before she forwarded it to, oh, I don’t know, 6,000,000 of her closest personal friends.  

“I’ve gotten a lot of calls from random people saying, ‘Oh, you’re the 9.5,'” the woman told ABC News, referring to the high rating Merkur gave her on his spreadsheet. “I think the guy is really nice,” she goes on. “I never met him and I don’t think he did something that bad. He was … trying to keep himself organized … ” As for the woman who sent out the cheat sheet, though, “Why would she send it to the whole world?” the woman wanted to know. “It was a really stupid move. My face is plastered everywhere now. I wasn’t looking for that. I was just thinking that I was using Match.com.”

Needless to say, a pro-spreadsheet dating movement is now gaining ground. In today’s New York Daily News, writer Porter Kaplan outed himself and his own obsessive-compulsive dating habits, admitting that he not only uses a spreadsheet for dating, but “I have spreadsheets to track my finances, the books I’ve read, the countries I’ve visited and which combinations of friends might enjoy a dinner party together.”

I don’t date enough to use a spreadsheet — or pie chart or Venn diagram — but I’ve definitely talked to highly organized types who either keep a spreadsheet or a private journal or a Word doc or some kind of cheat sheet to keep from getting their firefighters and financiers mixed up (as if). If you’re a serious online dater (i.e., you’re meeting new people at least three times a week), you have to have some kind of system even if it’s a Sharpie scrawl on the palm of your hand. Otherwise you end forgetting names and occupations or the fact that your date’s grandmother/sister/pet just died or celebrated their 75th birthday or is currently on Dancing with the Stars and end up looking — and feeling — like a jerk.

Personally, I don’t think it’s particularly creepy or douchy to keep track of your dating info — even subjective info like “nice face and bod” but “very jappy; one and done for me” (comments gleaned from Merkur’s detailed notes). Nor is that weird to add overly anal touches like color coding and bold-faced type to indicate particularly hot prospects.  The important thing is to make sure your little black book — or little black spreadsheet — stays safely tucked away in your hard drive, your underpants drawer, or your brain if you have trust issues (which my guess a lot of single software engineers and banking dudes are now experiencing).

Unless, of course, going viral with your love life is part of your master plan of getting more dates. In that case, my hat’s off to you, Spreadsheet Guy! Way to work the system. ; )

Do you Excel at dating? Or know someone who does? If so, I’d love to hear about it (as would at least one British journalist!).

The doomsdating machine

Maybe it’s just me, but there’s nothing I like more than a niche dating site, especially one that caters to a particularly obscure slice of singles.

In the past, I’ve written about green dating sites like GreenSingles.com, which caters to the eco-friendly crowd, and DarwinDating.com, devoted exclusively to the beautiful people of the world. (Just checked the link to this one and it no longer works — so much for their motto about “only the hottest surviving.”)

I’ve covered dating sites designed for older singles, dating sites made for single parents and dating sites built just for booklovers and brainiacs.

Thanks to a recent story on CNN.com, though, I may have stumbled onto the weirdest niche yet: survivalist singles sites. Check it out.

For people who spend every day preparing for disaster — whether it’s a 2012 apocalypse, a nuclear meltdown, an economic collapse, a hurricane or a tsunami — it can be hard to find a compatible partner.

Canning venison, shooting firearms, living off the grid and creating manure from human waste just aren’t traditional interests many people look for when browsing mainstream dating sites like eHarmony or Match.com.

That’s why a site called Survivalist Singles has entered the online dating scene, catering specifically to this niche community of “preppers,” “survivalists” and “doomsdayers.”

As it turns out, SurvivalistSingles.com (which has the cheery motto “Don’t Face the Future Alone”) isn’t the only site for those who are waiting with bated breath (not to mention Spam-packed bunkers) for the end of the world as we know it. PrepperDating.com and Kwink.com also cater to “doomsday preppers” and “doomsdayers.”

According to the CNN story, the average age on SurvivalistSingles.com is over 50 and men outnumber women two to one (shocking, I know).  Although the site is currently free, the woman who runs it is thinking about charging a $5 a month membership fee in days to come (should there be any days to come).

She even has a slogan picked out: “Find love for less than the price of a box of bullets.” (You have to admit it’s catchy. I mean, how often do you find the words love and bullet in the same sentence? Outside of the local crime headlines, that is.)

Now I know things can get a little scary out there at times, especially in an election year. Not to mention a year where a dystopian survival-fest like The Hunger Games is the biggest box office draw since, I don’t know, Apocalypse Now.

But no matter how bad things get (or how close we get to the Mayan calendar’s looming deadline), I know I’m not quite ready to head for the hills with a gun-toting, deer-slaying, bean-eating Doomsdating Machine. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, that would be the end of the world.

So what say you? What’s the weirdest niche site you’ve signed up for — and did you find a mate there? Would love to hear your thoughts, people. You know, while there’s still time. ; )