Hot for a Cougar who may have a few years on you? Eight? Ten? More?

As a woman of a certain age who has been approached by younger men, and yes – involved with a few,  might I suggest the following tips?

• Don’t refer to her as any sort of feline creature. You know. The C word (cougar). In fact, C words should be stricken from your language. Unless they involve Cute (butt), Cultured (pearls), Caring (woman), Captivating (beauty), Corset (comeuppance), or Creative (in bed).

• Restrict cat-like references to her sultry and sexy movement – gliding across a room, on the dance floor, or in closer proximity. Also allowed (depending upon the woman): one or two other regional references, only in the most complimentary fashion, and aptly timed. Naturally.

• Never suggest a cosmetic procedure, question timing of the next bikini wax, or offer tweezers as a surprise gift.

• No matter what you think you’re looking at, while in bed, never ask “What’s that?” (It could be almost anything. If it feels good, go with it.)

• Never, never, never say: “You look great… for your age.“

• If she mentions a dead president you haven’t heard of, reconsider. You’ll both be happier in the long run.

© D A Wolf

These days, Big Little Wolf (”Ms. Big”) reflects on life and her Daily Plate of Crazy, where she writes essays on everything – sometimes serious, sometimes fun – whatever strikes her on a given day as interesting, unusual, entertaining, or of concern.

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Shannon’s day had been typical and ordinary; she’d had no ‘signs’ or reasons to think it might be anything but.

At 5 o’clock, having finishing her nursing shift at the hospital, she decided to stop in at a trendy bistro for a drink;  having a drink alone was no big deal to her whatsoever.  She stomped out her cigarette just as she reached the entrance doors and headed inside with nothing but a cold margarita on her mind.

Movement to her left caught her eye – she glanced back over her shoulder.  And there, in the corner, with his chair backed against the wall was a man – a long-legged man wearing glasses and smile.  Had he just gestured her over? she wondered. Or had she imagined it?

Too late.  She’d already started walking over to him.  “Were you just smoking?”  he asked.  Nice opening question. Nice deep voice too…

“Yes I was,” she said.

“Ah….that’s too bad.”

“Haha.  Actually, me and my boyfriend are both planning to quit next week,” she replied.

“Ah.  That’s too bad too – the boyfriend part I mean,” he grinned.  He waved his hand to the open chair in front of him.  “Well then – she who has a boyfriend and will only smoke for one more week, would you care to join me for a drink?”

And with the wave of his hand, so Shannon’s life was swept onto a new page as well.  That casual drink two months ago was followed by many more drinks, dinners and dates….  A long story short – Shannon broke up with her boyfriend within a week and she and this guy have been together ever since.  She is happier and more at peace with hersself than I’ve ever seen her her whole life; she knows she has met The One.

So… what’s the point in my sharing this story with YOU? Perhaps you’re thinking, “Good for her Delaine, but I don’t even know this person…”

I’m sharing it for a few different reasons:

1) The story is simple.

2) It’s powerful (seems Divinely orchestrated to me!)

3)  And it can make us feel good.

And when it comes to divorce - no matter WHAT stage we’re at – we ALL sometimes need to hear some ‘good news’; you know, a ‘happy story’ where everything works out.  We ALL sometimes need a little hope, a little lightness, and a little faith in both the universe and our futures.

Me, personally, I am savoring my friend’s story as if it were my own.  Her story reminded me that there is a time and season for everything, including discovering new love; that when two people fall in love it can happen EASILY and with a sense of CONFIDENCE; and that in the blink of an eye, on any given day, our lives can majorly change – not just in a downward motion like we all know because of divorce…but upwards, and for the better.

I know that day is coming for me too.  I may not be out there looking hard for love…but I know it’s out there looking for me.

Delaine www.iamdivorcednotdead.com

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I want to talk about my newest, ongoing, “driving me forward” bedtime fantasy.  This twisted new fantasy is the new fuel that has launched me to join yet another dating site and contact virtually every single woman between the ages of 42 and 52.  I can go to any dating site now and know the bio of most Toronto women right down to their astrological sign.  That’s how passionate I feel about doing whatever needs to be done to live my out this perverted dream.

Are you curious to know what the fantasy is?

I thought so, so with no further ado, here it is: A good woman, lying beside me in bed, in flannel pajamas, toes touching, heads propped up – reading together in silence.

(Ah yes, to be comfortable in your silence together.  There is no better barometer for your relationship.   The wonderful, kind and insightful Michael Kaufman once told me that – www.michaelkaufman.com.)

Nothing these days is turning me on more than that image.  I don’t “take care of myself” to the vision of the image, rather, I may let out a sigh, exhaled under the cool abyss of my blankets.  After the sigh, I turn on my side to embrace the only thing I can embrace – my pillow.

Sick eh?

I’m a young baby-boomer.  My sexual formative years happened during the golden age, a time before HIV, when every girl and they were just girls back then, was on the pill.  Evolutionarily speaking, that time came and went in the blink of an eye.  But I was smack in the middle of it, acting out my fantasies like I was a young Caligula, but with a good heart.  Back then, my penis made almost all of my life-decisions for me.  I’m still playing catch-up.

What happened?

I got older. I did.  Two of The Beatles have long since passed and there’s really no room, nor a need for another notch on my bed.

A long time ago, I watched lonely, divorced, isolated detective Al Pacino pull up beside a hooker and ask her to get in.  She then asked him what he had in mind.  “I just want you to sleep with me”, and he handed her one hundred dollars.  She was dumbfounded of course, but CUT TO: the hooker awake, spooning Al, who was fast asleep in a fetal position.

I remember what Commodus told Lucilla in Gladiator when he was watching her son sleep; “He sleeps well, because he knows he is loved”.  I never forgot that moment.   And so, Al Pacino could finally sleep well.  It mattered not that it was a hooker, all women, and I mean all women have a serious nurturing side that begs to be appreciated.

I’m in the mood to sleep well too now.  I didn’t care back then.  I do now.

My son Noah, nineteen, not only left the nest, but he’s trekking around in Chile and Costa Rica with his girlfriend.  The bedroom I built for him stares back to me in mocking silence.  His only presence is manifested by the maps of Chile on the wall so I can follow his wanderings from 5,000 miles away.

I never understood why the elderly fed pigeons.  I do now.

I never understood the notion that as you got older, “companionship” becomes more important.  I do now.  It’s the stuff that we who have trod so many miles deserve and require to be happy.

I can go no further with this column without puffing out my chest to remind you, and myself, that when the primal calls for it, this Satyr is still enthusiastic about answering the siren call, to gallop on to fulfill said  equestrian duty.

But my “performance menu” for an evening’s festivities and frolicking must now include “comfortable in silence” moments and that’s new.

There was a time in my single fatherhood where I could revel in my celibacy.   That era is over with now.  Now it’s time to revel and live out my new bedtime fantasy – lying in bed with a “partner”, in flannel pajamas, toes touching, heads propped up, reading a good book, comfortable in our silence.

I feel so human today.

Feel free to contact Peter at peter@geronimocode.com to tell him your own haunting story. Be sure to check out his site at www.geronimocode.com also.

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I was interviewed for a radio show today, by Kacey on WHUD.com in the Hudson Valley.  Kacey asked me about dating because I’d been very upbeat about it in my book.   I had to admit the truth, I’ve stopped dating.  I’m 66 and I feel like I’ve aged out of the dating market.   My ex and I split when I was 59, which doesn’t seem like that much of a difference age-wise, but it is.  I got into Internet dating heavy duty at 60, but I lied on dating sites and said I was 55.   I could pass at the time.   I was also thinner.  There’s nothing like divorce to help you take off weight.

About a year after separating I rediscovered my sex drive which had pretty much gone underground during my 18 years of marriage to a man I wasn’t turned on by.   I became obsessed with Internet dating, spending hours on Match.com, Jdate, and Cupid.com.  I was like the proverbial kid in a candy store, fantasizing about every guy I saw, wondering if he was good in bed.

I got onto the Internet dating rollercoaster.  There were guys I rejected,  guys who rejected me, guys who wanted phone sex, a guy I had phone sex with, young guys, guys who wanted cybersex, AOL chat room late night weirdness, men who weren’t what they seemed and also two really great guys who I dated and fell in love with.

The first, Bob, was a recent separatee who told me he loved me, but didn’t want to be exclusive.   I’d been dumped by my ex and couldn’t deal with the jealousy.   The next one, Jamie, was in the same situation, recent separatee and didn’t want to make a commitment yet.    I was also a recent separatee, but unlike guys we girls aren’t that good at screwing around.  At least we older girls aren’t.  Maybe the younger generation is different.     It was just too soon and it didn’t work out with either of them.    I lost my dating oomph after these experiences.

I was lucky to find Bob and Jamie, both of whom were delightful and would have been perfect for me.   They both went on to find permanent relationships very quickly.   Some men do that.  They can’t stand being alone and will find a permanent relationship, either marriage or living together, very quickly.  It’s so much easier for them because of demographics—there are just so many available women.   Bob married someone 11 years younger than him; Jamie is living with a woman 5 years younger.  I was a couple of years older than both of them.   Unfortunately, men will rarely stay with the FIRST woman they meet after their divorce.    That woman is the transitional woman—they often wind up settling down with number two.   Unfortunately I was the transitional woman for both Bob and Jamie.

I did some dating after Bob and Jamie but never found anyone even remotely as attractive or suitable for me as they were.   Eventually, I got used to living alone and stopped feeling so desperate to find a man.  It takes a hell of a lot of energy to date at my age.  Getting gussied up every day just in case you run into Mr. Senior Right at the supermarket checkout takes too much energy.  Plus the likelihood of finding him plummets the older you get.

I just read these depressing statistics from a study in Sweden which was supposed to be about how much sex has improved for seniors.  “Sexual activity has increased for unmarried seniors. Among the single, 54 percent of the men and 12 percent of the women reported having sex, up from 30 percent of men and less than 1 percent of women in the 1970s.”   It’s probably the same here.  Twelve percent is not an encouraging statistic even though it’s a hell of a lot better than 1 percent.  Of course the 54 percent of single senior men having sex are probably having it with younger women. Who does that leave for us senior women?

Maybe things will change, maybe I’ll get my mojo back sometime, but right now I really don’t give a damn.  I’m perfectly happy to sleep with Shadow, my Chihuahua, and talk to my friends.   Yes, I’d love to have a mate, and I miss sex, but I’m not going to beat myself up for not dating, or trying to date.   It’s really ok to be alone, it’s taken me this long to actually enjoy my solitude and I refuse to feel bad about not looking for a man.

Erica Manfred is the author of He’s History You’re Not, Surviving Divorce After 40. She has written for Cosmopolitan, New York Times Magazine, Ms., Parenting, Women’s Day, and Bottom Line/Personal. She currently runs a women’s divorce support group in her hometown of Woodstock, New York.