In five days I will be 36 years old. I’m not looking for birthday wishes, but thank you very much.
So I’m now facing a situation in my life that I assumed was at least 10 years away, and I’m not sure – well, the truth is I’m absolutely certain I don’t know how to deal with it.
I believe to my soul somebody is trying to make me their cougar. I thought it was just me, but when I was out last weekend a second opinion has confirmed what I knew to be true. Already? I still have nearly a week before my late thirties officially stare me in the face!
Anyway, this tender, all of 24 years old, I see out all of the time has been going out of his way to get in my face to for about six months. Three months ago I was starting to think it was more to it than him trying to pick my brain about “this industry,” which has been his pitch to get the two of us to “hang out.”
“Girl, he’s a cutie,” said a friend also who moseyed over to say hello and caught him in the act. “What’s up with that?”
“Oh, yeah, he’s single too, you want me to hook y’all up?” I responded.
“I was talking about for you, girl,” she snapped back. “He didn’t even notice me for real.”
I decided to try and brush it off, but she was not having it.
“Oh no, he steps to me all the time and I think it’s work-related,” I said.
She didn’t bite.
She said, “If he steps to you all the time, it might be a little bit work-related, but trust – it ain’t really 100 percent about the gig. And the way he was looking at you, I was expecting him to bust out singing. ‘I may be young, but I’m ready.’”
Help.
“If he serenades me with that selection, not only is he not interested in me but he’s not interested in anyone with my kind of chromosomes,” I told her. “Besides, he’s a toddler – and if he’s trying to get at me starting out from a work tip, I would feel so used.”
The relentlessness was nonstop.
“Oh, so what you saying? You want to be like your friend and end up with Morgan Freeman?” she said. “Girl, if Hugh Hefner wasn’t in his line of work the only blonde bombshells that would be brushing up against him these days would be his physical therapist. Men do that mess all the time.”
Hugh Hefner – to me at 35.99 years of age. It was really insensitive – and borderline low-class – but she was trying to prove a point … I guess.
“He just graduated college. When I graduated college, he was in the second grade,” I said. “I don’t feel like I would be okay dating someone who I could have biologically given birth too.”
I moved to wrap it up.
“I don’t even know why we’ve talked about this for as long as we have, because this is strictly a work-related friendship in passing,” I said. “Even if you’re right, more than likely he wants someone that can teach him a thing or two about being in a relationship. I cannot. And I don’t think I have the patience for us both to learn at the same time. Look at the time. I have three more spots to hit before the night is out.”
She finally conceded.
“I see you’re trying to ease on out of this, so I will let you,” she said. “Since you love to use work as an excuse FOR EVERYTHING, I’m going to give you something to think about – wouldn’t you love to actually discuss an actual first-hand dating experience in your column? Here’s your chance.”
“But then wouldn’t I be using him?”
“Not if you like him too … which you obviously do or we wouldn’t have talked about it for this long. But I see what you’re doing, and I’ll let you carry on. But you seem like the one who needs to learn something AND grow up in the game. You sound like you’re in middle school.”
She really gave me something to think about. As far as acting on it, well … I’d say we’ll see, but I don’t want make a liar of myself.
