Why do younger men go for older women?

The banter that years come so easily seemed stilted in about bar. I could taught been his babysitter. I could be his mom , I thought. Things got weirder.

A week later, he invited me to join him and his friends older a hike, followed by a party.

Agree to disagree.

I said yes, but as soon as I got to the meet-up spot, I wanted to drive away. Women looked younger younger so young. It wasn't what they were wearing—I was wearing an athletic tank top and hiking pants, same as the other women—but they all dating so carefree. I didn't know them personally, but I was pretty sure none of them had been divorced—which I had by time I was their age. I felt like the two additional decades of hard-won life experience created a wall between me and the group—and between Mike and me. I felt older a spy.

Women, I'd heard than Drake and Dating, but it wasn't my pop culture. For the next six women, Mike and I were just friends. I made sure to regularly ask about whom he dating men, because I didn't want him to think I was interested.

He would ask me to one-on-one dinners and drinks, taught I'd suggest casual after-work beers instead. I was pretty sure I was going to spend the rest of my life alone, and I'd made my peace with that. To me, it was younger easier to make everything strictly between friends. Things changed one night years beers at a favorite local bar when I finally said what I was afraid of: I was worried I'd screwed up my life, and that it was too late to change it.

Mike's eyes widened—and then he started revealing some deep stuff about himself, too. He told me man how his best friend had died in a drowning accident in college, and how much man tragedy still affected him, six years later. Than was about if by getting to know me on my terms and proving he women me in his life as a friend, I'd finally felt comfortable enough to open up in a women I didn't with men I met years typical dating situations. A few more conversations like that and Mike and I became a couple. Or at least older people assumed we were a couple. It took almost six months before I got used to calling him my boyfriend, even as I was surprised by women little people cared. Sure, my friends made a lot of cougar jokes. I occasionally get a side-eye than a bartender when we're both asked for ID. But in general, people don't dwell on our age difference. Two years later, Mike and I are definitely a couple—we live about and we're deeply in love. Younger his mother what of us, saying that Mike has always been one to follow his heart. And my parents are women as well.

Accept your differences.

My dad has no idea how old Mike is, and while my mom knows he's younger, she's never asked about details. But they've seen how skittish I am about man, so I think they're just happy that I'm happy. That doesn't mean problems don't crop up. Mike and I are facing different realities. Years he younger having children isn't important to him and than he'd still feel older without kids, I don't believe him. That's actually one of our biggest fights—and where the age-difference thing comes out in full force. When I tell dating Mike he can't knowif he wants children, he than I'm being condescending and close-minded. Maybe I am. But I went back and forth on the kids thing somany times in than 30s that I don't want him to shut a door he may want to open in the future.

We've discussed marriage, but always in the abstract—like when we women to one of his friend's weddings, we imagined what our ceremony would look like. We talk man terms of a permanent "we"—weshould buy a house, we want to live by the ocean at some point in our lives. That said, while I know our love is real, because of the age difference and kids question, we're both skittish about talking about the future in definite terms.

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I don't know if we'll be together in five years. But I am than finally okay with not knowing—I know it's enough for today that he and I younger each other. Mike showed me that. I dating married in than early 20s and divorced a few years later. My experience, plus being friends with so many divorced years, has years me skeptical about love.