Spark

So, I know I said I'd come back and write about what I might want. Something happened after work today that brought that kind of full circle in my mind, so I guess it's time to write it :)

I stopped at the gas station/convenience store tonight to get some cat food (because I'm terrible and forgot it at the store last week), so I decided to grab cigarettes (no, I haven't quit yet) while I was at it.

The clerk, bless her heart -- carded me.

Now, granted, I had on a turtleneck and my hair was back in a headband and I looked a little co-edish today, but still. She carded me :)

I don't look my age. I have never actually looked my age. At 16, I looked 19. At 19, I looked 23. At 25, I looked 18. You get the picture. Time works weirdly on me apparently.

But the fact is, I don't feel my age, either. I'll be 43 in a month. I don't feel it. 33? Maybe. But 43? No.

That in itself is a good thing. I'm healthier than I have ever been (despite the nasty cigarettes) and I feel better, take better care of myself.

I think that for too many years, I was pushing it. I wanted to be older. Settled. Have the marriage and family and such that I was 'supposed' to have -at that certain age-. I dated older men almost exclusively for most of my life. C. was my first 'younger' man, and that's by only 2 years.

Fact is though, I have more in common with younger men these days. Gaming is one example of that. I don't see a lot of 42 year old men playing the games I play, unless they're doing it while their wives are off at the PTA or whatever. Married men with children playing as a cheap hobby, yes. But it's a younger man's world for sure.

Men my age tend (and I say tend, because I dislike generalizations) to be wanting to be married, to either have kids, or having a partner to help raise the ones they have. I have no opposition to playing Step-Mom. I've done it before, and those girls mean the world to me to this day. But it's not something I would actively seek out.

Younger men also seem to have the same sexual drive I do. Two or three or four times in one day is not unusual for me at all. As a matter of fact, it's great exercise /wink.

I got called a "Cougar" the other day. I giggled, but the fact is, maybe I am.

My mom said to me that she thinks I should find a man older than me (as M was ten years older than me), that she wants for me that security.

But I'm pretty secure in myself, and I'm not looking for a man to give me that. I already have it.

What I want in a man is someone who can keep up with me, sexually, as well as intellectually. Someone who understands why I game online and maybe enjoys it, too. And someone who is secure enough to let me keep this independence that I've earned and enjoy now, but not so much that I can't feel them in my life.

I don't know if he exists, but I've finally admitted to myself that maybe if I open up the bottom end of my 'age limit' bracket, he'll present himself. I'm not talking any less than 28 or so. But definitely less than the 36 I had previously though I needed.

Screw what society thinks. If Demi Moore can do it, so can the rest of us.