Closet Cougar

Friday night was a good night. My friend Harry had a margarita party to celebrate his 23rd birthday, and I had a grand ole' time getting shitfaced and flirting with cute guys. There was one in particular, a brown-eyed hottie that immediately caught my eye. He said he was 20 and went to SUNY Fredonia, and that he'd see me again at Harry's future parties at my college.

That was a lie. I found out later he was 17.

I confess: there's a cougar streak in me. Not that I want it to be there or anything, but too often I find myself checking out and/or flirting with younger guys.

Looking back at my dating history, my first cougar experience was with my first boyfriend. I was in 8th grade, he was in 7th, and we played a teen couple in our middle school's production of "The Music Man." Back then, dating a guy that was a year younger than you was somewhat of a big deal, but I didn't care. He was amazing: outgoing, totally funny, very cute and Italian (I had a thing for Italians.) He asked me out in front of the entire cast and everyone cheered. We were together for a blissful, sloppy, awkward two weeks, and then it was over. He dumped me! Apparently he missed being single. I guess the moral of that story is to never trust a twelve-year-old boy who has kissed over 30 girls.

After him, I dated mostly older guys. High school was somewhat of a dating spree for me...I dated a guy for about a month, convinced myself I was in love, then changed my mind and dumped him. However, the tables turned when I was 17. Karma decided to be its bitchy self and put me in the position of "dumped" rather than "dumpee". By the end of senior year I was heartbroken, bitter, and in no mood to have another boyfriend. Besides, I was going to college and there was no way in HELL I was going with strings attached.

Despite my anti-boy attitude, senior year was when I made my biggest and most scandalous cougar move.

He was a freshman-yes, freshman- boy. We'll call him Andrew.

Andrew wasn't just any freshman boy, though. He was extremely good-looking, completely hilarious, and dubbed 'honorary senior' by the senior guys in my class. I was always attracted to him but the idea of having a crush on any guy more than a year younger than me was absolutely repulsive. That was until my friend Alison brought him up when a bunch of us were out at a diner.

"Guys, I have a confession....I kinda have a huge crush on Andrew."

As soon as she said that, the entire table of senior girls exploded with "Me too!"s. So I felt a little better about my closet crush.

One night, I was having a very rough time dealing with my recent heartbreak from an older guy that was playing games with me (see my first post). I was in the corner crying when Andrew came up to me, wrapped his arms around me and told me to stop crying, because I was "the most amazing person in the world" and I didn't deserve to cry. That did it. My feelings for him totally exploded.

Andrew and I got closer, pushing the boundary between friends and more-than-friends further and further. I asked him to prom, he was psyched. However, while we were somewhat dating he kept asking if we were boyfriend and girlfriend yet. I had no plans on getting in a relationship with him, but I forgot that freshmen tend to view romantic situations as either friends or relationship without anything in-between. I kinda dug myself into a hole, so eventually I caved and said he could call me his girlfriend. THAT was a mistake.

I very quickly realized how immature he was, and how he was on a totally different level from me. Soon enough, he was annoying the shit outta me (but he was so damn cute!) and I didn't know what to do. So, I broke up with him after prom. I felt awful, but I learned a valuable lesson about dating younger men- DON'T.

Although I prefer to date older men, it doesn't change the fact that I'm attracted to younger guys. Hopefully this is something I will grow out of; my planned future doesn't exactly consist of me hitting on my son's friends when I'm 50. Ew.