Older dudes...

I'm still dabbling on match.com, though for the last couple of months or so I've been doing it, I haven't really gotten a date out of it -- the guys that contact me aren't really my type, the guys that are tend to disappear after a couple of emails, and I admit I've been impatient about it too and not too good at replying to emails, so lost a few opportunities there.

But since last week, I've been getting tons of winks and emails (I guess new resolutions?) but a surprisingly number of the guys contacting me are in their 40's. And the funny thing is, is not that I have guys that old contacting me, but that those on that 40-45 range that are emailing me are incredibly hot. As in, too bad they're so old, because oh my god they're fit. And good looking. Very good looking. You know, for a 40+ year-old guy. And they all have ripped muscles, and not in the bodybuilder way.

Unfortunately, despite having a mother who's almost 20 years younger than my father, I cannot seem to like guys much older than me. In the past, I have dated guys up to 13 years older than me -- I was 23 then dating a 36 year-old for a couple of months -- but at some point the age difference got to me and started bothering me. It always does. To think that today that guy is now 41? Yikes.

Until a couple of years ago, I'd never dated a younger guy. Not even guys my age. I always liked them a couple of years older at least, and that's what seemed to work for me, we were both on the same page maturity-wise. Now suddenly when I'm out at a bar, the guys that approach me tend to be younger, not by a year, but by 3 or 4 years. I don't think I look younger? (Ok, ok, I KNOW I don't look younger than my age.) I don't think I am less mature and now relating to these guys, nor do I think these guys are just more mature nowadays (specially here in DC when they never seem to grow up!), but I'm no longer averse to dating younger men either. And I guess dating "older women" is in? (Gosh, have I become the older woman??)

Another thing that changed is that "10 years older" used to be my cutoff, that range got much smaller as well. So while when I was 25 I'd be ok with dating a guy up to 35, now that I'm 28, I still can't really imagine dating anyone over 35, or I find them too old. There are a couple of exceptions of guys I play volleyball with that are probably 8 or 9 years older than me and I get along with wonderfully well and would totally give them a chance if they were interested (they're not), but that's it.

So it's very weird all the very attractive, look-younger-than-their-age, 40+ men winking at me lately… Specially when my profile clearly states a my age limit as 35.