After getting back from a recent conference, I felt wiped out from all the travel, but pushed myself out to a party.
Within five minutes of my arrival, an attractive guy attached himself to me. He turned out to be smart, thoughtful, and adventurous, and we spoke for the rest of the evening, oblivious to others. Even when I got up to go to the bathroom, he would be waiting for me. Within 2 hours, he asked me what I thought of love at first sight, and we spoke about our past dating and relationship experiences. He was in his mid-20’s, 5 years younger than I, but I answered his questions about my life chronology imprecisely and he didn’t push. He changed his plans to walk me home, and I had him up for a cup of tea since it was a cold night. We parted on warm terms (no physical contact at all), anticipating the next day when we were going to the same event.
For 12 hours, I was on a high from the magical experience of connection with an apparently wonderful person. At the event, we exchanged brief greetings, and he didn’t give me a second look. During the socializing part of the event, he was circulating and then with I'm guessing a female friend. I guess that he googled me, found out my college graduation date, and lost interest. I felt completely devastated to have gone from being the object of someone’s rapt attention for 5 hours to being ignored completely.
I sent him an email addressing the situation directly, and that I hoped we could be friends in any case, and he wrote back simply that he enjoyed having met me too: i.e., he would not even be friends with me since I was 5 years older.
This happened to me once before: last spring, a guy 7 years younger chatted me up, and attached himself to me. I didn’t like him so much, but figured I would give him a chance, and we spoke for 10 minutes until he found out my age. He flinched, spent 5 minutes in awkward conversation as if to prove that he wasn’t running away from my age, and then ran away.
This time was far worse: from the 4+ hours of conversation, it was clear that we liked each other well enough for several dates, at least, and I lost this for my age, and for no other reason. I've gotten over it by now, but it still stings a bit.
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2 comments:
I'd feel stung too. It's always unpleasant to be turned down for something that shouldn't matter and that you can't do anything about.
I imagine that men who are bothered by a gap of only 5-7 years are likely to have other related hang-ups. (I'm sure they'd have no problem getting involved with someone 5-7 years younger!)
This particular guy seems particularly odious. I might just about forgive someone for unreflectively ruling out people a certain number of years older. But if he only discovered the age gap after an evening spent getting on wonderfully, that smacks of deep emotional stupidity.
Rant over.
Matthew
This is a bit of a different situation, but related... I became good friends with a guy who was clearly interested in me. We saw each other once or twice a week for numerous weeks, and every time I saw him he would go out of his way to talk to me, offer me lifts to various events that we were both attending, and ask me out to parties and other social events. Despite the fact that I am alot younger than him (9 years), over about six weeks it developed into a close and 'intimate' friendship. He is shy and religious, so I did not expect him to make any physical moves, despite his obvious attraction. (We were hand holding only.) I had previously avoided indicating my age, but in a conversation another person asked me my age, to which I replied truthfully (early twenties). He turned to me, with the most shocked expression on his face, left the table, organised for someone else to give me a lift home and left without even saying goodbye. Despite the fact that we are still involved in similar events and that I see him weekly, he has never initiated conversation in the months since. I gave up trying, because he would escape the interaction as quickly as possible.
I didn't think that guys worried too much about younger girlfriends?
Anyway, it looks like he is one 30 something guy left open for the 30 something single girls! At least they do exist.
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