For a 51 year old male, what age women should he appropriately date?

What is a date appropriate age for the 50 something male? It depends, do you want to have fun or be happy? Young women of the 20's variety can really be fun. You can teach them things, expose them to old ideas for the very first time and they appreciate things that older women might take for granted after a while. However, for true happiness something a little more compatible on the level of life experience might be in order. The challenge of personal growth, and facing life together on level ground might be a better fit for long term happiness.

This is a particular topic of interest to me. I am happily married so it isn't because I feel the young ladies are robbing me of prime cuts of man child or anything like that. By the way my husband is nearly 4 years younger than me. My daughters are in their 20s and both have been asked out and accepted dates with gentlemen of a certain age. You know the age...older than me. That age. I didn't mind it too much because I happily dated a man 17 years my senior for over 7 years. I was 28 when we first started to date. He was not wealthy at all. He was just interesting and intelligent and caring. He took care of himself and me and he was athletic. In short he ruined me for the majority of men. He encouraged me to live my dreams and told me I could do what ever I set my mind to. Who could be against any of those qualities? Nobody I can think of. That was my experience with dating an older man. However, my daughters have had different experiences. They have both had the stalker older guy and also the age conscious sports car driving superficial guy. Not to say all men who drive sports cars are superficial. It's just a stereotype and happened to be true of these men.

Once I was asked if I could go along with one of these gentlemen and my youngest daughter on an outing. When the man found out I would be tagging along his response? "Okay, but don't try to fix me up with her she's too old for me." He was at least 10 years my senior and had none of the wonderful qualities that my older boyfriend possessed. While I was married it still hurt my feelings. I started to imagine myself invisible to men of my age group aside from my own husband who thankfully still has eyes for me. While I have noted I am still interesting to men in their 20's. I think it is more like a science experiment to them. You know us older women are rumored to have skills. Anyway, apparently age mattered to this man. From the moment it mattered to him it mattered to me. The whole day he treated me like I was an old lady and made remarks about it constantly. My daughter said at one moment she thought she might vomit. She eventually ended it because he was pushing her for marriage. He was not marriage material, wealthy, but not marriage material and even if she had fallen in love with him chances are he would have to dump her for a younger model to make himself feel better. At 21years of age her shelf life was obviously already an issue.

I want the best for men everywhere. So, I would like the best for men pondering the question of age and dating. My friend was suffering from, "dating younger women syndrome." He was my age and he spent his time and money in strip clubs. He would inevitably get involved with one of the young ladies as they needed rescuing. He was chronically miserable. He would complain to me all the time about being taken advantage of, used and discarded. Even non-strippers seemed to get him into bad situations. He even got in trouble protecting a young lady from an abuser. I kept telling him that when he really wanted to be happy he would stop going to strip clubs and start looking for women who were interested in similar hobbies, and events and maybe, just maybe a little closer to his age and interested in settling down. He was convinced he was too fun loving for an adult female. I promised him he wasn't. I told him to find a woman who had a job, an active social life and a home and who didn't need him but wanted him for who he was. He didn't listen. One day his father became ill and he spent a lot of time at the hospital. There his father's nurse and he struck up a friendship and they are now happily married and he feels like the luckiest man in the world and she is within 5 years of his age although I never asked.

The thing is, where true love is involved age is never a problem. However, dates really occur on a more superficial level. If you want to have arm candy and show off that you can date young women then do that. If you want a relationship make sure that you are loved at your deepest level not at the level of your current health status, your current job title and your current ability to buy a nice meal no matter what the age of the woman.

Nasty people come in all ages. If you feel the need to date young women exclusively no matter how much trouble then I'd think about the reasons why. Is age an issue to you? Is your own mortality worrying you? What is the dealio?

I speak for the young women I know by saying they appreciate the good meal, the nice date and the kind words from any aged male but so do the older women. Older women of character can be more of a challenge and we look more like you do when you get undressed and that can take some getting used to trust me having seen my share of older men walking around shirtless. But in the long run the benefits can be lasting and mutual. The choice is up to you.

My advice is if you are dating youngsters make sure you are not dating your children's friends. There are some things that our children were never meant to know about us parents. That is, for instance, if we've got "skills" or not, how we kiss, and who knows what else. The ramifications about knowing these things, and let me tell you their friends will talk, are long term. Face it our children will be with us long after the sweet young thing fits into her string bikini and her giggle is a distant memory... and really, how Jerry Springer do we want to get here? Good luck no matter who you date!