My Cougar Dating Story

One year ago...

She's sitting down the bar twirling a tiny straw around in high ball glass of what I presume is a gin and tonic. She's got a tight body and is all prettied up with make-up, hair and a sexy outfit, a bit overkill if you ask me, well at least for being in a small dive bar on a Tuesday night. She's definitely older than me, probably in her early forties, about ten to twelve more years than myself. She keeps making eyes at me; those extra long stares, some people might call it the "fuck me eyes," but whatever it is I know there is definitely some attraction.

I flash her a few smiles and acknowledge her flirtation. At this, she rises from her bar stool and walks directly over and sits next to me. Her legs crossed in a way that exposes her upper thigh and her cleavage stretching tight against a thin black blouse. She immediately opens up to conversation, introducing herself and exclaiming how she never approaches guys at bars like this...yeaaa right! It's at this moment that it dawns on me. She is on the prowl. Oh my god, it's a cougar!!

I had often heard many great cougar dating stories from some of my more sexually active college friends, stories that seemed beyond the realm of possibility to me, but tonight it looked like the cougar was finally attacking my scrawny nerdy boyishly handsome self... alright maybe I'm embellishing a bit but hey, I look young!

By the way, for those that don't know, a "cougar" is a slang term for an older woman who pursues and dates much younger men, with the age disparity usually having a gap of at least ten years or more.

The cougar dating scene has really only become in vogue recently, within the past decade, as previously this type of behavior was taboo or socially unacceptable for older women at the time. However, now cougar dating is almost catching on as a fad. It seems to evolved to the point where it's a sign of power and individuality for those older women. Some of them are divorcees simply looking to have fun, not ready to settle down again. Some are high powered executives who are more dominant and looking for a boy toy. I can't really say where the term cougar came from but it seems to fit well as a metaphor for this type of womanly behavior.

Ok, lets get back to my story...

Finally, after she buys me multiple rounds of drinks and we have a lengthy yet flirtatious conversation, we end up back at my place...yadda yadda yadda... I now have my own cougar. Well actually she has me.

The next couple months go great. Basically she calls me on random nights when she's feeling energetic, it's always on her terms, but the best part is she always buys when we go out, or brings me beer or wine when she comes over. It's almost like have a sugarmama I suppose.

Whatever type of relationship we have, it's certainly not a serious one and it can't last. And as with most cougar dating stories this one ends up with an unemotional and mutual ending. I can't say that it was one of the most meaningful relationship I've had, it wasn't at all, but holy shit, the sex was fantastic!

Present day...

So that little gem of a story occurred well over a year ago now. I'm not really looking for anything like that now. I really want more of a committed relationship a little closer to my age range, which is why I am still scouring the online dating scene. The experience was certainly nice though for a little fling and I learned a lot in the bedroom as well, which really helped me out. So in that respect, for you single younger guys out there looking for a little more experience I actually recommend finding yourself, or at least being prey, to lovely older woman.

There are even niche online dating sites popping up these days devoted particularly to cougar dating to help make the process more efficient. Hell you could probably even find plenty of them on free dating sites like Plenty of Fish if you look hard enough.

Vegetarian Dating Options?

It just occurred to me that Plenty of Fish doesn't has an option to categorize oneself as a vegan or vegetarian. There are plenty of other things to categorize oneself by like religion, body type, preference for children, your drinking/smoking habits and even if you have a car or not. All of these very clear lifestyle choices that one would certainly consider when looking for a potential relationship. Yet the one thing that isn't categorized is a person's eating habits.

Now maybe it's just me and I live in a large liberal city, Boston, with tons of mostly liberal college students with a pretty good chunk of them, from my observation, being vegetarians or vegans. I'm not sure why I'm relating liberalism with the propensity towards vegetarianism but it seems to be the case. Anyways, from this growing trend I think that it is apparent that more and more people will want to date and be in relationships with people of similar eating habits.

It makes sense to filter dates in this manner, particularly when on large dating sites like PlentyofFish.

For example, the last girl I dated was a vegetarian. Though I tend to lean towards a mostly vegetarian diet, I'm still an omnivore and consume meat on an occasional basis. This got pretty tricky when we'd go out to eat on dates. Sometimes I would forget that she was a vegetarian and take her to places with little options for that kind of diet... oopps! Luckily for me, she was pretty easy going with having to deal with restaurants filled with voracious carnivores, but I have heard some stories where the omnivore/vegan dates really butt heads.

There was a good New York Times article last year called, "I Love You, but You Love Meat," which nicely illustrated the potential dating conflicts that meat eaters and vegans can have.

"...many vegetarians say they cannot date anyone who eats meat. Vegans, who avoid eating not just animals but animal-derived products, take it further, shivering at the thought of kissing someone who has even sipped honey-sweetened tea."

Sometimes it probably goes a little too far but I certainly don't blame people for only wanting to date others with the same eating habits. After all, eating is a pretty big part of our lives, it ranks way up there on the needs scale, right next to stuff like... breathing. When you're eating three times a day, at least one of those meals is probably with your spouse, doesn't it make sense that the two should be on the same page diet wise?

As far as online dating sites go, there's one for every niche out there. Of course, this certainly means that there are vegetarian and vegan dating sites to cater to this crowd. Take the site VeggieDate for example which caters to people with all kinds of variations in veggie like diets from lacto ovo vegetarians, vegans and even macrobiotic diets... whatever that is.

So here's my thing, with the rise of preferences for a certain dietary lifestyle in a relationship, shouldn't this be a category choice added to the mainstream online dating sites like Plenty of Fish? Isn't one's choice in food just as important a quality in a date as their drinking habits? Perhaps I'm nitpicking a bit but I think I just might be on to something here.

A quick search in the PlentyofFish forums with the word "vegetarian" brings up a crap load of threads, over thirty, all with the same heated debates about dating vegetarians, vegans and the like.

What do you guys and gals think? How does ones dietary choice affect your online dating habits?