Category: local online dating

From the outside it was an idyllic scene — one I can still conjure up to this day. Sun flooded the terrace of our detached house in rural France, and the champagne flowed freely as my husband and I hosted a barbecue at our new home.

We’d pulled out all the stops to impress one of his oldest friends, spending a small fortune on steak, prawns and foie gras. Just six months earlier we’d left behind our life in Bovey Tracey, Devon, and bought a beautiful property in Charente, South-West France.

At the insistence of my husband — who is called Carol, named by his Europhile parents after King Carol of Romania — it had to be the largest in the village, and the garden grandly led down to the banks of the river. He revelled in the praise his friends piled on him for enjoying the perfect lifestyle — a stunning house and, of course, the icing on the cake, a nubile young wife. Me.

In “Older Women, Younger Men: New Options for Love and Romance,” authors Felicia Brings and Susan Winter interviewed more than 200 men to discover the allure of the so-called “Mrs. Robinson syndrome.” You’ll be surprised at what men find appealing about older women. Dating a younger men can be exciting, but don’t overlook the potential downsides of the relationship. Check out the pros and cons.

If you’re ready to accept that age is just a number, then your pool of eligible bachelors just got a hell of a lot bigger—and might include some much younger dudes.

“I was 43 and my now ex-boyfriend was 29, which actually isn’t that much of an age gap. However, there were four or five times when we were out and people thought that I was his mother. It didn’t help that he looked very young because of his baby face. It was embarrassing when I had to tell people that he was my boyfriend.” —Olivia C., 44