“The dirty ole bastard next door has got a young floozie living with him.”

I just bit my tongue. Nice lady, older conservative, perhaps even a little embittered, and felt the need to express her moral outrage.

That was a few years back now, when another friend starting his second family was getting married to a younger woman.

“Mate, you’ll be 60 when it’s 21.”

The look on her face was enough to tell me I was off the Xmas card list – honest opinion is not always appreciated.

This was around the time, I suppose 10 years back, when the older man was still building up pace. It was more the era of the silver fox with media personalities like blogger Moata Tamaira making an open book of her hunt for a suitable man and Heather du Plessis-Allan marrying (in her case perhaps a badger’s arse) Barry Soper whose children were older than her.

Now, in the media, the older man is mostly the hunted dog and we saw this in an earlier discussion about a teacher leaving the country with his nineteen year old conquest.

But, and here’s the but, was that the case? Was it his conquest or hers? Does it matter?

This week the older man has been in my face. On the side of road, holding hands. Behind the counter with his young Cambodian wife.
It’s not so unusual anymore. But like I said, is it younger women finding something more appealing about older men, and just what might that be?

More recently even I find myself the subject of the critical eye of a rather attractive working mother, hanging out for that dinner invitation. Of course, I’m curious, and I have questions, but I’m old enough to know, the first three answers would more likely be flattery rather than honesty or is my healthy cynicism a by product of years in the Family Court?

And as much as I would like to know what the attraction is, I’m not going to ask. It’s not a situation I want to encourage.

Would you, wouldn’t you? I cringed when I recently caught up with an old friend (almost 65) happy married to a young girl and about to be a father again – I couldn’t do it.

The pros, the cons, the risks, it is a big subject.

Has the discussion we’ve seen here and in the media been only about professional men – Is the man on the street treated differently when he doesn’t have to answer to a professional body or a moral standard?

What are your thoughts on the rise of the older man and the young woman?