Age Ain't Nothing But A Number*

Read these interesting posts from jdatersanonymous first. These are relevant to the topic I am about to bring up.
http://jdatersanonymous.blogspot.com/2006/01/older-men-overlooked.html
http://jdatersanonymous.blogspot.com/2006/02/older-men-revisited.html

Lately, I have noticed more men at the events I go to that are significantly older than me (think over 10 years older). I have developed some pretty strong feelings; mainly that I would not want to date a man who is closer in age to my parents than he is to me. Besides having different generational (is that a word? sounds like something President Bush would say) references, one of the key things I really would want in a marriage is growing old with your partner. If your partner is a good 10, 15, even close to 20 years older than you, then it kind of puts that whole notion in a tailspin. The possibility of your mate dying way before you do is scary. Dating is challenging under the best of circumstances and I am uncomfortable with the idea of dismissing someone who could otherwise be right for me just because of a significant age difference.

Apparently celebrities do not seem to have much issues with age differences in relationships. From Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (10 or 11 year difference) to Katie, oops, excuse me, Kate Holmes and Tom Cruise (17 year difference) to Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford (21 year difference?), Catharine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas (25 year difference?), Melania Knauss and Donald Trump (also a 25 year difference?), to name a few examples. Women are also getting in on the bandwagon; look at Eva Longoria and Tony Parker (7 year difference), Madonna and Guy Ritchie (10 year difference); Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher (12-13 year difference);even one of Liz Taylor's husbands, Larry Fortensky, was way younger than her; remember Cher and her bagel boy, even though they were picked on mercilessly by the tabloids, it is clear now that she was ahead of her time.

As much as I like to poke fun at celebrities for their strange ways of dating and mating, maybe there is something to be learned from them when it comes to dating outside your age range.

* The title comes from an album by the singer Aaliyah. She was an extremely talented and beautiful woman who died way too young. It was rumored that she and R. Kelly were married, it was quite controversial not only because of the age difference (10+ years) but she was underage at the time. Very appropos. for this posting...