Cougar Approval

Last week, I did a post called "Beauty Bias," which led to a discussion with JGR about the Cougar phenomenon and his assertion that reactions are also negative to mixed-age relationships when the older person is male. I don't doubt that negative reactions to both types of relationships exist, but our conversation reminded me of a funny event, and you know us bloggers--we're always looking for something to write about.

Before we moved to Searcy, my oldest son and I were both active in community theater. Leading up to one production, he and I would often stop in at a local sandwich shop before practices. Some time later, my husband and I stopped for lunch at the same sandwich shop, and the woman behind the counter just kept smiling at me. I mean really smiling. I smiled back, but I couldn't quite figure out her ear-to-ear grin. Then, when my husband left the counter to go get our drinks, the woman nodded and winked at me. And I got it. She could tell that this guy was probably my husband and thought she was in on the secret that I'd been cheating on him with a younger guy.

The real fun started when, a week or so later, I came in with both my husband and my son. Her eyes were big as saucers, then.