30多歲時與小鮮肉約會的利弊

A lot of women I know prefer to date older men - and, hey, I get that. An older man can make you feel protected, taken care of, young, and sexy. It's hard to hear your ticking biological clock over the sound of a refined gentleman recommending an expensive whiskey. It seems whatever age I am (and, spoiler alert: I'm in my thirties now), I've found myself saying "guys my age don't have their shit together." Even when I was on Tinder, I set my minimum age to a couple years older then me because I had no interest in dating younger. But then I met Ben (name has been changed to protect the overly sensitive). Ben changed my views on younger guys - because, really, the operative word is guy here, not man (and, hi, I'm a woman, not a girl) - upside down, and made me see the pros and cons of dating a younger guy, like...

我認識的很多女性都喜歡和年紀大一點的男人約會——我明白這一點。年長的男人會讓你感覺有人保護、呵護你、讓你覺得自己年輕、性感。一位優雅的紳士向你推薦昂貴的威士忌，你很難不對他傾心。無論我多大年紀（劇透：我現在30多歲了），我總是會說“我這個歲數的男生還不懂事呢。”即使在Tinder上，我設置的約會對象最小年紀也比我年長，因爲我對約會小鮮肉沒有興趣。但後來我遇到了本（名字已改，不用過於敏感）。本改變了我對小鮮肉的觀點——因爲，這裏最適合的詞是這個傢伙而不是男人（而我是女人不是女孩兒了）——顛倒過來，讓我瞭解到與小鮮肉約會的利弊，比如……

Pro: He Made Me See How Far I've Come

利：他讓我明白我已走了多遠

This might be selfish - actually, it is 100 percent selfish -but it's true. While we were together, Ben was a lost little lamb in the woods; scared, full of doubt, directionless. I remember being a little lamb myself in my mid-twenties. I felt sad for him and I understood what he was going through, but I was relieved to know that those woods were behind me. I'm not a lost little lamb anyMore, but rather, a confident, sexy lion. Sorry that I just referred to myself as a sexy lion, but seeing how confused he was made me realize I wasn't anymore.

這可能很自私，實際上是百分百的自私，但這是真的。當我們在一起的時候，本是迷失在樹林裏的小羊羔：害怕、充滿疑惑、毫無方向。我還記得我25歲左右的時候也是這樣的小羊羔。我爲他感到遺憾，我明白他要經歷什麼，但現在知道我已走過了這些樹林讓我舒心不少。我再也不是迷失的小羊羔了，現在的我是一頭自信、性感的獅子。我爲暗示自己是頭性感的獅子感到抱歉，但是看到他如此困惑反而讓我意識到我自己再也不困惑了。

Con: You Have Way More Figured Out Than He Does

弊：你想的東西要比他多得多

I struggled in my twenties, and I get the nature of struggling, but building a partnership with someone who is just starting his own tenuous path to adulthood is frustrating. I often found myself saying "when I was your age,"and I hated it. What am I, a grandma?! At times, I felt like I was more of a teacher then a girlfriend. I wasn't learning anything from him because I had already found the answers to my questions.

在20幾歲的時候我掙扎過，我也明白了掙扎的本質，但與剛剛脆弱起步走向成人之路的小鮮肉談戀愛是很令人沮喪的。我總是會說“我在你這個歲數的時候，”我特別討厭自己說這句話。我是誰啊？姥姥嗎？有時我覺得自己是個老師而不是女朋友。我從他身上學不到任何東西，因爲我已有了自己問題的答案。