Goodbye Mr Big ...hello Mr Cub!
That’s the buzzword for a hot younger lover ... just one of the new tribes of men Sex And The City author CANDACE BUSHNELL says have transformed dating for divorcees
After my divorce, I moved into a quaint run-down farmhouse in the Hamptons, about half a mile from my friend Sassy and around a mile and a half from my friend Marilyn.
At first it was just the three of us, but it wasn’t long before Sassy ran into Queenie, whom we’d both known from our single days, and discovered she was living in the Village as well. And then came Kitty.
Kitty was another mutual friend who, having landed her Mr Big 15 years ago, had happily disappeared into married bliss. Or so we thought. Now, as would turn out to be the case with so many of our friends, Kitty was all of a sudden getting divorced.
And finally tilda tia, who had been one of Kitty’s married friends, magically appeared from the South of france. She’d just ended a 12-year relationship with a frenchman and was trying to start her life over again in the States.
And so we did what we’d done years ago, before there were husbands and children, demanding careers and all kinds of heartbreak: we gathered together to figure it out.
And almost immediately, the way it had years ago when we were all single, the topic turned once again to sex. ‘Where’s the fun? Where’s the excitement?’ Kitty
The only thing that’s the end of the world is the end of the world BARACK OBAMA
demanded. ‘Where are the men?’ tilda tia said.
and as I looked around at their eager little faces, I realised now might be a good time to find out.
MEET THE CUBS ...
YOu’ve undoubtedly heard of cougars, the name bestowed on older women who go out looking for younger men. Well now it’s time to meet the cubs — younger men who deliberately target older women. We’re catnip to them.
Yes, of course, there may be cynical cubs looking for a mother surrogate who can drive them around, give them a place to stay, or subsidise their lifestyles.
But, thanks to exercise, Botox, hair extensions, healthy eating and advanced skincare, even if a woman is technically too old to bear a child, she can still look like she can — and that’s a real turn-on for a man, even if he is 20, maybe 30, years younger.
... AND THE HOT-DROP
the hot-drop has found himself unintentionally single. Maybe his wife has died. Or she may have cheated and fallen in love with someone else, or just got bored. either way he’s single and won’t be for long. Because there’s nothing really wrong with the hot-drop, except the fact that he doesn’t want to date women his own age.
Six months after his divorce, you’ll find him engaged to someone who is ‘almost 40.’
DITCH THE SENIOR-AGE PLAYERS (SAPS)
SaPs are older single men of means, meaning they have enough money to add it to their list of attributes and are often still employed in a lesser version of the high-powered career they once had. think former newspaper magnates, ex-sportsmen: big hitters who still keep their hand in.
In theory they sound great, but in reality a SaP is often several decades older than you (see below).
AND THE ‘HE’S AS OLD AS YOUR FATHER’ GUY
the reality of the hot-drop odds can cause some women to try to skew them in their favour by ‘playing’ the game, i.e. dating a man who is 15, 20, even 25 years older. Which means, given that you are now middle-aged yourself, a man who is 70? Seventy-five? eighty?
there are, of course, plenty of attractive 75-year-old guys, but even those who are not attractive believe they have a certain sexual magnetism, because society colludes to tell men that they’re a little bit better than they actually are, while it tells women they’re a little bit worse.
however, they’re not all entirely deluded about exactly why they are able to attract women half their age. One, named arnold, explained to me that many women he met didn’t have the money to afford the lifestyle they wanted. and that’s where he came in.
Men, he said, don’t care why a woman is having sex with them, as long as she is having sex with them. Plus, he reminded me, men have the power because if one woman doesn’t meet their demands, there’s always another woman who will.
It’s a script that men with money control and continue to control even into old age — as long as they’re able to provide something some woman wants.
THE SPOUSE-CHILD ISN’T A LOST CAUSE
here is another common type who is now unfettered and on the loose. Like the hot-drop, he has also become divorced unintentionally.
But unlike the hot-drop, he is not, well, hot. Indeed, he’s usually pretty much of a mess. Which isn’t, perhaps, surprising. this guy is the one women are referring to when they make comments like: ‘I have three children. two actual children — and my husband.’
While things may have started out equal, somewhere along the way he not only stopped pulling his weight at home, he stopped taking care of himself. he basically makes very little effort but still gets most of his needs met.
unsurprisingly, his wife wants out, and after a divorce that drags on for ever, it’s not unusual for the spouse-child to move back in
with his mother and start drinking too much.
The good news is that he’s not a lost cause. The combination of living with his mother and looking into the disappointed eyes of his now-teenage children every other weekend makes him realise he does not want to be a loser.
And so he gets himself together. He goes to the gym, finds a job and his own place to live, learns to do his own shopping and laundry.
Thus rehabilitated, he’s ready to get back into the dating pool. And now it is entirely possible that he will end up becoming, yes, one woman’s ex-husband but also another woman’s new guy. iT’s not all bad news out there: there are also the nice guys. The ones who are known in the world as being nice, with no bad gossip attached to their names, no rumours of cheating, no string of ex-wives who hate them.
While nice didn’t matter so much in one’s 20s and 30s, now it is about the best quality that a person can have. Nice is safety from the storm in a world that, it turns out, is not so very nice after all.
Nice guys are grown-ups with their own lives and their own places to live. Which means they know how to do everyday stuff. Like shopping. And washing the dishes. And feeding themselves.
Nice guys are not alcoholics or drug addicts.
And, unlike the hot-drop who is easily seduced by the younger woman, usually a woman who wants to start the reproductive cycle with him, the nice guy is not looking to reproduce, so he wants to be with a woman who is the same age as him. And that’s who we are looking for when we’re dating in middle age.
Because when you’re in your 50s and you’ve got it together, you’re not looking for a guy to take care of you, or put a roof over your head. You’re looking for an equal. someone who can carry their share of the load. And they’ve got to be there emotionally.
Because the reality of life is that when you’re dating in middle age, s**t happens. You are dealing with people who have not only gone through stuff but may be going through it while you’re just getting to know them. Chances are that someone’s going to lose a parent. someone’s going to lose a job. someone’s going to lose a friend.
s**t happens to all of us, and it’s just a little better if you don’t have to go through it alone.
AdApted by Claire Coleman from Is there Still Sex In the City? by Candace Bushnell, published by Little Brown on August 8 at £16.99. © Candace Bushnell 2019. to order a copy for £13.59 (offer valid until August 16; p&p free on orders over £15), call 0844 571 0640.