May 1, 2025 • 50 mins
When Tracy Ellis Ross mentioned dating younger men, she faced an immediate wave of criticism and bizarre comparisons to Shannon Sharp – a man facing multiple sexual assault allegations. This glaring double standard perfectly illustrates the misogynoir Black women face when simply discussing their dating preferences.
As a 48-year-old Black woman navigating modern dating, I deeply relate to Tracy's perspective. The reluctance many of us feel toward dating older men isn't arbitrary – it's rooted in consistent experiences with men who remain entrenched in outdated values and toxic masculinity. These older men often expect traditional gender roles while lacking the emotional intelligence that healthy relationships require. Meanwhile, they believe their age and financial stability alone should attract partners, without recognizing that respect, progressive values, and emotional maturity have become the new currency in modern relationships.
Younger generations of men tend to challenge traditional gender norms, support social justice causes, and demonstrate greater emotional awareness. They're more likely to be allies to marginalized communities and understand the importance of mutual respect in relationships. This isn't about physical appearance or shallow preferences – it's about finding partners whose fundamental values align with our own. The stark reality is that many men over 50 were socialized in eras where women were expected to be submissive and obedient, creating relationship dynamics that feel stifling and unhealthy to independent women today.
Dating in 2025 presents unique challenges, especially for Black women navigating spaces not designed with us in mind. But there's freedom in recognizing we deserve partners who enhance rather than diminish our lives – regardless of their age. Whatever your dating preferences, the most important thing is staying true to your values and choosing relationships that bring joy, growth, and mutual respect. After all, we're still figuring out this modern dating landscape together, and there's no single right path for everyone.
How do you navigate age differences in your relationships? Do you find generational values impact your dating choices?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not them comparing Shannon Sharp to Tracy Ellis
Ross.
Dear Lord Jesus, help us all,good grief.
Today we're going to talk aboutanother area where Misogynoir
just presents its ugly littlehead, because they just
completely took everything Tracysaid right the hell out of
context, added some Misogynoirat astonishing levels and then
(00:23):
had the nerve to compare her toShannon Sharp, the man who has
like two, maybe three essaycases out on him like y'all,
come on, be so fucking for real,be so fucking for real as a
woman who has dated, youngerdated and or messed around with.
Let me just clarify that,because when I talk about dating
, I mean basically in thetalking phase, getting to know
(00:45):
someone you're hanging out, butthat's different from being in
an exclusive, committedrelationship and it's also
different than just, you know,kind of hanging around and
having fun.
Those are three wildlydifferent categories for me.
I have hung around and have funwith younger men.
So yeah, today I want to talkabout this whole thing with
Tracy Ellis Ross and hercomments about being a 52 year
old who dates younger men, whichis what she said.
(01:07):
She did not clarify the age atwhich she dates.
We can only assume that whenshe says younger men, it means
younger than her.
It could be someone who wasborn in 1976.
Like myself, who's 48.
It could be someone who wasborn in 1970, who's 40.
Like myself, who's 48.
(01:27):
It could be someone who wasborn in 1970, who's 40.
It could be somebody who is 30,like she never once said that
she dates 19 year olds.
The fact that she's gettingcompared to Shannon Sharp is so
sad to me and I really am notgoing to get too much into
Shannon Sharp because it's justridiculous, but mostly just as a
jumping off point for the waythat Tracy got compared to him
because of what he's goingthrough right now.
But just this dynamic of datingolder and younger and, as black
(01:51):
women, like what are we to do,especially black women in my age
range I'm I'm really in TracyEllis's age range because I'm 48
.
She's only four years olderthan me.
She's 52.
We're right there.
Tracy and I could date younger,down 10 15 years and above us,
up 10 15 years, and still windup in the same, you know, kind
of category of generation of men.
(02:11):
So I kind of really relate withher and I really, really,
really related to her statementsand I want to talk about that
and I really loathe that wedon't embrace nuance when we're
talking about the differencebetween older men dating younger
women and younger women.
And sorry, an older womandating younger men, because off,
(02:32):
jump, off, jump y'all.
We know that when older men dateyounger women, it is often
predatory Often.
And also that whole issue thatmen of all ages a certain
percent of them that aretroubled tend to like to enjoy
girls who are younger than them15 year old boys liking 11 year
(02:56):
old girls, 18 year old boysliking 12 year old girls, 50
year old men liking 16 year oldgirls.
We're not gonna pretend likethat elephant is not in the room
with us.
The elephant is in the roomwith us.
The percentage of men and younotice, I'm not saying not all,
I'm not saying all men becauseit's really not and I really
know that for sure it's not allmen but the percentage of men
(03:20):
who like to prey upon and bepredatory towards younger women
and younger girls is quite high.
There's a reason why a legal agewas declared for women.
You can't touch her legallyuntil she's 18.
Why do y'all think that lawcame into place?
Just ask yourself that.
(03:40):
Why did that law come intoplace?
Because so many men were tryingto take advantage of.
And you know there's whole lawsin other countries about how
old a girl is old enough to bemarried Because, as y'all know,
child marriage is a thing inother countries a despicable,
horrible, terrible thing.
We cannot ignore that when wehave this conversation and act
(04:03):
like it's the same when olderwomen date younger men.
Okay, we just we not fun to dothat.
So anyway, that's part of it.
The other thing that I want totalk about in general is what
she said about why she doesn'tlike to date older men, and I
wanted to talk about that too,because I have not dated an
older man.
I dated one man because I'vebeen out here dating in these
(04:25):
dating streets.
Recently I dated a man who wasI forgot how old he was.
He's a little bit older.
He was either 49 or 50 or 51 or52.
He was like right above me.
I'm gonna have to ask himbecause we're still friends, but
really that's it.
Everyone else has been younger.
I've been on dating apps and Idid for a while set my age range
to 35 to 55.
(04:46):
And that's in the range of mebeing 45 to now.
I'm not a dating apps right now, but like when I was on them, I
was willing to go as low as 35and willing to go as high as 55
and just found myself having alot of issues with the older men
in general.
Well, also, you know, if we'retalking about dating apps, just
(05:08):
as a super side note, y'all knowthat on dating apps, the men
who are older on dating apps are, you know, in the nicest way
possible, it's really like thebottom of the barrel, because
men who have the kind of thingsthat a well-established woman in
my age range would want in aman, they don't probably, I'm
assuming, tend to be on datingapps.
(05:29):
Now, if you've met an older manwho embodied all of this and
you met on a dating app,actually comment below and let
me know.
Okay, let me know, says, let meknow which app he was on.
Okay, because sometimes I lookat these older men on dating
apps and I'm like you got to bekidding me.
Like you can't even take a goodpicture, like please learn how
to find someone to mentor you onthe correct angle, cause y'all,
(05:52):
y'all, they got.
Okay, for those of you who arelistening and not watching, you
know they got the camera attheir kneecaps, they taking a
picture and all you can see islike there are three double
chins.
I have a double chin.
Look, and all you can see islike there are three double
chins.
I have a double chin.
Look y'all, I have a doublechin.
Do y'all see me taking picturesfrom below?
No, you take them up here.
You take them up here so youcan't see the double chin.
(06:12):
Okay, that's how you take apicture.
These older men have not evengotten insight into how to take
a picture correctly so that wecan actually think, okay, he is
attractive.
And if they can't do thatcorrectly on a dating app, are
they dateable?
And I promise you y'all I'm notshallow at all, but I'm just
(06:35):
using that as and I reallyhonestly and truly try to have
an openness for things that somewomen might not even have an
openness to like I'm okay withshort kings.
I don't set my height limit tosix feet.
I don't, because I've met somany men under six feet who are
really good, cool guys.
So I'm not shallow.
I don't declare they have tomake six figures, they have to
(06:56):
be over six feet tall.
They have to have perfectlywhite, straight teeth, like.
I don't even do all of thatshit.
I really do think there are somany good men who just don't
look and fit the part that a lotof women are looking for.
So I'm not saying that from ashallow place, I'm saying that
as an example, like, if theycan't figure out some small
things, just know they're notfiguring out the bigger things
(07:16):
either.
So, yeah, I haven't dated oldermen, but that's not why I want
to go into the real reasons why.
That's just a small littleexample.
I want to talk about some of thegender dynamics in general that
are preventing women likemyself and, let me state,
younger women in general toofrom wanting to date older men,
(07:36):
because more and more youngerwomen are moving away from that
older man dynamic, even thoughthose older men got money, and
that's a new thing.
I want to discuss that as well,and I also want to talk about
what do we, as black women, needto do, moving forward.
For those of us who are outhere single in these dating
slums, not even these datingstreets, we're not even out here
in these dating streets.
We are out here in the datingslums.
(07:57):
We are slumming it in 2025.
Okay, slumming it.
It's so hard.
It is so hard out here.
It's hard to date as a.
It's hard to be single in 2025.
And he's dating streets.
But here's.
Here's one thing that I willsay I feel encouraged by.
I just saw one of my favoritepodcasts is diary of a CEO
(08:18):
podcast.
I will link the episode below.
But I just saw a recent episodefrom the behavioral scientist I
forgot her name.
She just wrote a book calledhow to die alone.
I'll put it right here and shedid an interview with I forgot
his name Is his name steven ondiary ceo and he was talking
about you know why is dating sohard right now?
And she brought up how the wholeidea of modern dating is just
(08:39):
like you know, as young as asrecently as from the 1890s, and
dating apps in general arereally only like we're really
only 10 years into this wholedating app world.
And she was just like.
So if you feel like you're kindof bouncing around, you can't
figure it out, you're not makinggood matches.
It's a really hard thing to do.
She was like we're really only10 years into figuring it out
(09:01):
and in some way, just have gracefor yourself, because it's not
a perfect science.
I don't know that if, if you'resingle and that's comforting to
you like it was to me.
Just take heart, it's not you,we're all just trying to figure
this out.
So first let's talk about thereluctance of many of us to date
older men, and why so?
Tracy Ellis Ross, she literallysaid on Michelle Obama's new
(09:23):
podcast with her brother whichis so cute, by the way, I've
only seen like two or threeepisodes.
It's called IMO, which is alsoso cute in my opinion.
I just think it's adorable.
Anyway, she said on MichelleObama's podcast that she's
finding that she doesn't like todate older men because a lot of
them are really seeped in toxicmasculinity.
Now, this is something Iliterally said in my last
(09:45):
episode, because my last episodeI talked about a recent
cougaring dating situation withsomeone who was much younger
than me and I literally wastalking about this whole idea of
why I don't date men who areover 50.
So go check it out.
But one of the reasons that Isaid is because men over 50
don't tend to be as progressiveLike.
(10:06):
One thing that drives me crazythese days in dating is I just
really don't want to date anyonewho has any little teeny tiny
speck of homophobia ortransphobia.
I really just want to date anemotionally mature man who can
say, even if they say, I don'tnecessarily agree with my
(10:26):
lifestyle, but that's not mybusiness, that's their life.
I'm not gay, I'm not trans, butI support them to go be their
own person.
That's not even ideal for me.
The ideal person would say,yeah, I'm an ally, I'm an ally
to the gays and to the transfolks.
Let's be allies together.
Like let's protect the mostvulnerable people in our society
.
Like that's what I would love.
Like if I met a man who wasjust like let's be an ally
(10:49):
together, boo, I'd be like oh mygod, I'm in love.
I really have bonded really,really quickly, because that's a
high value for me personally.
For me, I would love to meet agay, trans, you know LGBTQIA
plus ally.
That would be lovely.
But I'm finding that when I'mmeeting, the older a man gets,
(11:09):
the less likely he is to even beaccepting of gay and trans
folks.
The older he gets, the morehe's not just an ally, he's an
enemy.
He's literally an enemy to thegay, trans, lgbtqia plus family
in general.
And I look at them like you gotto be fucking kidding me, right
(11:30):
, you got to be fucking kiddingme Like you're really fucking
kidding me, like.
You're going to look at me,someone who is obviously an
advocate, someone who'sobviously part of a marginalized
community, as a black woman,you gonna look at me and have
the nerve to talk poorly about amarginalized people group whose
only desire it is to live inpeace and mind that goddamn
(11:51):
fucking business like that'swhat you're going to do with
your one precious little wastedlife is talk poorly about people
who want nothing more than tolive freely, bet, bet, anyway,
that's just one thing.
So if you can imagine, when youmeet people which, by the way,
if you're here and you're not anally or a friend to, or if
(12:16):
you're an enemy to, the LGBTQIAplus people, I would just invite
you to unfollow me.
Unfollow me, don't watch mypodcast unless you're here to
learn something.
That's not really what I talkabout, because I'm not part of
the community, but I am an ally.
So just let me make that clearbecause I just I don't fuck with
y'all.
I really don't fuck with peoplewho cannot find grace and mercy
(12:37):
in their heart to love peoplewho are not like them.
It really just frustrates me tono fucking end, no end.
So if you, if I, meet a manwho's hateful of marginalized
communities, it's very easy forme to deduce that they also will
have some misogynoir in theirheart.
Misogynoir is the hatred ofBlack women.
(12:58):
If you're alive and breathingin America, you probably know
that there's a good fair amountof Black American men who really
do not like Black women andthey will date us, they will
fuck us, they'll marry us.
They don't like, they'll marryus.
They don't like us, baby, theydon't like us.
It's not a far leap.
If someone can't respect amarginalized community, they're
(13:21):
not going to respect you.
If they don't have empathy formarginalized communities,
they're probably not going tohave empathy for you.
As a black woman, I could betainted because my black ass
ex-husband hid his hatred ofblack women, his homophobia and
his transphobia from me untilafter we got married.
He had a lot of shit for meuntil after we got married and
(13:42):
then the full extent of his hateand dislike for all of those
categories came out.
Somebody might be like Grace.
You might be a little, slightlybit, traumatized.
I might be.
I might be.
But I also do know that peoplewho tend to have empathy for
hurting people, even hurtinganimals, that empathy tends to
extend out to other marginalizedcommunities, people who have
old school mindsets.
(14:03):
Particularly older black menwill typically keep those
hateful mindsets and it spansout across a lot of different
communities.
And that's just one thing.
But there's a lot of reasons.
Women my age okay, let'sactually break it down women who
are in the 50s, like Tracywomen and like me, in our 40s,
women in their 30s and women intheir 20s are not fucking with
(14:25):
older men.
Because the thing is a lot ofthese older men think because
they have money, they can justrun out and get themselves any
look any little young coochie.
But a lot of those youngcoochies, bro.
They're using you.
I don't know if you know this,but there's whole platforms.
You know the sprinkle sprinklelady, the sprinkle sprinkle lady
.
She exists to teach women ofany age range how to use men for
(14:48):
money.
I fucking hate her.
I think she's a fucking idiot,but that's what she does.
And there's millions andmillions and millions of women
picking up tips and tricks abouthow to use these older idiots
for money.
Younger women are not checkingfor older men because they're in
love.
They're using them.
(15:09):
These older men think I can getme a little young hot tamale
any day.
Bro, you can't get a hot tamalethat's going to love you, if
love and respect is what youreally want.
It's very rare, boo.
That's why you're not gettingthose little young tamales who
aren't trying to use you.
Why are you not getting womenin your 30s?
Why are you not getting womenlike me in my 40s or women like
(15:32):
Tracy in her 50s?
And also Tracy's in the categoryoutside of all this?
She's Diana Ross's daughter.
She's had a long, thriving,successful career.
She's filthy rich.
She comes from a good, healthyfamily.
She's beautiful.
She's childless.
She's in the category of herown.
I almost don't even want to puther in the same category of as
(15:53):
me, as a nobody, but I'm justsaying like she could get a man,
any man, 35,000 times fasterthan I could.
Let's just say that, notdowning myself.
I'm just trying to, you know,recognize like we're in a
different place socially,financially, stratospherically
in every way.
But these older men, they don'thave progressive value.
Younger women and myself, meand Tracy have done, you know,
(16:18):
years of work of pursuing andfiguring out like what are the
progressive values that wereally hold dear, whereas these
younger generations, gen Z,these young millennials and Gen
Z and Gen Alpha well, gen Alphais still really young.
But these next generations,like they don't have to search
it out like Tracy and I did,they don't have to go to the
library and look at the books,like because we didn't have the
(16:40):
World Wide Web.
You know, I grew up without theWorld Wide Web.
I didn't really have access tothe Internet, ongoing until I
was married in my early 20s.
Y'all OK.
Older men hold very traditional,outdated views still and they
refuse to let it go aboutcontrol about gender roles.
They still want you to come fixtheir plate for them.
(17:01):
Before you even get a chance tosit down, they're going to be
eating their plate.
There's an incompatibility,fundamental incompatibility,
with progressive values nowadays.
Another thing these older menare still signed up for,
willingly for the patriarchy.
They're still here for thepatriarchy.
They're still gung-ho for themotherfucking patriarchy and,
(17:24):
what's worse, they think that awoman like myself who is trying
to destroy, defeat, demolish andabolish the patriarchy.
They think we're wild andmisbehaved and angry and
terrible women.
Which is great.
It's actually entertaining.
This is not rocket science.
(17:46):
Women in their 50s, 40s, 30s and20s do not want to date a man
with ingrained patriarchal views.
Still, we don't.
We don't want y'allmotherfuckers, because y'all are
going to be all about thesesubtle ass power imbalances that
make living with youinsufferable and intolerable,
which is why y'all wives leftyou, why your third wife left
(18:09):
you, why you don't have arelationship with your children.
That's why you're alone on adating app taking a fucking
picture from a bad angle.
That's why.
That's why and we show as fuckdon't want you to limit our
autonomy, which is what these,this tip, the older men, are on
like, yeah, come on, come on,it's 2025.
(18:29):
Like we can have our own bankaccounts now, sir.
We have credit cards in ourname, sir, we have homes in our
name, sir, we have cars in ournames, we're building
generational wealth, we havemultiple degrees, we're taking
care of our children and you'regoing to try to limit my
autonomy.
Really, these older men, menlike Shannon Sharp, are
(18:50):
practicing toxic masculinity.
Men like Shannon Sharp arepracticing toxic masculinity.
Shannon Sharp has a case in2004, an essay case in 2004,.
An essay case in 2012 or 2014.
I forgot the year, but it waslike more than a decade ago.
She, just in light of this newsituation with this 19 year old,
(19:10):
the woman from 2012 or 2014,just reopened her case and she's
representing herself,apparently.
And then in this recent casefor most of y'all know it's
troubling the allegations arecoming out are troubling as hell
.
Not to mention that she's 19and, yes, even though she's
legal, he's 56 and all thedynamic, the aforementioned
dynamics that I talked aboutabout older men and women who
are teenagers.
(19:31):
She's a literal teen.
She was a literal teenager whenthey met.
All that is present, but that'sall toxic masculinity.
Toxic masculinity, if you don'tknow, includes emotionally
repressing people, using yourmanhood and maleness to
emotionally repress, to dominate, to be the aggressor,
unnecessary aggression and theobjectification of women.
(19:51):
In general, older men tend tohave a much higher prevalence of
this bullshit aggressor,unnecessary aggression in the
objectification of women.
In general.
Older men tend to have a muchhigher prevalence of this
bullshit and also they'resomehow less emotionally
intelligent to know that they'redoing it, but also somehow are
worse at hiding it, becausesometimes men who are really
good at being toxic masculinemen, they can hide it and the
subtlety is what is kind ofkeeps them in the game, but,
(20:14):
like older men are just likewoman.
Get your ass over here and sitdown.
You're like, could you at leasthide that you're a toxic, a
toxic man?
You just gonna have it all outhere in these streets like y'all
, you make it so easy, y'allmake it so easy to just move the
fuck on generationaldifferences.
These boomers out here in thesestreets, like shannon sharp,
these boomers are notemotionally intelligent, as I
(20:36):
mentioned before, and emotionalintelligence is like the new
currency.
One of the dating coaches onhinge said that too.
Like, emotional intelligence iswhat a lot of women want these
days and I would say that too.
It is like the number one thing, like when I meet girlfriends.
You know not to brag, but allmy girlfriends are so
emotionally intelligent.
I I just really tend to attractemotionally intelligent woman
(20:59):
to woman relationships and welove each other Well, we talk to
each other Well, we hold spacefor each other's tears, we hold
space for each other's sadnessand depression.
They don't say mean things tome, we don't deal with jealousy
and this is like literally allof my life I've had the best
(21:19):
good girlfriends, I've had somerelationships and but they're
all really peaceful and ifthey're not peaceful and if I
feel like there's jealousy orangst or weirdness or toxicity,
I just exit it or they exit it.
I just don't tend to keep womenlike that around.
So I know it's possible.
I know it's possible.
I've enjoyed it all my life.
It's so easy to see when I meetmen, particularly like 40, 45,
50, 55 and older, that they justdon't have that gift.
(21:39):
They have not developed it.
The way that women are attunedto our emotions and figure out
how to navigate that inrelationships in a way that
brings peace, men just don'ttend to do that work.
A lot of them, not all of them,a lot of them.
And that lack of emotionalintelligence is glaring in older
(22:00):
men.
It's glaring.
No one in 2025 wants to teacholder men how to do that.
I'll be damned.
I will be damned if I'm gonnasit around and teach an older
man how to be a good boyfriendto me, how to be a good
boyfriend.
Can you please just let me cry?
Oh, that's funny.
(22:25):
One thing I can say that Ireally love about Tracy, her
comments and myself and otherwomen who are bringing awareness
to this is that we have grownup with these more open
conversations.
It's mainstream now.
Feminism is mainstream,intersectional feminism is
mainstream and there is aheightened awareness out here in
(22:46):
these streets.
We know what problematicbehavior is.
I mean, I had a literal wholeTikTok channel for a while.
I don't focus on it anymore,but my whole TikTok channel for
a while was focused on the signsof narcissistic abuse, signs of
love bombing, signs you'retrauma bonded.
Women are out here in everysocial media platforming giving
(23:07):
wisdom and imparting wisdom onhow to essentially survive cis
heterosexual men, and I lovethat for us.
I love that for us.
I don't love the sprinklesprinkle lady and what she's
doing, because I think teachingpeople to do evil things is, in
in and of itself, evil.
It's literally like KevinSamuels or other men of his ilk
(23:28):
and other red pill men who areout here teaching men how to be
evil to women.
If there is a man who built awhole platform on teaching men
how to basically just use andhave sex with women which I know
there are and I don't even wantto say his name because we know
the popular I really don't evenwant to utter his name.
We know who he is.
If you want to be a good humanand this platform is for people
who want to be good humans Iwould like to be a good human.
(23:51):
I'm never going to teach y'allhow to take advantage of another
human and do harm to them, evenif you are the marginalized
community which this channel isfor black women.
I'm a black woman.
I still don't think that theresponse to years of oppression
and violence is to try tooppress in a different, more
unique and modern way.
Like no, no, I love that rightnow, in this current genre of
(24:15):
women like myself, we really doprioritize relationships that
are based on mutual trust,understanding.
We really want equality, wewant genuine partnership.
We really want to be inrelationships with our good
girlfriends, with our gay guyfriends and with our romantic,
cis, heterosexual datingpartners that reflect equality
(24:39):
and love and kindness.
And baby, these boomers.
They're like what you want?
Equality.
What now?
What?
Also, these Gen Z's out here.
Okay, y'all my kids.
I have one Gen Alpha and twoGen Z's and they are much more
willing.
(24:59):
Them and all of their friends,these younger generations, are
much more willing to challengetraditional-ish, are activists
at 13, 14.
Look at Greta.
What's her name?
Greta, the little white girlfrom whatever where.
She is the environmentalactivist.
(25:21):
She's an activist when she waslike nine.
Like these gen z, gen alphakids.
They're like we are not afraidto call out the bullshit of the
generations before us, and Ireally think that all of the
generations of women are like weare just not going to bend to
pressure and be willing toaccept a boomer or even a Gen
(25:47):
Xer who is toxic to us.
Like we just not.
And like I said about how Ireally don't like dating men who
aren't LGBTQIA plus allies thisgeneration of women that's
coming up in the world,especially the younger ones,
they also want that samealignment.
They want shared values,particularly around social and
(26:09):
political issues.
Did y'all see?
Did y'all see?
There's a meme that I saw.
Actually, it wasn't even a meme, it was an article.
I don't know where I saw it.
I saw it on Instagram.
I saw the article, like thescreenshot of the top of the
article, but it basically saidthat there isn't Trump don't or
Trump.
People who work for Trump in DCor people who work at the White
House, people who align withhim, are having a hard time
(26:30):
dating in DC because no onewants to date them.
I just thought that was sofunny.
I laughed so hard when I sawthat.
I was just like that's becausewe don't want to date assholes.
So, yeah, I I'm sorry for y'allthat y'all literally chose to
(26:54):
align with a fascist dictatorand now no one wants to give you
coochie.
Sorry, that's what happens whenyou choose evil.
And those aren't even older men,y'all.
Those are men in their 30s.
These are like men who you know, went to harvard and and yale
and and now they're working on apolitical campaign, working for
(27:18):
Trump, and can't get coachybecause nobody wants to align
with a fascist dictator.
These women nowadays we're notplaying with y'all.
We are not here to play.
We want gender equality.
We want you to care aboutsocial justice issues.
We want you to be inclusive.
We want you to have a modicumof emotional intelligence.
(27:40):
We want you to care about thesethings, not so that you can get
coachy, but because you'reactually just a good person.
Yeah, and we just can't.
I know I mentioned this earlier,but it cannot be underestimated
the impact that social mediaplatforms and the fact that
women are sharing with eachother, our experiences dating
older men, our experiencesdating men who are less
(28:02):
emotionally unintelligent, ourexperiences just opting out of
being with any cishet men of anyage range, just because of how
much cishet men tend to not allof them siphon every good thing
(28:23):
out of us, and I haveexperienced that too, y'all.
I mean, I've literally been outhere in these dating streets
since my last seriousrelationship was in the summer
of 2022.
So it's been about almost threeyears that I have been not
exclusive with anyone, reallyjust dating around.
I've been on dating apps, I'vebeen trying to get to know men.
You know, I haven't dated likea crazy amount, but at a steady
(28:47):
clip.
So I'll go, I'll, you know,date a few people, I'll be in
the talking phase with a fewpeople and then, you know,
something will happen or I'llget a little bit past the
talking phase.
Like maybe three weeks tends tobe right around the time that a
man will start beingdisappointing and or toxic and
or will realize it's not goingto work because of big, huge
(29:07):
differences or travel orwhatever it is, depending on how
catastrophic the interaction is.
Depends on how long I'll goagain before I can like get up
the nerve because, like Tracysaid and I really just vibed
with her on this like if youwant to have a partner, me and
her are really different because, unlike her, I was married for
20 years of my adult life and soI kind of feel very wore out on
(29:31):
that and I have three kids andI don't want anymore.
She had said in the episode withher and Michelle Obama that she
feels a little bit of pain onthe fact that she never decided
to like settle down and getmarried.
Not that she couldn't have.
She decided not to.
She decided not to havechildren and she said I'll sit
with that and then I'll decide,yeah, I would really like to
have a partner.
(29:51):
And then she'll go back outthere and date and then come up
against the issues and pull back, which is exactly the cycle
that I'm on too, except I mightbe a little bit more tired,
tracy, having had theexperiences of marriage behind
me, and particularly one of themwhich was horrific domestic
violence.
It just it makes you tired in abig, big, big way.
(30:12):
But one thing I've realized isthat in dating around, is that
I've so often met up with menwho are not even all the way
like problematic.
I definitely have come acrosssome problematic as hell men,
but I've also met some reallygood ones.
I really feel like I've comeacross a good five to six to
seven to maybe even eight goodmen, and it just didn't work out
(30:36):
with in this last year.
So I can't even say like theywere all terrible, they were all
toxic, because, no, I've reallymet some good ones and some of
them I'm still friends with.
Like the guy who I was with in2022, who were no longer
together.
He's like one of my bestfriends now Not sexual at all,
we're just completely friends.
We talk pretty regularly, wehelp each other out, you know,
(30:58):
with our situations of otherpeople we're dating.
It's completely platonic and Ilove him as a friend.
And he was a younger man heturned 40 this year but, for
example, he's someone who ismuch more progressive and I love
him as a friend.
There is a number of men most ofthe men I've dated, most of the
men I've dated actually wentout on dates with and or slept
(31:20):
with and or had anythingsignificant with I'm still
friends with and most of thosemen are all younger than me.
And that's another bigdifference between the older men
dating younger women.
Usually it ends in a lawsuit,especially when you're someone
like Shannon Sharp and you'rebeing accused of SA for the
third time with the third women.
But, like when older women dateyounger men, it's not predatory
(31:43):
.
It's usually about like let'shave an equal, mutually
exclusive, mutually beneficialrelationship, slash partnership,
whether we agree that it'sgoing to be friends, friends
with benefits, dating intimacy,let's fall in love, let's get
married, like, whatever theiteration is that it's decided
upon.
Almost all the men who I'vedated in some way, that's even
(32:04):
tiny bit remotely like wow, wein this I'm literally still
friends with you could literallyask any of them did Grace harm
you?
Did she try to use you?
Did she try to use you for yourmoney?
Did she try to use you?
Did she try to use you for yourmoney?
Did she try to use you for sex?
Did she?
Did she do bad shit to you?
Did she lie to you?
Was she a fuck girl?
I'll hear these streets likethey would all be, like no,
(32:26):
grace is my girl, she was, shewas the bomb.
Because that dynamic is just sodifferent.
It's so different.
So, while people really wantedto judge tracy, I'm like y'all.
She's literally just wanting tobe around men who aren't toxic.
If you want to judge her forthat, I guess.
If you want to judge me forthat, I guess I guess Go ahead
(32:50):
and judge me for wanting to bearound someone whose values
align with mine, who actuallyknows how to treat me like a
human, who actually possessesthe qualities that I want and
someone who I want to be aroundin my life like, okay, go ahead
and judge me, go ahead and judgeme.
(33:11):
I just think it's real fucked upthat there's a lot of scrutiny
around older women datingyounger men versus older men
dating younger women.
The scrutiny should for sure beon older men dating younger
women, because it's normalizedin our society.
It's even celebrated, yeah,it's made fun of, yeah, we all
make fun of Leonardo DiCapriobecause he don't date nobody
(33:33):
older than 25.
I would love Leonardo DiCaprioto do some sort of live show
with some therapist.
That's literally live and notedited.
What's going on with you?
Because the thing is, because Iknow my reasons.
(33:53):
I don't even want to judgeLeonardo, I just want to
understand.
For example, I will tell youthere is this one time actually,
this is.
This is really funny.
There was one time a 19 year oldtried to talk to me.
I met him on Hinge.
He was 41.
I'm sorry, sorry.
His age on Hinge was 41.
He was 19.
And obviously in his pictures Icould see this man is not 41.
For some reason, on dating apps, there is this whole thing
(34:15):
where it'll have your age wrongand the dating apps will make it
really hard to change.
Like I've come across this inmultiple different dating apps.
So I was like I know his age iswrong.
I can see with my eyeballs he'snot 41.
But I thought maybe he's like28 or 29.
This boy was 19 years old, butanyways, I matched with him and
we got to start talking and Iwas like hey, I can see that
you're.
You know that you're clearlynot 41.
(34:37):
Like how old are you?
The more we got talking like hedidn't tell me, but the more we
got talking I could just tellfrom the way he was talking that
he was a lot younger.
I never met up with him, by theway, never went out with him,
never slept with him, nevernothing.
Let me just be clear.
But I did keep a conversationgoing with him in the app
because I wanted to understandlike what is it about you as
(34:59):
which?
Later I found out he was 19.
I was like what is it about youthat makes you want to talk to
and date a woman who's 48?
And first of all, he didn'twant to date me.
He just wanted to me.
Okay, so let's just make thatclear.
I don't.
I had no illusions that hewanted to take me out and buy me
flowers.
Okay, he did end up telling methat his mom died when he was
like three or four and that hehad some significant mom trauma
(35:22):
and that he wanted someone totake care of him.
I actually appreciated hisvulnerability and, you know, as
a loving, kind, non-predatorywoman, I was just like, hey, you
know, I thank you for tellingme.
I really think you should getsome therapy and, you know,
figure that out, because you'regoing to come across women who
are going to use you, you know,and who are going to take
advantage of that vulnerability.
(35:42):
And then, after we had thatconversation, he got kind of an
attitude problem and then I justblocked him because I was like,
yeah, I'm not going to do this,I'm not going to become a
therapist in the hinge messagingbut the term cougar, which I've
kind of jokingly referred tomyself as, because I have I have
talked to and dated a fewyounger guys and which, by the
(36:02):
way, let me just state the ages.
So there was one guy that I kindof dated, talked to on and off
for a good chunk of time.
He was 34 when we met and I was45, I believe, when we first
met.
And then there was one guy whowas 28 when we met and when and
I was, I think I was 43 or 44.
(36:25):
I don't remember, but Iremember telling him like wow,
there's 18 years between us,like that's significant.
And just like, oh, I don't know.
That was very, very, very brief, very brief because, again,
generationally it's just sodifferent.
When I say I've cougared, Imainly mean me in my mid to late
(36:45):
40s, talking to men who are intheir mid to late 30s, most of
them.
I did have one significantrelationship post my divorce
where he was 38 or 39.
And that's when I actually, atthat point, I was a lot younger,
like well, younger than I amnow.
I was 42, 43 ish, I don'tremember.
But like, for me that was thefirst time I had ever talked to
(37:07):
anybody in their 30s and I wasjust like, oh my God, oh my God,
I'm talking to someone in there, he's 30.
I'm dating someone in their 30s, oh my god.
And I was in my 40s and thatwas like such a huge deal.
But now I'm like whatever, whenI say I've cougared and I'm
cougaring, that's for me what Imean.
(37:27):
And then at some point I justrealized, like because I've had
some friends with benefits,situations with somebody in
their 20s and at some point Irealized even that is probably
just not a good idea, even ifit's not for like long term or
whatever, even though it's fun.
Like Tracy said, you know thereis some perks to late 20s it's
definitely physical and sexualand financial perks to that age
(37:52):
range but it's not a good idea.
But even so there's still kindof like a negative connotation
towards cougaring and I havekind of just joked about it
because I'm like I don't reallythink it's a big deal when, when
it's literally for the purposeof mutual, beneficial,
respectful, kind lovinginteractions that are consensual
(38:14):
if it's sexual and a kindhealthy kind of partnership of
sorts.
If it's not, that it doesn'tmatter what age any of us are.
Like this whole thing withShannon Sharp like yeah, it's
kind of gross that she was 19while he was 56.
But at the same time it's likeit wasn't consensual.
She's accusing him of grape.
(38:34):
Essentially, if you look intoit, she's accusing him of that
you hear audio of him talkingabout.
He's going to choke her and shedoes not have a choice.
There's text messages, which Iwill not repeat here that are
graphic, that have come out withhim detailing the essay that
he's going to do to her.
Besides, they had the race kinkthing.
(38:57):
That is an obvious example ofthat's not a healthy, kind,
mutually loving, mutuallybeneficial anything.
It doesn't matter how old theyare, and he was married to a
black woman before, I guess, andthat ended with him dragging
her out of the house by her hairor something like that.
(39:19):
Speaking of cougaring, I got atext from the person I'm talking
to right now who was youngerthan me, but again in his 30s.
I don't even really feel likethat's cougaring.
Got a text from the person I'mtalking to right now who's
younger than me, but again inhis 30s.
I don't even really feel likethat's cougaring, but maybe some
people would think that'scougaring since I'm 48.
Another thing is that, whereaswomen are typically typically
more interested in like how tobring about positivity out of
(39:42):
each interaction with someone wedate, we're wired for
connection and that can manifestinto like a positive
partnership, like how can wehelp each other, which is
something that has come up withme in dating situations, no
matter how old they are, whichthey're all younger but like how
can we serve each other?
How can we help each other?
And in these older men youngerwomen dynamics.
(40:03):
A lot of times it's about howcan I control you and manipulate
you, and it's pretty obvious Iwill say I don't want to make it
seem like the older womenyounger men dynamic is all shits
and giggles, because, assomeone who has talked to and or
dated men who are almost all ofthem younger than me because of
my own trauma, admittedly,which I will discuss in one
(40:24):
moment here, but also because ofall the reasons I already
mentioned I will say that onething that I have realized is
frustrating for me, which Italked about in my last episode
you should go watch it on why Idecided not to cougar.
Quite as much is because I havebeen in a very similar
situation where some of the menI've talked to have still wanted
(40:45):
to get married and have kids,and it's been frustrating for
both of us.
One of my most significantrelationships post-divorce was
this situation where we gottogether and I was just like,
yeah, he really, really wantedto have his own baby.
And I was on board because atthat point when we met, I think
I was 41 or 42.
And I was like, even though I'mold to be having a baby, let's
do this together, let's do this.
(41:06):
And then, as time went on, likea year went by and I was just
like, man, I do not want to havea baby.
And it was just.
It became a heartbreaking thingfor both of us, cause I could
tell he really, really, reallywanted to have his own baby and
I just was like I can't, I can'tdo that again.
I literally cannot go throughanother pregnancy, not at 43.
You know it wasn't like thedemise of our relationship, but
(41:27):
it was certainly the beginningof the end.
So he did, by the way, end upgetting into a different
relationship and now has abeautiful baby girl and I'm
really happy for him.
But that situation reallyunderscored for me how important
it is to have that conversationand I've dated at least the one
or two men I've talked tosomewhat seriously who wanted to
have kids in the future, likethe one I talked about earlier
(41:48):
who was 35.
That was a big reason why wedidn't move forward, because he
was just like I would.
I would want us to have kidstogether and I'm like I cannot
ever give that to you and thatwas the end of it.
So it's not all shits andgiggles, but I did want to just
bring up why, for me, I do havean issue, that is, an actual
serious issue.
I do have significant traumabecause around my dad which I
(42:09):
did not realize until reallyrecently I think in the last
year I realized this, but my dadwas 44 when I was born.
Okay, so I was born to olderparents, both of them were older
, and when my dad startedabusing me he probably was about
40, I would say 46 or so, andthen he abused me the first 10
years of my life, so that wouldput him at 40, between 44 and 54
(42:34):
.
The first 10 years of my lifehe was essaying me, and so when
I was 10 years old, my dad was54.
And I remember very clearlywhat he looked like at all
stages of the essay and whatdoes he look like?
An older, aging man.
And so when I realized that mytherapist helped me come to that
(42:54):
conclusion, because we weretalking about this and I was
just like sometimes I do want totalk to older men, ones that
don't seem like they're toxicand I feel an ick, like the ick,
the ick I really shouldn't usethat word because that implies
that it's lighthearted Like,because some people will be like
.
Oh, he had on a pink shirt andit uses a Velcro wallet and I
got the ick.
(43:14):
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
I'm talking about literallylike triggered, like an actual
trigger, and I was like I'mliterally grossed out.
And my counselor asked me aboutthat and I was like oh shit, oh
shit.
And then I realized like yeah,yeah, that's part of it for me.
I'm definitely grossed out by,kind of like the signs of aging
(43:38):
in a man between 45 and 55.
And it's not about likeanything shallow, it's literally
kind of triggered.
I'm literally kind of triggered.
I'm literally kind of triggered.
So I'm kind of working.
I am working through thatbecause it's like I'm getting
older.
Eventually I'm going to want todate someone in their 50s who's
got like saggy balls.
You know what I'm saying.
I mean, all balls are kind ofsaggy, right, it feels like they
(44:05):
all are, no matter what age.
But whatever Y'all here, y'allget what I'm saying.
So I think for me there aresome other reasons, but that
still falls kind of low on thetotem pole.
Because I can still look at aman who's like Denzel and other
older black men, because I'mjust primarily attracted to
black men in general and stilllook at them, men who are, are
55, 60 and be like damn, like.
(44:26):
They look fine as fuck, um,like an older, balding black man
with like gray in his beard, aconnected beard.
They look really, really,really good to me.
So I still feel it.
But once they start talkingthen I'm like please, just shut
the fuck up, please, and again Isay please.
(44:49):
The lesson here for us ladiessince this podcast is for women
and particularly for Black women, I think is we have to figure
out what we feel comfortablewith and do what the fuck we
want.
I know that there's people whoare like, oh my God, grace is
cougar and she's a cougar.
I know there's people who thinkit's funny.
Probably there's people whothink it's cringy, although
nobody's told me and I justdecided like I'm not doing
(45:09):
anything wrong, I'm not hurtinganyone.
No one is accusing me ofmanipulating them or saying them
or anything else, because I'mnot that person, or even using
them, because I don't do that.
If I wanted to use an old manfor money, I could have done it
a long, long, long time ago.
But I think we have to do whatis right, what is right and
(45:31):
that's really not up for grabs.
Figure out what you value anddo what is right and do what is
good for you and good for otherpeople and really let the haters
talk Like I don't think TraceeEllis is sitting at a coffee
shop crying because people havemisunderstood or maybe she is.
She's probably like oh my God, Iliterally just don't want to
(45:52):
date toxic old men and I justsay more power to you, tracy.
Like more power to you, yourgirl, I got your back.
I mean, I didn't make this forTracy, I made it for the rest of
us who aren't super wealthy andsuper beautiful and in this
whole other stratosphere.
But what I love about what shesaid is that she has a big, full
(46:12):
life, she has wonderfulfriendships, she's a very
embodied woman, is what she said, and I feel like that too, like
I love my friendships, I lovemy children, I love a lot of
aspects of my life and I'mtrying to upgrade it in a lot of
areas.
And when I think about upgrades, I don't think that a man is
what's going to upgrade my life,so I might as well be around
the ones who are really alignedwith me, who we share like a
(46:35):
mutual kindness and mutualaffection and mutual respect,
and we care to make each other'slife better, like that's who
I'm going to be around, whetherthat man is 28 or 32 or 36 or 38
(46:56):
or 44 or 48 or 52.
And all I'm saying is that Ijust haven't found anyone over
44 who fits that category at all.
And it's not like I ain't beenlooking.
And the last guy I dated who Iwas really excited about, like
(47:17):
someone who I dated recently,who I was really excited about,
I think I may have even like,really fully fell in love with
him, even though we never livein the same city, we never did
more than tongue kiss, we neverslept together and I I respected
him so much.
I thought he was a good guy, hepresented as a good guy, I
thought he was a good guy andthen he hurt me in such a
malicious, unkind way.
(47:39):
And then, as a result of thathappening, I found out that
essentially for the whole lastyear that we were in a talking
stage on and off, he was lyingto me about having a girlfriend.
He had a girlfriend the wholetime, the whole time that we
were talking, and he was 44.
And I just thought like, huh,wow, that's so toxic.
(48:01):
I would expect that from a 54year old, like I did not, did
not see that coming at all,didn't see that coming at all
and he was 44.
It just goes to show, like youjust never know, be safe out
here in these dating streets.
(48:22):
I wish I could wrap up thisepisode in a pretty bow, but I
really can't, because thecishets so many of them are so
toxic, no matter what age theyare, and I'm just really like
having to believe that one day Iwill find someone that is good
for me and we're at an age stageand a generationally like in
(48:42):
line, and that you know, know wecan have somewhat of a happy
life, even if it's not likelongevity.
I don't think longevity isnecessarily a hallmark of a
healthy relationship, but we canhave a good life together.
But anyway, y'all be safe, dowhat makes you happy and ignore
these haters.
Okay, that's where we are.
Before I go, let me just tellyou this episode is sponsored by
(49:03):
grace.
Actually is a book that I wrote, actually memoirs of love,
faith loss and black womanhood.
If you appreciate my voice andmy stories, this book is
literally memoirs of my storiesof love, faith, loss and black
womanhood, and I'm hoping tostart a second one soon, but
this is available on Amazon in ahard copy like this, or you can
get in a digital copy and readit on your Kindle in the Kindle
(49:25):
app on your phone or your iPad.
I have a newsletter on subset,called out here thriving, and it
covers six areas.
So if you appreciate again myvoice and my writing, I'm going
to be starting that soon.
It's going to cover soulfulSundays, mindful moments, body,
beautiful, grown woman, wisdom,a creative corner, creative
sparks, ish and and communityconnections.
I also have a facebook group andthe facebook group is a little
(49:47):
bit dormant right now.
I don't know what I'm doing it,but if you want a space to talk
about stuff that happened thatI talk about on this episode,
I'll leave the link for thefacebook group.
It's called the alvear tryingto survive podcast community
group.
It's completely free.
Everything I do right now isfree, except for my book.
However, if you appreciate thispodcast and want to support you
, can support me on patreon orbecome a paid member on sub
stack.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I appreciate you.
(50:07):
You could be anywhere, butyou're here and I appreciate
that so much.
Thank you for listening.
Please leave me a comment.
Let me know where y'all are at.
How old are you?
How old do you date?
Did you have an age range up?
Do you have an age range down,like, let me know, let's talk.
Anyway, thank you for beinghere and I'll see y'all in the
next episode.
Bye.
Not them comparing Shannon Sharp to Tracy Ellis
Ross.
Dear Lord Jesus, help us all,good grief.
Today we're going to talk aboutanother area where Misogynoir
just presents its ugly littlehead, because they just
completely took everything Tracysaid right the hell out of
context, added some Misogynoirat astonishing levels and then
(00:23):
had the nerve to compare her toShannon Sharp, the man who has
like two, maybe three essaycases out on him like y'all,
come on, be so fucking for real,be so fucking for real as a
woman who has dated, youngerdated and or messed around with.
Let me just clarify that,because when I talk about dating
, I mean basically in thetalking phase, getting to know
(00:45):
someone you're hanging out, butthat's different from being in
an exclusive, committedrelationship and it's also
different than just, you know,kind of hanging around and
having fun.
Those are three wildlydifferent categories for me.
I have hung around and have funwith younger men.
So yeah, today I want to talkabout this whole thing with
Tracy Ellis Ross and hercomments about being a 52 year
old who dates younger men, whichis what she said.
(01:07):
She did not clarify the age atwhich she dates.
We can only assume that whenshe says younger men, it means
younger than her.
It could be someone who wasborn in 1976.
Like myself, who's 48.
It could be someone who wasborn in 1970, who's 40.
Like myself, who's 48.
(01:27):
It could be someone who wasborn in 1970, who's 40.
It could be somebody who is 30,like she never once said that
she dates 19 year olds.
The fact that she's gettingcompared to Shannon Sharp is so
sad to me and I really am notgoing to get too much into
Shannon Sharp because it's justridiculous, but mostly just as a
jumping off point for the waythat Tracy got compared to him
because of what he's goingthrough right now.
But just this dynamic of datingolder and younger and, as black
(01:51):
women, like what are we to do,especially black women in my age
range I'm I'm really in TracyEllis's age range because I'm 48
.
She's only four years olderthan me.
She's 52.
We're right there.
Tracy and I could date younger,down 10 15 years and above us,
up 10 15 years, and still windup in the same, you know, kind
of category of generation of men.
(02:11):
So I kind of really relate withher and I really, really,
really related to her statementsand I want to talk about that
and I really loathe that wedon't embrace nuance when we're
talking about the differencebetween older men dating younger
women and younger women.
And sorry, an older womandating younger men, because off,
(02:32):
jump, off, jump y'all.
We know that when older men dateyounger women, it is often
predatory Often.
And also that whole issue thatmen of all ages a certain
percent of them that aretroubled tend to like to enjoy
girls who are younger than them15 year old boys liking 11 year
(02:56):
old girls, 18 year old boysliking 12 year old girls, 50
year old men liking 16 year oldgirls.
We're not gonna pretend likethat elephant is not in the room
with us.
The elephant is in the roomwith us.
The percentage of men and younotice, I'm not saying not all,
I'm not saying all men becauseit's really not and I really
know that for sure it's not allmen but the percentage of men
(03:20):
who like to prey upon and bepredatory towards younger women
and younger girls is quite high.
There's a reason why a legal agewas declared for women.
You can't touch her legallyuntil she's 18.
Why do y'all think that lawcame into place?
Just ask yourself that.
(03:40):
Why did that law come intoplace?
Because so many men were tryingto take advantage of.
And you know there's whole lawsin other countries about how
old a girl is old enough to bemarried Because, as y'all know,
child marriage is a thing inother countries a despicable,
horrible, terrible thing.
We cannot ignore that when wehave this conversation and act
(04:03):
like it's the same when olderwomen date younger men.
Okay, we just we not fun to dothat.
So anyway, that's part of it.
The other thing that I want totalk about in general is what
she said about why she doesn'tlike to date older men, and I
wanted to talk about that too,because I have not dated an
older man.
I dated one man because I'vebeen out here dating in these
(04:25):
dating streets.
Recently I dated a man who wasI forgot how old he was.
He's a little bit older.
He was either 49 or 50 or 51 or52.
He was like right above me.
I'm gonna have to ask himbecause we're still friends, but
really that's it.
Everyone else has been younger.
I've been on dating apps and Idid for a while set my age range
to 35 to 55.
(04:46):
And that's in the range of mebeing 45 to now.
I'm not a dating apps right now, but like when I was on them, I
was willing to go as low as 35and willing to go as high as 55
and just found myself having alot of issues with the older men
in general.
Well, also, you know, if we'retalking about dating apps, just
(05:08):
as a super side note, y'all knowthat on dating apps, the men
who are older on dating apps are, you know, in the nicest way
possible, it's really like thebottom of the barrel, because
men who have the kind of thingsthat a well-established woman in
my age range would want in aman, they don't probably, I'm
assuming, tend to be on datingapps.
(05:29):
Now, if you've met an older manwho embodied all of this and
you met on a dating app,actually comment below and let
me know.
Okay, let me know, says, let meknow which app he was on.
Okay, because sometimes I lookat these older men on dating
apps and I'm like you got to bekidding me.
Like you can't even take a goodpicture, like please learn how
to find someone to mentor you onthe correct angle, cause y'all,
(05:52):
y'all, they got.
Okay, for those of you who arelistening and not watching, you
know they got the camera attheir kneecaps, they taking a
picture and all you can see islike there are three double
chins.
I have a double chin.
Look, and all you can see islike there are three double
chins.
I have a double chin.
Look y'all, I have a doublechin.
Do y'all see me taking picturesfrom below?
No, you take them up here.
You take them up here so youcan't see the double chin.
(06:12):
Okay, that's how you take apicture.
These older men have not evengotten insight into how to take
a picture correctly so that wecan actually think, okay, he is
attractive.
And if they can't do thatcorrectly on a dating app, are
they dateable?
And I promise you y'all I'm notshallow at all, but I'm just
(06:35):
using that as and I reallyhonestly and truly try to have
an openness for things that somewomen might not even have an
openness to like I'm okay withshort kings.
I don't set my height limit tosix feet.
I don't, because I've met somany men under six feet who are
really good, cool guys.
So I'm not shallow.
I don't declare they have tomake six figures, they have to
(06:56):
be over six feet tall.
They have to have perfectlywhite, straight teeth, like.
I don't even do all of thatshit.
I really do think there are somany good men who just don't
look and fit the part that a lotof women are looking for.
So I'm not saying that from ashallow place, I'm saying that
as an example, like, if theycan't figure out some small
things, just know they're notfiguring out the bigger things
(07:16):
either.
So, yeah, I haven't dated oldermen, but that's not why I want
to go into the real reasons why.
That's just a small littleexample.
I want to talk about some of thegender dynamics in general that
are preventing women likemyself and, let me state,
younger women in general toofrom wanting to date older men,
(07:36):
because more and more youngerwomen are moving away from that
older man dynamic, even thoughthose older men got money, and
that's a new thing.
I want to discuss that as well,and I also want to talk about
what do we, as black women, needto do, moving forward.
For those of us who are outhere single in these dating
slums, not even these datingstreets, we're not even out here
in these dating streets.
We are out here in the datingslums.
(07:57):
We are slumming it in 2025.
Okay, slumming it.
It's so hard.
It is so hard out here.
It's hard to date as a.
It's hard to be single in 2025.
And he's dating streets.
But here's.
Here's one thing that I willsay I feel encouraged by.
I just saw one of my favoritepodcasts is diary of a CEO
(08:18):
podcast.
I will link the episode below.
But I just saw a recent episodefrom the behavioral scientist I
forgot her name.
She just wrote a book calledhow to die alone.
I'll put it right here and shedid an interview with I forgot
his name Is his name steven ondiary ceo and he was talking
about you know why is dating sohard right now?
And she brought up how the wholeidea of modern dating is just
(08:39):
like you know, as young as asrecently as from the 1890s, and
dating apps in general arereally only like we're really
only 10 years into this wholedating app world.
And she was just like.
So if you feel like you're kindof bouncing around, you can't
figure it out, you're not makinggood matches.
It's a really hard thing to do.
She was like we're really only10 years into figuring it out
(09:01):
and in some way, just have gracefor yourself, because it's not
a perfect science.
I don't know that if, if you'resingle and that's comforting to
you like it was to me.
Just take heart, it's not you,we're all just trying to figure
this out.
So first let's talk about thereluctance of many of us to date
older men, and why so?
Tracy Ellis Ross, she literallysaid on Michelle Obama's new
(09:23):
podcast with her brother whichis so cute, by the way, I've
only seen like two or threeepisodes.
It's called IMO, which is alsoso cute in my opinion.
I just think it's adorable.
Anyway, she said on MichelleObama's podcast that she's
finding that she doesn't like todate older men because a lot of
them are really seeped in toxicmasculinity.
Now, this is something Iliterally said in my last
(09:45):
episode, because my last episodeI talked about a recent
cougaring dating situation withsomeone who was much younger
than me and I literally wastalking about this whole idea of
why I don't date men who areover 50.
So go check it out.
But one of the reasons that Isaid is because men over 50
don't tend to be as progressiveLike.
(10:06):
One thing that drives me crazythese days in dating is I just
really don't want to date anyonewho has any little teeny tiny
speck of homophobia ortransphobia.
I really just want to date anemotionally mature man who can
say, even if they say, I don'tnecessarily agree with my
(10:26):
lifestyle, but that's not mybusiness, that's their life.
I'm not gay, I'm not trans, butI support them to go be their
own person.
That's not even ideal for me.
The ideal person would say,yeah, I'm an ally, I'm an ally
to the gays and to the transfolks.
Let's be allies together.
Like let's protect the mostvulnerable people in our society
.
Like that's what I would love.
Like if I met a man who wasjust like let's be an ally
(10:49):
together, boo, I'd be like oh mygod, I'm in love.
I really have bonded really,really quickly, because that's a
high value for me personally.
For me, I would love to meet agay, trans, you know LGBTQIA
plus ally.
That would be lovely.
But I'm finding that when I'mmeeting, the older a man gets,
(11:09):
the less likely he is to even beaccepting of gay and trans
folks.
The older he gets, the morehe's not just an ally, he's an
enemy.
He's literally an enemy to thegay, trans, lgbtqia plus family
in general.
And I look at them like you gotto be fucking kidding me, right
(11:30):
, you got to be fucking kiddingme Like you're really fucking
kidding me, like.
You're going to look at me,someone who is obviously an
advocate, someone who'sobviously part of a marginalized
community, as a black woman,you gonna look at me and have
the nerve to talk poorly about amarginalized people group whose
only desire it is to live inpeace and mind that goddamn
(11:51):
fucking business like that'swhat you're going to do with
your one precious little wastedlife is talk poorly about people
who want nothing more than tolive freely, bet, bet, anyway,
that's just one thing.
So if you can imagine, when youmeet people which, by the way,
if you're here and you're not anally or a friend to, or if
(12:16):
you're an enemy to, the LGBTQIAplus people, I would just invite
you to unfollow me.
Unfollow me, don't watch mypodcast unless you're here to
learn something.
That's not really what I talkabout, because I'm not part of
the community, but I am an ally.
So just let me make that clearbecause I just I don't fuck with
y'all.
I really don't fuck with peoplewho cannot find grace and mercy
(12:37):
in their heart to love peoplewho are not like them.
It really just frustrates me tono fucking end, no end.
So if you, if I, meet a manwho's hateful of marginalized
communities, it's very easy forme to deduce that they also will
have some misogynoir in theirheart.
Misogynoir is the hatred ofBlack women.
(12:58):
If you're alive and breathingin America, you probably know
that there's a good fair amountof Black American men who really
do not like Black women andthey will date us, they will
fuck us, they'll marry us.
They don't like, they'll marryus.
They don't like us, baby, theydon't like us.
It's not a far leap.
If someone can't respect amarginalized community, they're
(13:21):
not going to respect you.
If they don't have empathy formarginalized communities,
they're probably not going tohave empathy for you.
As a black woman, I could betainted because my black ass
ex-husband hid his hatred ofblack women, his homophobia and
his transphobia from me untilafter we got married.
He had a lot of shit for meuntil after we got married and
(13:42):
then the full extent of his hateand dislike for all of those
categories came out.
Somebody might be like Grace.
You might be a little, slightlybit, traumatized.
I might be.
I might be.
But I also do know that peoplewho tend to have empathy for
hurting people, even hurtinganimals, that empathy tends to
extend out to other marginalizedcommunities, people who have
old school mindsets.
(14:03):
Particularly older black menwill typically keep those
hateful mindsets and it spansout across a lot of different
communities.
And that's just one thing.
But there's a lot of reasons.
Women my age okay, let'sactually break it down women who
are in the 50s, like Tracywomen and like me, in our 40s,
women in their 30s and women intheir 20s are not fucking with
(14:25):
older men.
Because the thing is a lot ofthese older men think because
they have money, they can justrun out and get themselves any
look any little young coochie.
But a lot of those youngcoochies, bro.
They're using you.
I don't know if you know this,but there's whole platforms.
You know the sprinkle sprinklelady, the sprinkle sprinkle lady
.
She exists to teach women ofany age range how to use men for
(14:48):
money.
I fucking hate her.
I think she's a fucking idiot,but that's what she does.
And there's millions andmillions and millions of women
picking up tips and tricks abouthow to use these older idiots
for money.
Younger women are not checkingfor older men because they're in
love.
They're using them.
(15:09):
These older men think I can getme a little young hot tamale
any day.
Bro, you can't get a hot tamalethat's going to love you, if
love and respect is what youreally want.
It's very rare, boo.
That's why you're not gettingthose little young tamales who
aren't trying to use you.
Why are you not getting womenin your 30s?
Why are you not getting womenlike me in my 40s or women like
(15:32):
Tracy in her 50s?
And also Tracy's in the categoryoutside of all this?
She's Diana Ross's daughter.
She's had a long, thriving,successful career.
She's filthy rich.
She comes from a good, healthyfamily.
She's beautiful.
She's childless.
She's in the category of herown.
I almost don't even want to puther in the same category of as
(15:53):
me, as a nobody, but I'm justsaying like she could get a man,
any man, 35,000 times fasterthan I could.
Let's just say that, notdowning myself.
I'm just trying to, you know,recognize like we're in a
different place socially,financially, stratospherically
in every way.
But these older men, they don'thave progressive value.
Younger women and myself, meand Tracy have done, you know,
(16:18):
years of work of pursuing andfiguring out like what are the
progressive values that wereally hold dear, whereas these
younger generations, gen Z,these young millennials and Gen
Z and Gen Alpha well, gen Alphais still really young.
But these next generations,like they don't have to search
it out like Tracy and I did,they don't have to go to the
library and look at the books,like because we didn't have the
(16:40):
World Wide Web.
You know, I grew up without theWorld Wide Web.
I didn't really have access tothe Internet, ongoing until I
was married in my early 20s.
Y'all OK.
Older men hold very traditional,outdated views still and they
refuse to let it go aboutcontrol about gender roles.
They still want you to come fixtheir plate for them.
(17:01):
Before you even get a chance tosit down, they're going to be
eating their plate.
There's an incompatibility,fundamental incompatibility,
with progressive values nowadays.
Another thing these older menare still signed up for,
willingly for the patriarchy.
They're still here for thepatriarchy.
They're still gung-ho for themotherfucking patriarchy and,
(17:24):
what's worse, they think that awoman like myself who is trying
to destroy, defeat, demolish andabolish the patriarchy.
They think we're wild andmisbehaved and angry and
terrible women.
Which is great.
It's actually entertaining.
This is not rocket science.
(17:46):
Women in their 50s, 40s, 30s and20s do not want to date a man
with ingrained patriarchal views.
Still, we don't.
We don't want y'allmotherfuckers, because y'all are
going to be all about thesesubtle ass power imbalances that
make living with youinsufferable and intolerable,
which is why y'all wives leftyou, why your third wife left
(18:09):
you, why you don't have arelationship with your children.
That's why you're alone on adating app taking a fucking
picture from a bad angle.
That's why.
That's why and we show as fuckdon't want you to limit our
autonomy, which is what these,this tip, the older men, are on
like, yeah, come on, come on,it's 2025.
(18:29):
Like we can have our own bankaccounts now, sir.
We have credit cards in ourname, sir, we have homes in our
name, sir, we have cars in ournames, we're building
generational wealth, we havemultiple degrees, we're taking
care of our children and you'regoing to try to limit my
autonomy.
Really, these older men, menlike Shannon Sharp, are
(18:50):
practicing toxic masculinity.
Men like Shannon Sharp arepracticing toxic masculinity.
Shannon Sharp has a case in2004, an essay case in 2004,.
An essay case in 2012 or 2014.
I forgot the year, but it waslike more than a decade ago.
She, just in light of this newsituation with this 19 year old,
(19:10):
the woman from 2012 or 2014,just reopened her case and she's
representing herself,apparently.
And then in this recent casefor most of y'all know it's
troubling the allegations arecoming out are troubling as hell
.
Not to mention that she's 19and, yes, even though she's
legal, he's 56 and all thedynamic, the aforementioned
dynamics that I talked aboutabout older men and women who
are teenagers.
(19:31):
She's a literal teen.
She was a literal teenager whenthey met.
All that is present, but that'sall toxic masculinity.
Toxic masculinity, if you don'tknow, includes emotionally
repressing people, using yourmanhood and maleness to
emotionally repress, to dominate, to be the aggressor,
unnecessary aggression and theobjectification of women.
(19:51):
In general, older men tend tohave a much higher prevalence of
this bullshit aggressor,unnecessary aggression in the
objectification of women.
In general.
Older men tend to have a muchhigher prevalence of this
bullshit and also they'resomehow less emotionally
intelligent to know that they'redoing it, but also somehow are
worse at hiding it, becausesometimes men who are really
good at being toxic masculinemen, they can hide it and the
subtlety is what is kind ofkeeps them in the game, but,
(20:14):
like older men are just likewoman.
Get your ass over here and sitdown.
You're like, could you at leasthide that you're a toxic, a
toxic man?
You just gonna have it all outhere in these streets like y'all
, you make it so easy, y'allmake it so easy to just move the
fuck on generationaldifferences.
These boomers out here in thesestreets, like shannon sharp,
these boomers are notemotionally intelligent, as I
(20:36):
mentioned before, and emotionalintelligence is like the new
currency.
One of the dating coaches onhinge said that too.
Like, emotional intelligence iswhat a lot of women want these
days and I would say that too.
It is like the number one thing, like when I meet girlfriends.
You know not to brag, but allmy girlfriends are so
emotionally intelligent.
I I just really tend to attractemotionally intelligent woman
(20:59):
to woman relationships and welove each other Well, we talk to
each other Well, we hold spacefor each other's tears, we hold
space for each other's sadnessand depression.
They don't say mean things tome, we don't deal with jealousy
and this is like literally allof my life I've had the best
(21:19):
good girlfriends, I've had somerelationships and but they're
all really peaceful and ifthey're not peaceful and if I
feel like there's jealousy orangst or weirdness or toxicity,
I just exit it or they exit it.
I just don't tend to keep womenlike that around.
So I know it's possible.
I know it's possible.
I've enjoyed it all my life.
It's so easy to see when I meetmen, particularly like 40, 45,
50, 55 and older, that they justdon't have that gift.
(21:39):
They have not developed it.
The way that women are attunedto our emotions and figure out
how to navigate that inrelationships in a way that
brings peace, men just don'ttend to do that work.
A lot of them, not all of them,a lot of them.
And that lack of emotionalintelligence is glaring in older
(22:00):
men.
It's glaring.
No one in 2025 wants to teacholder men how to do that.
I'll be damned.
I will be damned if I'm gonnasit around and teach an older
man how to be a good boyfriendto me, how to be a good
boyfriend.
Can you please just let me cry?
Oh, that's funny.
(22:25):
One thing I can say that Ireally love about Tracy, her
comments and myself and otherwomen who are bringing awareness
to this is that we have grownup with these more open
conversations.
It's mainstream now.
Feminism is mainstream,intersectional feminism is
mainstream and there is aheightened awareness out here in
(22:46):
these streets.
We know what problematicbehavior is.
I mean, I had a literal wholeTikTok channel for a while.
I don't focus on it anymore,but my whole TikTok channel for
a while was focused on the signsof narcissistic abuse, signs of
love bombing, signs you'retrauma bonded.
Women are out here in everysocial media platforming giving
(23:07):
wisdom and imparting wisdom onhow to essentially survive cis
heterosexual men, and I lovethat for us.
I love that for us.
I don't love the sprinklesprinkle lady and what she's
doing, because I think teachingpeople to do evil things is, in
in and of itself, evil.
It's literally like KevinSamuels or other men of his ilk
(23:28):
and other red pill men who areout here teaching men how to be
evil to women.
If there is a man who built awhole platform on teaching men
how to basically just use andhave sex with women which I know
there are and I don't even wantto say his name because we know
the popular I really don't evenwant to utter his name.
We know who he is.
If you want to be a good humanand this platform is for people
who want to be good humans Iwould like to be a good human.
(23:51):
I'm never going to teach y'allhow to take advantage of another
human and do harm to them, evenif you are the marginalized
community which this channel isfor black women.
I'm a black woman.
I still don't think that theresponse to years of oppression
and violence is to try tooppress in a different, more
unique and modern way.
Like no, no, I love that rightnow, in this current genre of
(24:15):
women like myself, we really doprioritize relationships that
are based on mutual trust,understanding.
We really want equality, wewant genuine partnership.
We really want to be inrelationships with our good
girlfriends, with our gay guyfriends and with our romantic,
cis, heterosexual datingpartners that reflect equality
(24:39):
and love and kindness.
And baby, these boomers.
They're like what you want?
Equality.
What now?
What?
Also, these Gen Z's out here.
Okay, y'all my kids.
I have one Gen Alpha and twoGen Z's and they are much more
willing.
(24:59):
Them and all of their friends,these younger generations, are
much more willing to challengetraditional-ish, are activists
at 13, 14.
Look at Greta.
What's her name?
Greta, the little white girlfrom whatever where.
She is the environmentalactivist.
(25:21):
She's an activist when she waslike nine.
Like these gen z, gen alphakids.
They're like we are not afraidto call out the bullshit of the
generations before us, and Ireally think that all of the
generations of women are like weare just not going to bend to
pressure and be willing toaccept a boomer or even a Gen
(25:47):
Xer who is toxic to us.
Like we just not.
And like I said about how Ireally don't like dating men who
aren't LGBTQIA plus allies thisgeneration of women that's
coming up in the world,especially the younger ones,
they also want that samealignment.
They want shared values,particularly around social and
(26:09):
political issues.
Did y'all see?
Did y'all see?
There's a meme that I saw.
Actually, it wasn't even a meme, it was an article.
I don't know where I saw it.
I saw it on Instagram.
I saw the article, like thescreenshot of the top of the
article, but it basically saidthat there isn't Trump don't or
Trump.
People who work for Trump in DCor people who work at the White
House, people who align withhim, are having a hard time
(26:30):
dating in DC because no onewants to date them.
I just thought that was sofunny.
I laughed so hard when I sawthat.
I was just like that's becausewe don't want to date assholes.
So, yeah, I I'm sorry for y'allthat y'all literally chose to
(26:54):
align with a fascist dictatorand now no one wants to give you
coochie.
Sorry, that's what happens whenyou choose evil.
And those aren't even older men,y'all.
Those are men in their 30s.
These are like men who you know, went to harvard and and yale
and and now they're working on apolitical campaign, working for
(27:18):
Trump, and can't get coachybecause nobody wants to align
with a fascist dictator.
These women nowadays we're notplaying with y'all.
We are not here to play.
We want gender equality.
We want you to care aboutsocial justice issues.
We want you to be inclusive.
We want you to have a modicumof emotional intelligence.
(27:40):
We want you to care about thesethings, not so that you can get
coachy, but because you'reactually just a good person.
Yeah, and we just can't.
I know I mentioned this earlier,but it cannot be underestimated
the impact that social mediaplatforms and the fact that
women are sharing with eachother, our experiences dating
older men, our experiencesdating men who are less
(28:02):
emotionally unintelligent, ourexperiences just opting out of
being with any cishet men of anyage range, just because of how
much cishet men tend to not allof them siphon every good thing
(28:23):
out of us, and I haveexperienced that too, y'all.
I mean, I've literally been outhere in these dating streets
since my last seriousrelationship was in the summer
of 2022.
So it's been about almost threeyears that I have been not
exclusive with anyone, reallyjust dating around.
I've been on dating apps, I'vebeen trying to get to know men.
You know, I haven't dated likea crazy amount, but at a steady
(28:47):
clip.
So I'll go, I'll, you know,date a few people, I'll be in
the talking phase with a fewpeople and then, you know,
something will happen or I'llget a little bit past the
talking phase.
Like maybe three weeks tends tobe right around the time that a
man will start beingdisappointing and or toxic and
or will realize it's not goingto work because of big, huge
(29:07):
differences or travel orwhatever it is, depending on how
catastrophic the interaction is.
Depends on how long I'll goagain before I can like get up
the nerve because, like Tracysaid and I really just vibed
with her on this like if youwant to have a partner, me and
her are really different because, unlike her, I was married for
20 years of my adult life and soI kind of feel very wore out on
(29:31):
that and I have three kids andI don't want anymore.
She had said in the episode withher and Michelle Obama that she
feels a little bit of pain onthe fact that she never decided
to like settle down and getmarried.
Not that she couldn't have.
She decided not to.
She decided not to havechildren and she said I'll sit
with that and then I'll decide,yeah, I would really like to
have a partner.
(29:51):
And then she'll go back outthere and date and then come up
against the issues and pull back, which is exactly the cycle
that I'm on too, except I mightbe a little bit more tired,
tracy, having had theexperiences of marriage behind
me, and particularly one of themwhich was horrific domestic
violence.
It just it makes you tired in abig, big, big way.
(30:12):
But one thing I've realized isthat in dating around, is that
I've so often met up with menwho are not even all the way
like problematic.
I definitely have come acrosssome problematic as hell men,
but I've also met some reallygood ones.
I really feel like I've comeacross a good five to six to
seven to maybe even eight goodmen, and it just didn't work out
(30:36):
with in this last year.
So I can't even say like theywere all terrible, they were all
toxic, because, no, I've reallymet some good ones and some of
them I'm still friends with.
Like the guy who I was with in2022, who were no longer
together.
He's like one of my bestfriends now Not sexual at all,
we're just completely friends.
We talk pretty regularly, wehelp each other out, you know,
(30:58):
with our situations of otherpeople we're dating.
It's completely platonic and Ilove him as a friend.
And he was a younger man heturned 40 this year but, for
example, he's someone who ismuch more progressive and I love
him as a friend.
There is a number of men most ofthe men I've dated, most of the
men I've dated actually wentout on dates with and or slept
(31:20):
with and or had anythingsignificant with I'm still
friends with and most of thosemen are all younger than me.
And that's another bigdifference between the older men
dating younger women.
Usually it ends in a lawsuit,especially when you're someone
like Shannon Sharp and you'rebeing accused of SA for the
third time with the third women.
But, like when older women dateyounger men, it's not predatory
(31:43):
.
It's usually about like let'shave an equal, mutually
exclusive, mutually beneficialrelationship, slash partnership,
whether we agree that it'sgoing to be friends, friends
with benefits, dating intimacy,let's fall in love, let's get
married, like, whatever theiteration is that it's decided
upon.
Almost all the men who I'vedated in some way, that's even
(32:04):
tiny bit remotely like wow, wein this I'm literally still
friends with you could literallyask any of them did Grace harm
you?
Did she try to use you?
Did she try to use you for yourmoney?
Did she try to use you?
Did she try to use you for yourmoney?
Did she try to use you for sex?
Did she?
Did she do bad shit to you?
Did she lie to you?
Was she a fuck girl?
I'll hear these streets likethey would all be, like no,
(32:26):
grace is my girl, she was, shewas the bomb.
Because that dynamic is just sodifferent.
It's so different.
So, while people really wantedto judge tracy, I'm like y'all.
She's literally just wanting tobe around men who aren't toxic.
If you want to judge her forthat, I guess.
If you want to judge me forthat, I guess I guess Go ahead
(32:50):
and judge me for wanting to bearound someone whose values
align with mine, who actuallyknows how to treat me like a
human, who actually possessesthe qualities that I want and
someone who I want to be aroundin my life like, okay, go ahead
and judge me, go ahead and judgeme.
(33:11):
I just think it's real fucked upthat there's a lot of scrutiny
around older women datingyounger men versus older men
dating younger women.
The scrutiny should for sure beon older men dating younger
women, because it's normalizedin our society.
It's even celebrated, yeah,it's made fun of, yeah, we all
make fun of Leonardo DiCapriobecause he don't date nobody
(33:33):
older than 25.
I would love Leonardo DiCaprioto do some sort of live show
with some therapist.
That's literally live and notedited.
What's going on with you?
Because the thing is, because Iknow my reasons.
(33:53):
I don't even want to judgeLeonardo, I just want to
understand.
For example, I will tell youthere is this one time actually,
this is.
This is really funny.
There was one time a 19 year oldtried to talk to me.
I met him on Hinge.
He was 41.
I'm sorry, sorry.
His age on Hinge was 41.
He was 19.
And obviously in his pictures Icould see this man is not 41.
For some reason, on dating apps, there is this whole thing
(34:15):
where it'll have your age wrongand the dating apps will make it
really hard to change.
Like I've come across this inmultiple different dating apps.
So I was like I know his age iswrong.
I can see with my eyeballs he'snot 41.
But I thought maybe he's like28 or 29.
This boy was 19 years old, butanyways, I matched with him and
we got to start talking and Iwas like hey, I can see that
you're.
You know that you're clearlynot 41.
(34:37):
Like how old are you?
The more we got talking like hedidn't tell me, but the more we
got talking I could just tellfrom the way he was talking that
he was a lot younger.
I never met up with him, by theway, never went out with him,
never slept with him, nevernothing.
Let me just be clear.
But I did keep a conversationgoing with him in the app
because I wanted to understandlike what is it about you as
(34:59):
which?
Later I found out he was 19.
I was like what is it about youthat makes you want to talk to
and date a woman who's 48?
And first of all, he didn'twant to date me.
He just wanted to me.
Okay, so let's just make thatclear.
I don't.
I had no illusions that hewanted to take me out and buy me
flowers.
Okay, he did end up telling methat his mom died when he was
like three or four and that hehad some significant mom trauma
(35:22):
and that he wanted someone totake care of him.
I actually appreciated hisvulnerability and, you know, as
a loving, kind, non-predatorywoman, I was just like, hey, you
know, I thank you for tellingme.
I really think you should getsome therapy and, you know,
figure that out, because you'regoing to come across women who
are going to use you, you know,and who are going to take
advantage of that vulnerability.
(35:42):
And then, after we had thatconversation, he got kind of an
attitude problem and then I justblocked him because I was like,
yeah, I'm not going to do this,I'm not going to become a
therapist in the hinge messagingbut the term cougar, which I've
kind of jokingly referred tomyself as, because I have I have
talked to and dated a fewyounger guys and which, by the
(36:02):
way, let me just state the ages.
So there was one guy that I kindof dated, talked to on and off
for a good chunk of time.
He was 34 when we met and I was45, I believe, when we first
met.
And then there was one guy whowas 28 when we met and when and
I was, I think I was 43 or 44.
(36:25):
I don't remember, but Iremember telling him like wow,
there's 18 years between us,like that's significant.
And just like, oh, I don't know.
That was very, very, very brief, very brief because, again,
generationally it's just sodifferent.
When I say I've cougared, Imainly mean me in my mid to late
(36:45):
40s, talking to men who are intheir mid to late 30s, most of
them.
I did have one significantrelationship post my divorce
where he was 38 or 39.
And that's when I actually, atthat point, I was a lot younger,
like well, younger than I amnow.
I was 42, 43 ish, I don'tremember.
But like, for me that was thefirst time I had ever talked to
(37:07):
anybody in their 30s and I wasjust like, oh my God, oh my God,
I'm talking to someone in there, he's 30.
I'm dating someone in their 30s, oh my god.
And I was in my 40s and thatwas like such a huge deal.
But now I'm like whatever, whenI say I've cougared and I'm
cougaring, that's for me what Imean.
(37:27):
And then at some point I justrealized, like because I've had
some friends with benefits,situations with somebody in
their 20s and at some point Irealized even that is probably
just not a good idea, even ifit's not for like long term or
whatever, even though it's fun.
Like Tracy said, you know thereis some perks to late 20s it's
definitely physical and sexualand financial perks to that age
(37:52):
range but it's not a good idea.
But even so there's still kindof like a negative connotation
towards cougaring and I havekind of just joked about it
because I'm like I don't reallythink it's a big deal when, when
it's literally for the purposeof mutual, beneficial,
respectful, kind lovinginteractions that are consensual
(38:14):
if it's sexual and a kindhealthy kind of partnership of
sorts.
If it's not, that it doesn'tmatter what age any of us are.
Like this whole thing withShannon Sharp like yeah, it's
kind of gross that she was 19while he was 56.
But at the same time it's likeit wasn't consensual.
She's accusing him of grape.
(38:34):
Essentially, if you look intoit, she's accusing him of that
you hear audio of him talkingabout.
He's going to choke her and shedoes not have a choice.
There's text messages, which Iwill not repeat here that are
graphic, that have come out withhim detailing the essay that
he's going to do to her.
Besides, they had the race kinkthing.
(38:57):
That is an obvious example ofthat's not a healthy, kind,
mutually loving, mutuallybeneficial anything.
It doesn't matter how old theyare, and he was married to a
black woman before, I guess, andthat ended with him dragging
her out of the house by her hairor something like that.
(39:19):
Speaking of cougaring, I got atext from the person I'm talking
to right now who was youngerthan me, but again in his 30s.
I don't even really feel likethat's cougaring.
Got a text from the person I'mtalking to right now who's
younger than me, but again inhis 30s.
I don't even really feel likethat's cougaring, but maybe some
people would think that'scougaring since I'm 48.
Another thing is that, whereaswomen are typically typically
more interested in like how tobring about positivity out of
(39:42):
each interaction with someone wedate, we're wired for
connection and that can manifestinto like a positive
partnership, like how can wehelp each other, which is
something that has come up withme in dating situations, no
matter how old they are, whichthey're all younger but like how
can we serve each other?
How can we help each other?
And in these older men youngerwomen dynamics.
(40:03):
A lot of times it's about howcan I control you and manipulate
you, and it's pretty obvious Iwill say I don't want to make it
seem like the older womenyounger men dynamic is all shits
and giggles, because, assomeone who has talked to and or
dated men who are almost all ofthem younger than me because of
my own trauma, admittedly,which I will discuss in one
(40:24):
moment here, but also because ofall the reasons I already
mentioned I will say that onething that I have realized is
frustrating for me, which Italked about in my last episode
you should go watch it on why Idecided not to cougar.
Quite as much is because I havebeen in a very similar
situation where some of the menI've talked to have still wanted
(40:45):
to get married and have kids,and it's been frustrating for
both of us.
One of my most significantrelationships post-divorce was
this situation where we gottogether and I was just like,
yeah, he really, really wantedto have his own baby.
And I was on board because atthat point when we met, I think
I was 41 or 42.
And I was like, even though I'mold to be having a baby, let's
do this together, let's do this.
(41:06):
And then, as time went on, likea year went by and I was just
like, man, I do not want to havea baby.
And it was just.
It became a heartbreaking thingfor both of us, cause I could
tell he really, really, reallywanted to have his own baby and
I just was like I can't, I can'tdo that again.
I literally cannot go throughanother pregnancy, not at 43.
You know it wasn't like thedemise of our relationship, but
(41:27):
it was certainly the beginningof the end.
So he did, by the way, end upgetting into a different
relationship and now has abeautiful baby girl and I'm
really happy for him.
But that situation reallyunderscored for me how important
it is to have that conversationand I've dated at least the one
or two men I've talked tosomewhat seriously who wanted to
have kids in the future, likethe one I talked about earlier
(41:48):
who was 35.
That was a big reason why wedidn't move forward, because he
was just like I would.
I would want us to have kidstogether and I'm like I cannot
ever give that to you and thatwas the end of it.
So it's not all shits andgiggles, but I did want to just
bring up why, for me, I do havean issue, that is, an actual
serious issue.
I do have significant traumabecause around my dad which I
(42:09):
did not realize until reallyrecently I think in the last
year I realized this, but my dadwas 44 when I was born.
Okay, so I was born to olderparents, both of them were older
, and when my dad startedabusing me he probably was about
40, I would say 46 or so, andthen he abused me the first 10
years of my life, so that wouldput him at 40, between 44 and 54
(42:34):
.
The first 10 years of my lifehe was essaying me, and so when
I was 10 years old, my dad was54.
And I remember very clearlywhat he looked like at all
stages of the essay and whatdoes he look like?
An older, aging man.
And so when I realized that mytherapist helped me come to that
(42:54):
conclusion, because we weretalking about this and I was
just like sometimes I do want totalk to older men, ones that
don't seem like they're toxicand I feel an ick, like the ick,
the ick I really shouldn't usethat word because that implies
that it's lighthearted Like,because some people will be like
.
Oh, he had on a pink shirt andit uses a Velcro wallet and I
got the ick.
(43:14):
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
I'm talking about literallylike triggered, like an actual
trigger, and I was like I'mliterally grossed out.
And my counselor asked me aboutthat and I was like oh shit, oh
shit.
And then I realized like yeah,yeah, that's part of it for me.
I'm definitely grossed out by,kind of like the signs of aging
(43:38):
in a man between 45 and 55.
And it's not about likeanything shallow, it's literally
kind of triggered.
I'm literally kind of triggered.
I'm literally kind of triggered.
So I'm kind of working.
I am working through thatbecause it's like I'm getting
older.
Eventually I'm going to want todate someone in their 50s who's
got like saggy balls.
You know what I'm saying.
I mean, all balls are kind ofsaggy, right, it feels like they
(44:05):
all are, no matter what age.
But whatever Y'all here, y'allget what I'm saying.
So I think for me there aresome other reasons, but that
still falls kind of low on thetotem pole.
Because I can still look at aman who's like Denzel and other
older black men, because I'mjust primarily attracted to
black men in general and stilllook at them, men who are, are
55, 60 and be like damn, like.
(44:26):
They look fine as fuck, um,like an older, balding black man
with like gray in his beard, aconnected beard.
They look really, really,really good to me.
So I still feel it.
But once they start talkingthen I'm like please, just shut
the fuck up, please, and again Isay please.
(44:49):
The lesson here for us ladiessince this podcast is for women
and particularly for Black women, I think is we have to figure
out what we feel comfortablewith and do what the fuck we
want.
I know that there's people whoare like, oh my God, grace is
cougar and she's a cougar.
I know there's people who thinkit's funny.
Probably there's people whothink it's cringy, although
nobody's told me and I justdecided like I'm not doing
(45:09):
anything wrong, I'm not hurtinganyone.
No one is accusing me ofmanipulating them or saying them
or anything else, because I'mnot that person, or even using
them, because I don't do that.
If I wanted to use an old manfor money, I could have done it
a long, long, long time ago.
But I think we have to do whatis right, what is right and
(45:31):
that's really not up for grabs.
Figure out what you value anddo what is right and do what is
good for you and good for otherpeople and really let the haters
talk Like I don't think TraceeEllis is sitting at a coffee
shop crying because people havemisunderstood or maybe she is.
She's probably like oh my God, Iliterally just don't want to
(45:52):
date toxic old men and I justsay more power to you, tracy.
Like more power to you, yourgirl, I got your back.
I mean, I didn't make this forTracy, I made it for the rest of
us who aren't super wealthy andsuper beautiful and in this
whole other stratosphere.
But what I love about what shesaid is that she has a big, full
(46:12):
life, she has wonderfulfriendships, she's a very
embodied woman, is what she said, and I feel like that too, like
I love my friendships, I lovemy children, I love a lot of
aspects of my life and I'mtrying to upgrade it in a lot of
areas.
And when I think about upgrades, I don't think that a man is
what's going to upgrade my life,so I might as well be around
the ones who are really alignedwith me, who we share like a
(46:35):
mutual kindness and mutualaffection and mutual respect,
and we care to make each other'slife better, like that's who
I'm going to be around, whetherthat man is 28 or 32 or 36 or 38
(46:56):
or 44 or 48 or 52.
And all I'm saying is that Ijust haven't found anyone over
44 who fits that category at all.
And it's not like I ain't beenlooking.
And the last guy I dated who Iwas really excited about, like
(47:17):
someone who I dated recently,who I was really excited about,
I think I may have even like,really fully fell in love with
him, even though we never livein the same city, we never did
more than tongue kiss, we neverslept together and I I respected
him so much.
I thought he was a good guy, hepresented as a good guy, I
thought he was a good guy andthen he hurt me in such a
malicious, unkind way.
(47:39):
And then, as a result of thathappening, I found out that
essentially for the whole lastyear that we were in a talking
stage on and off, he was lyingto me about having a girlfriend.
He had a girlfriend the wholetime, the whole time that we
were talking, and he was 44.
And I just thought like, huh,wow, that's so toxic.
(48:01):
I would expect that from a 54year old, like I did not, did
not see that coming at all,didn't see that coming at all
and he was 44.
It just goes to show, like youjust never know, be safe out
here in these dating streets.
(48:22):
I wish I could wrap up thisepisode in a pretty bow, but I
really can't, because thecishets so many of them are so
toxic, no matter what age theyare, and I'm just really like
having to believe that one day Iwill find someone that is good
for me and we're at an age stageand a generationally like in
(48:42):
line, and that you know, know wecan have somewhat of a happy
life, even if it's not likelongevity.
I don't think longevity isnecessarily a hallmark of a
healthy relationship, but we canhave a good life together.
But anyway, y'all be safe, dowhat makes you happy and ignore
these haters.
Okay, that's where we are.
Before I go, let me just tellyou this episode is sponsored by
(49:03):
grace.
Actually is a book that I wrote, actually memoirs of love,
faith loss and black womanhood.
If you appreciate my voice andmy stories, this book is
literally memoirs of my storiesof love, faith, loss and black
womanhood, and I'm hoping tostart a second one soon, but
this is available on Amazon in ahard copy like this, or you can
get in a digital copy and readit on your Kindle in the Kindle
(49:25):
app on your phone or your iPad.
I have a newsletter on subset,called out here thriving, and it
covers six areas.
So if you appreciate again myvoice and my writing, I'm going
to be starting that soon.
It's going to cover soulfulSundays, mindful moments, body,
beautiful, grown woman, wisdom,a creative corner, creative
sparks, ish and and communityconnections.
I also have a facebook group andthe facebook group is a little
(49:47):
bit dormant right now.
I don't know what I'm doing it,but if you want a space to talk
about stuff that happened thatI talk about on this episode,
I'll leave the link for thefacebook group.
It's called the alvear tryingto survive podcast community
group.
It's completely free.
Everything I do right now isfree, except for my book.
However, if you appreciate thispodcast and want to support you
, can support me on patreon orbecome a paid member on sub
stack.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
I appreciate you.
(50:07):
You could be anywhere, butyou're here and I appreciate
that so much.
Thank you for listening.
Please leave me a comment.
Let me know where y'all are at.
How old are you?
How old do you date?
Did you have an age range up?
Do you have an age range down,like, let me know, let's talk.
Anyway, thank you for beinghere and I'll see y'all in the
next episode.
Bye.
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