Confident Clean Consent
Note: This essay was originally published in 2019 in The Honeypot (which has since moved to Substack)
The balding academic who orders the cortado. The actor with salt and pepper hair who orders the iced coffee. The father of the brown-haired law student who gets an oat latte. These are the men who have given me a reputation at work.
After over a year at my barista job in Andersonville, my coworkers have unfortunately noted a pattern in my Crushtomers — the regulars who come in and transform the monotony of pulling espresso into a giggle-filled opportunity to show off my latte art. And either because I’m too chill or they’re too comfortable, these coworkers have developed a habit of publicly calling me out for my tastes.
“How about him? You like him?” Alex asks with a sly smile as a very geriatric man approaches the service counter.
“Yesterday I saw a guy you’d like,” exclaims Adam. “He had a long beard, completely gray.”
“Check him out,” Kaylyn says, nodding in the direction of a 50-year-old holding the hands of two soccer-uniformed children.
I know they are only joking — passing the hours in our little fish bowl with bits and goofs only minimally at my expense. But, given there is Truth in Comedy™, their jokes have me feeling a little too seen.
Though I have never seriously or casually dated anyone significantly older than me, my co-workers are correct; when it comes to men I do not know, I am far more likely to find an older man attractive than a man my own age. To be honest, being so predictable in this way is a little embarrassing. Not only because Adam named it a “daddy complex” before I could correct him — more on my very healthy relationship with my father later — but also because this preference has developed only recently, and my coworkers noted it before I did.
A year and a half ago while away at a wedding, I had the unique experience of being at the right place at the right time, romantically-speaking. Milling around a hip bar on the eve of the ceremony, I found myself surrounded by friend-of-the-groom frat bro types. Given a shared understanding that we would never make one another happy, they mostly ignored me and I them. I spent the night talking with old friends and new acquaintances, not once considering that the two days off of work in a different city could lead to some romantic weekend fling. Then, by chance, I was reintroduced to a man I vaguely knew from a few years prior. By the end of our “good to see yous,” it was evident he was hitting on me. I did not have to search his gaze for interest, it was just there. No flouncing about to show mine, he just (rightfully) understood I was also down. What followed was a weekend affair between two consenting adults — me and a man fourteen years my senior.
At the time, our age difference felt a little exciting but mostly irrelevant. I was attracted to him because he was confident and clean. He asked me questions about myself, talked passionately about his work and verbally, unabashedly confirmed my consent throughout the weekend. When we parted to go live our separate lives, I didn’t feel used or mistreated, lied to or gaslit. I liked him a lot, but I didn’t feel that gnawing ache that so often reaches into me after a hetero-romantic encounter. The ache of uncertainty: Did he have fun? Did I make up his interest? Did he even want me there? None of those questions came into my head because he gave me no reason to ask them. He was honest and forthcoming, attentive and affirming. As far as I was concerned, there was no need for follow up texts or post-coital confirmations of respect — it was all there from the start.
Months later, back at the coffee shop with hours to interrogate my new Crushtomer pattern, it was hard not to see the lasting effects of my weekend with the 38-year-old. I began to feel that those fourteen years might not have been irrelevant at all. Though I still feel, as I did at the time, that our age gap mattered little, since returning to my everyday life the gap between him and men my own age certainly felt profound. And why wouldn’t it?
I watch women friends my own age take care of and challenge their cis-boyfriends constantly. I watch as they remind them about dinner plans while recommending Sally Rooney books. I watch as they do their dishes but also walk them through the nuances of TimesUp. And perhaps most importantly, I watch as these women get hurt by emotional unavailability while optimistically encouraging their partners to be the vulnerable men they have every right to become. I see these women show their boyfriends how to care for themselves and their partners better — putting in so much generous labor. So, why wouldn’t this good man be more equipped at 38 to care for himself and me than he would have been at 24? He has fourteen years more life experience, and fourteen years more experience being cared for by women.
Now, I see no problem with the reality that experience and exposure makes people better at caring for one another but as I reflect on my seemingly equitable weekend, one thing does bothers me. In his life, he gets to learn and grow and become the man he is and still sleep with a 24-year-old as he nears middle-age. I get to learn and grow and, more often than not, put in a lot of work with men my own age until I don’t know when. This disparity makes it hard for me to mine an ideal relationship model out of what was a great experience. In dating an older man, our age gap would get in the way. In dating a man my own age, our lack of one would too.
So, for now, I admire older men from across the coffee bar. And though there is a bigger, very nuanced question I’m grappling with, at least when Alex says “So what, he has to be a silver fox for you to like him?” I have one small answer ready.
“No. He has to be confident and clean. He has to ask me questions about myself and be passionate about his work. He has to verbally, unabashedly get my consent.”