The Cougar Mixer

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Odd as it sounds, it’s a godsend to have a friend who wants to drag you to a Cougar Mixer.   You need someone who won’t let you cancel and to laugh with before, during and after.  In a committed relationship, she was curious to see what it was like and to be my wingman.  We read up and tried to imagine how it would be.  We figured there would be way more women than men and had been warned they would be predatory.  We guessed that the men would be awkward young guys who for various reasons were not dating women their own age; and the horny set, who believe that all of us were just dying to get laid.  We were prepared.

Or so we thought.  We were caught off guard when the frazzled valet parker told us there was no room left in the parking lot but we could park on the street.  Looking for any reason to bail, I suggested we just leave and get a drink somewhere, but my intrepid friend would hear nothing of it.  As we wound our way out of the parking lot, following a trail of cars -with one or two women in them-we could see another line of cars creeping in, unaware of the lack of parking-with one or two women in them.  Unless the men had all gotten here early and grabbed the parking, there were no men. 

We parked and walked up the street to the restaurant.  Neither of us wanted to ask the hostess which way the cougar mixer was, so we stood there looking around until she cheerily sang out-Here for the singles party?  Yes, we confidently said and went the way she pointed and got in line.  There seemed to be just women in line, except one 30ish guy right behind us, who seemed unwilling to meet our eyes.  Hmm, I worried, were we not cougar material?

 

The line was moving slowly, so I decided to go to the restroom, before entering the den-(pun intended).  I left the line and asked the big cute bouncer where the restroom was and went the way he pointed after we both smiled at each other.  As my friend had warned me though, I wasn’t here for the help.

When I got back to the line, we were next to enter and we did, and if our mouths were hanging open,  it was because we were slammed with the fact that the room was full of  gray and silver haired men-men in their 50’s, 60’s and yes 70’s.  Apparently there are no rules.  If an event was billed to younger women, would middle aged and older women attend in droves?  I don’t think so, but maybe that’s not good cougar thinking. 

A grinning 70 year old in a leather bike jacket, after giving us cuts in line to the bar must have felt the connection had been made and cashed in on the favor.  Leering, he asked me to tell him all about my Italian heritage (I’m not Italian) while rubbing his hand all over my back and shoulders like he was cleaning a mirror. I nimbly twisted away and firmly said No, No, NO (it took all three) before that old hand reached my ass.  He never stopped grinning.

One of his peers was another to avoid.  Tall, in a suit, longish braids, licking a lollipop.  Maybe he was trying to quit smoking, but, old creepster at the rave is not a good look for anyone.

In same line, we met one young guy, who was the right age, but had a sad story.  He had come with the cougar he was all ready in love with.  They work together and she felt they shouldn’t be involved because of that.  She told him that it would be better for him to find another cougar, so they both had a reason for being here.  He spoke very precisely and kept looking towards the area where she was.  I wish I had asked him where they worked.

Finally, with our much needed wine in hand, we moved to another area to check out the prospects.  Once our eyes had adjusted to the older guys, it was easier to pick out and assess the younger ones.  There were precious few in their 20’s, which was fine by me.  I was actually glad to see men who looked to be in their  40’s, and there were scattered about like empty wine glasses, some in their 30’s.  Due to proximity and not much else, we started chatting with a man in his 40’s or 50’s who asked us how we had heard about the mixer, which is a very popular if unoriginal opening line.  We dutifully said the newspaper and my friend politely asked him how he had heard about it. Confidently laughing, he said his friends had told him about it, urging him to go because there would be lots of horny women.  When I said it was a mixer for women and younger men, he laughed and asked if he should leave. Charmed, I stepped away and unfortunately took it out on the harmless nebbish looking man (early 40’s) that I was now standing next to, nibbling from his paper plate of greasy looking pot stickers.  He swallowed and said I caught him with his mouth full and I smiled and said I wasn’t trying to catch him.  Not nice.

I did catch my friend’s eye who was finishing up practicing her wingman skills on the guy waiting to land a horny cougar, willing to abandon the fantasy of finding another Ashton Kushner, and we moved on.

And that’s the thing.  You do have to be open, quick and able to have a lot of conversations, with just about anyone you make eye contact with.  You need to know if and when to move on so you can talk with as many as you determine are your type.  It felt a little frantic to me.  I did look around and try to make eye contact and smile across the room, but while you’re doing that, others are approaching you at the same time. I felt defensive and self protective and I could sense the same in many of the other women, who had come in groups and were now just chatting among themselves.  We had been informed that the women were predatory, which we didn’t see.

There was a woman there who it seems has been working on making herself the official cougar.  She had been mentioned in the newspaper article.  She had on a short tight red sequined dress, which looked out of place at 8 on Thursday night and doubly wrong at the same time, as she had on no makeup.  If you’re gonna go glam, pride of the sequined cougars, you can’t go half way, kitten.

The bottom line that most everyone seems to agree with is that single mixers are very useful and can be fun, if awkward.  I do like ones like this that don’t have corny participation games.  We just need a big crowd of singles looking to meet others, with a bar.  We know how to talk, flirt, and pick out who we like.  Concerned friends will urge us singles to go out, be out, do things that are interesting and you’ll meet others.  And that’s good advice, you can’t sit home every night and sometimes you do meet someone.  But at those various events, you have to figure out if there are other singles and many times there aren’t, if there are, there certainly isn’t a packed room of them.  We like the numbers.

I did end up having good conversations with two guys that held promise (the bouncer guy  wasn’t actually the help or a bouncer) and enjoyed those a lot.  I know there were more men I could have talked with if I had a better strategy to work the room.  I would definitely do this again; I’m better prepared--as long as my super skillful wingman girlfriend is up for it.