Partying like She's 19 in 99

Dear Micah,

               All of my friends are younger than I am. I am in my late thirties and all of my friends are in their early twenties. I am having a great time. My friends and I go to concerts, clubs, and have so much fun together. There are only two real problems with my situation. The first is my family and the few older friends I have. They all make fun of me and tell me I am acting ridiculous, but they don't understand that people my own age are so settled that its boring. The other problem is men. I may hang out with twenty-somethings, but I don't look twenty-something, so I date in my own age bracket. Unfortunately, the men I date do not want to hang out with my younger friends, which poses a problem. So how can I keep my fun friends, get my family off my back, and still find a guy to share my life with?

S.G.

Dear S. G.,

               As for the family and your older friends, it doesn't matter what they think. Personally, I think that you probably look out of place and a little ridiculous myself, but you know what? It doesn't matter what I think either. Nobody died and made me the Appropriate Police, although someone should. Anyway, if you are enjoying yourself and your young friends don't have any problems with an older person being in on their fun, there's no real harm. It sounds like you are a pretty intelligent person. You aren't deluding yourself, you know that you are not their age and you know that you aren't fooling anyone into believing you are. You are also fully aware that you look your age and you aren't trying to pass yourself off as younger and date younger men. So all in all, you are a pretty together gal. However, you are probably going to always have a problem merging your dating world and your friendship world. The men you are dating are never going to be comfortable hanging out with a bunch of "kids". And you wouldn't want them to be. Think about it, if your man felt at ease hanging around with a bunch of twenty-somethings, he'd probably be dating one. It sounds like the men you are attracted to are pretty comfortable with their age and aren't trying to recapture their youth. So you need to keep your date-nights separate from your friend-nights.    It just isn't going to garner you any points with men if they see you immersed in a world they outgrew fifteen years ago. I mean, not many people are too comfortable on a dancefloor twirling to Lady Gaga if they still remember doing the same thing to El Debarge. For me personally, I think that if you have ever heard the words Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam before, it's time to go home and watch CSI, or as I call it, today's Murder She Wrote.

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