‘Half plus Seven’ – The Calculus Cure for Cougarville?

A ubiquitous lifestyle means I spend frequent down-time in hotel bars and lobbies, strictly (of course) to break the cabin fever of hotel living. With the right locale, and I admit to being stylishly picky, there is no better company than a fresh mojito in the ambiance of low-key loungerino Café del Mar-esque tunes and the muted shades of mocha décor to put you in the perfect people watching mood. This voyeur approach to social networking, however, doesn’t always go unaccompanied, albeit it is mostly unsolicited, but this weekend as I settled back in my locale du choix, I wondered….do the boundaries of dating get blurred after dark or, has anthropology infact taken over mythology when it comes to ‘Half, plus seven"…..

If "Half, plus Seven" is  considered the age-old dating rule for men, designed to justify the socially acceptable age threshold for dating of younger women, I wonder …just how much of a malculus is behind the logic of this anthropological genius and if it was so suitably ‘scientifically’ calculated by a male mathematician?  

I mean, observing this theory, a buff 30-year old can comfortably continue to ‘go-Dutch’ with a 22 yr old at the Student’s Union. Equally the maturing 40-year old can, in theory, legitimately beauty-parade a fresh 27 year old in his mid life crisis yellow sports car. Ergo, if the math follows male logic, then I wonder... is this why, even at the north end of the dating ladder, the worst category that the dating man can reach is the Platinum Sugar Daddy Club, itself a kudos of supreme levels at the 19th hole and Saturday full-time whistle?

Conversely, however, is it a case that the dating female counterpart has the freedom of dating only in her early years? The femathematician can round down at just a fraction of her male predators - a 30 year old female dating under-30 is critiqued for cradle-snatching yet promptly, from the ripe old age of 35 she becomes a cougar cub and the short years that follow to 40 are clearly spent marking her territory for full cougar adulthood. Ridiculous as this may sound there is a large, indeed growing, population of females who wish to savour the assortment of soft centres, caramels and rich pralines before the taste buds are restricted to the abandoned sugar-daddied jellies and Turkish Delight but I wonder…..has society already established a pre-conception of acceptance that means the sugar-free reality for the untamed cougar park quite simply has fewer choices from the candy box and a much shorter ladder than the ‘Half-plus-Seven’ Men’s Club?

So, as we continue to break shackles of conformity and feel empowered to self-preserve by defying gravity and shorten the hemline with every birthday, I wonder...is there really an escape from the birth certificate or are we destined to enter the cougar reserve park and await the retirement of the Manther?

‘Til next time, Pandora