When I Was 19 I Dated a 35-year-old — Here Is What She Taught Me
One of the things about dating someone older when you are young is that you learn a hell of a lot, here is what I learned
I started hitting the party scene when I was 17 and became quite popular — I basically just made all the right connections. I don’t know whether it was skill or just luck, but I could get into every club near enough for free and used to get a lot of free drinks.
To say the least, that meant I partied a lot, and people who party a lot tend to be promiscuous, which I was. However, up until I started university at the age of 20, the youngest woman I had dated was 25. I don’t know what it was, but I just had a thing for older women.
Looking back, I suspect it was because I was a troubled kid, I had been bullied at school and so left early and then I hit the gym and the party scene. To go with this, I had a higher than normal for my age IQ and EQ — two things that are well known for making younger people prefer dating older — but also due to my troubles, I was emotionally erratic.
At the time I think older women, due to them being more experienced, more confident and comfortable in themselves, and also a lot more emotionally stable, were a more attractive proposition at the time because they had things I needed — experience, confidence, emotional stability.
So, and I’m just theorising here, I felt I could learn from them because they had things I needed that girls my own age did not have. In a way, I think this is a big reason why a lot of the younger people who end up dating older people do so, because the older people have something that people in the younger age group don’t, and that something helps you learn to find yourself and be yourself.
I think the reason that the older people who date younger people tend to do so is for the same reason. It’s not to do with age, it’s to do with what people need to live and find and be themselves.
Anyway, in my youth, I learned a lot from dating older women. The thing they taught me the most about you can probably guess, sex, but not in the way that you think. It wasn’t as much how to have it; it was the psychology behind it. One woman I dated in particular had a profound effect on me.
She was 35 at the time, I was 19. I’ll call her Kim. It was just a casual thing and only lasted six months or so, but the conversations we had remain with me to this day, as does the experience of being with her, mainly because of what I learned.
Never let anyone f**k you unless you’re also f**king them
Before dating Kim, I had been dating somebody toxic — thankfully, I got out quick but not before it left a mark. Anyway, after a night out with Kim, in which we were both heavily tipsy, she was telling me about her ex-partner who had also been toxic, and I told her a bit about my experience with my previous partner.
Things got a bit deep mainly because her ex-partner really had been toxic, and she had not been quick to get out. After we had told each other our experiences, there was one of those silences, not the awkward kinds but the ones where you both are digesting what has been said.
I broke it by saying that we had picked better this time, so must be on the right track. She laughed and then said the following: “Yes, we both learned to never let anyone f**k us unless we’re also f**king them.”
At first, I laughed because it was pretty funny, but I also — after thinking about it — was left wondering whether she meant that she was f**king me over in some way and thought I was doing the same with her. She picked up on that and I think in an effort to try to get out of filling my head with doubts over whether she was using me, hit me with something profound that I remember to this day.
She told me that she was being serious: “The key to a good relationship is that you both back each other outside of the bedroom and f**k each other in it. If ever only one of you has the others back, or only one of you is f**king the other, your relationship is doomed and probably highly toxic or on course to being highly toxic.”
The profoundness of this statement is just immense. I don’t know if she meant it to be so profound, but it truly is on the money. Everything should always be mutual. Outside the bedroom, you should never be backing your partner, your partner should never be backing you, you should both be backing each other, always. Inside the bedroom, you should never be f**king your partner, your partner should never be f**king you, you should both be f**king each other, always.
So, the first rule of Kim: never let someone f**k you unless you’re also f**king them, and never back someone unless they are also backing you. Or rather, a good relationship is where you back each other outside of the bedroom and f**k each other in it. If your relationship is not like this, then it’s time to fix it or get out.
Prove to your partner that you have their best interests at heart, and it’s amazing what they will be willing to do for you — including giving consistent oral sex
It was not something Kim specifically said that taught me this one, it was the whole experience of being with her. I met her in a nightclub and we went back to her place, she went down on me and gave me an experience that I will never forget. Wanting to return the favour, I went to go down on her. She stopped me.
“No,” she said, “you better not, I’m a bit yeasty at the minute.”
At the time, I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, so my first thought was that she meant she had an STD of some kind. She quickly assured me that it was just a women’s problem and not a big deal, it just meant it was best not to go down on her.
I assumed it meant something to do with her period. I later learned that it sort of was but was not. Yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, I’d never even heard of them. What is scary is just how many not just men, but women also have not. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of women will suffer both problems over their lifetime, many will suffer from the problems repeatedly. They’re not a big deal, just one of those things, but when they happen oral is a no-go.
Anyhow, Kim was one of those who had such repeat problems, it was not her fault, it was just one of those things. But in the moment that she stopped me going down on her, without realising it, she laid the foundations for trust. This was a person that had my best interests at heart. It wasn’t just about protecting me from getting a yeast infection or thrush in my mouth, or down below. It was more than that.
The whole time we were together, she would communicate openly. One time after we came back from the gym, I went to go down on her. “No,” she said. “Don’t be crazy, I’m sweaty as hell, it will traumatise you.” Another time she said: “No, I just had a number two, don’t put your head near there, you nut job.” Another time: “I’ve been at work all day sitting in an office, you’ve got to let me clean up first.”
Every time she stopped me from going down on her when she knew that she was not in an oral-ready state, she increased my levels of trust in her. Unsurprisingly, that made me want to go down on her. It’s funny how trust can do that, and it works the same for everyone. The best way to get oral sex, regardless of your gender, is to prove your partner can trust you to have their best interests at heart i.e. that you want it to be a pleasurable experience for them and care about their health.
If you prove the opposite, you can expect the opposite to happen. For example, an ex of mine, rather than ever dealing with any problem she had down there — like BV and yeast infections or even showing proper hygiene — would simply say, if I liked her pussy I would go down on her when she was smelly.
Also, a female friend of mine once recounted how an ex of hers would frequently not shower after going to the gym, and then would let her go down on him without telling her. He would laugh when she immediately gagged on his sweat, and treat it like a prank.
The outcome was in both cases the same, a partner no longer interested in going down on them.
This point is a lot more than just about oral sex, it’s about everything. A home is a place where we feel safe. The way we create such a world is by proving to our partners that we have their best interests at heart by taking true actions that show we care.
The best way to do this is, when we want something from our partner, whether that be something sexual, something nonsexual i.e. like an ear to listen to, we take actions that help create a world where they can give us what we want safe in the knowledge we won’t take liberties — because we care.
So, the second rule of Kim: prove that you have your partner’s best interests at heart and that they truly can trust you and watch how transformative it is and what they become willing to do for you — both inside and outside the bedroom.
I don’t care whether I orgasm or not, I care whether you listen to me
The thing about most 19-year-old guys, they assume that they are sex Gods and as such that every woman they have sex with should obviously orgasm. I was the same. I used to think myself a really giving lover, except I was not because I was simply reading out of the playbook and expecting to get what the book said should happen. Newsflash, it doesn’t work like that.
Kim was the one who taught me that, during a conversation we had after sex one time she said the following: “I love that you want me to orgasm, but in truth, you shouldn’t worry about it, I don’t need to orgasm to have good sex.” At first, I didn’t listen, assuming that she was just trying to protect my ego due to my failure to get her over the line.
That was my mistake, it was nothing to do with me. Her sexual pleasure is her own, just as mine is my own i.e. it was not for me to define what was good sex for Kim, it was for her. As it happened, Kim found it difficult to orgasm. “I always have done,” she told me. “It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just the way I am.”
She told me that even through solo masturbation, it was a struggle — which is why she rarely did solo masturbation with the intention of having an orgasm. That statement blew my mind. She masturbated without the intention of having an orgasm?
Yep, turns out that a lot of women do — even some men do. As Kim put it, she just likes to have a pleasurable massage now and then.
She also told me that she loves quickies, and penetrative sex, but could never in a million years even dream of hoping to orgasm from a quickie, or penetrative sex. It was just not the way her body worked — studies show that the majority of women are the same.
She told me that she didn’t really care either, she had used to, but once she realised that it truly was irrelevant to whether she had good sex, her sex life became great. At the time, this blew my mind. How could a person not care about whether they had an orgasm?
Because that person was sexually liberated, and I was not.
Here is why. “Sex is not about an orgasm,” Kim said. “I really truly don’t care whether I orgasm or not. I care whether my partner listens to me enough to be able to actually make sex a mutually pleasurable experience.”
Just to make certain this point is not missed, for some people, the orgasm is really important. For Kim it was not. When I listened, I found that out.
Right there is the key to mutually good sex. Both of you truly listening to each other. And the same is true for everyone, men, women, all genders. Sex is not a goal, it’s an experience, a very individualised one at that. That’s why listening is so important.
And again, this is about more than just sex. This is about everything. When you start listening to people, truly listening to them and hearing what they say rather than constantly twisting their words and relating them to yourself, it is amazing how transformative it can be.
So, the final rule of Kim: listen to your partner, learn about them, help them learn about themselves, let them help you learn about yourself, and watch how it transforms your love life, your sex life and your life in general.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the following:
15 Fascinating Facts about Relationships That You Probably Didn’t Know
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