On Dating: What's your age limit?

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing the new multiracial production of A Streetcar Named Desire in New York. Nicole Ari Parker and Blair Underwood were great, so I definitely recommend it. BUT, that's not the headline. The headline is that I realized that I could date a man knocking on 50 if he looked Blair Underwood or Lenny Kravitz.

For context, there's a scene in the play where Blair takes off his shirt, and it's quite obvious that Mr. Underwood has stepped up his workout game. Yeah, I should have been wrapped up in Tennessee William's passionate dialogue and Blanche's slow descent into madness (and I was for the most part), but I had an epiphany when I saw Blair's six pack.


Now, I know most guys in the their late 40s don't look like Blair or Lenny. Most guys of any age don't possess their fineness, but that's a blog for another day. I always said I couldn't date anyone north of the early 40s. Any older just seemed, well, OLD. Like, your uncle or father-type old. However, there are men out there that look younger than they appear and don't give off creepy old-man vibes. If a man falls into the nice-looking to FINE range and checks off the main boxes (i.e. funny, smart, good credit, loves God and his momma, etc.) but happens to fall outside of one's preferred age range, should he be dismissed? Aren't you as young as you feel? Age ain't nothing but a number, right? 

Back during that horrible period when everyone and their mother was obsessing about Black women and our marriage prospects, we were advised to expand our dating pools beyond Black men to include men of other races (because that's the solution for everything). That's fine, but since we're expanding, why not add age to the mix? No one is saying that you should date someone old enough to be your grandfather (unless you're into that sort of thing), but relaxing age restrictions when it comes to dating might not be such a bad idea, especially when it comes in the right package :)

What say you, dear readers? Do you have dating age limits? Are you willing to relax your restrictions for the right guy? Holla at ya girl.

And, stay random.

--Jay