15 December 2007 - 10:38 pm

If a cougar is the term for a woman who pursues younger men, what is the name of a man who pursues older women?Are they gold diggers, like a younger woman in that position might be referred to? Chances would be the younger man might soon be earning the same salary as the older woman, or might already be if there isn't over a decade age difference. Would that make him a silver digger then, or a pewter digger? How about a rock digger? Because every time I see B, one of the IT guys, out on company social outings, he's with the unattached, not management, older women of the company. Which I appreciate, being in that same category. To see that, like a Chubby Chaser, I can then interpolate to be a potentially desired female by at least some subsection of men I myself find desireable. Especially I appreciate it as the admired part of me is something I have no control over - my age.

Not that I have any problems catching the attention of men in my neighborhood. Far from it.

Last night, after getting all spiffed up for the company Holiday Party, early in the evening at 8 pm, clean and fresh and wearing a tight dress (only because it was the only one I found actually fit me when I tried my selections on) and thus creating cleavage as a result, I found my dress riding up my body in the short walk to my car, and here was a man standing, moving to block my passage forward on the sidewalk, eyes cast slightly less than his eye level, which with my heels, made him looking at said cleavage, and he mumbled "I love you..." as I stepped off the sidewalk and averted my eyes to the next group of four men bearing down on me, still tugging to get my dress from riding the hump up and over my thigh. There were a lot of neighborhood men out on the street, certainly more than I was hoping for. The alley, I would step off the sidewalk to adjust my dress there, but no, a truck driven by another man just happened to be coming up that way then. I kept walking on, holding my hand down to where the thigh slit was causing the dress to ride up. And there on the street corner, a woman I had seen around before, certainly noticeable since the neighborhood is first and foremost predominantly Latino, then Asian, with a smattering of white folk, and here was a woman who was black. She was our local prostitute, whom I frequently see shuffling when she walks, strong advertisement for her wares. She was glaring at me from her corner. Glaring! I stood off the sidewalk, waiting for traffic to clear, waiting to get across the street to my car on the other side where my long coat was, which I now knew I should have been wearing. Finally, I was safe in my car. I sat there for a little bit, stole a glance at the corner, and there she was, still glaring but no longer looking at me. Wow, I was so glad the event was indoor/outdoor - the dress was just not going to work unless I found one place to stand and never moved the entire night. Coat it was then!

Up in West Hollywood, where the event was, me walking up the street in a black wool overcoat got me nary a glance, even when I was wandering back down a major thoroughfare at one in the morning, staring at the window displays and taking pictures. Nary a glance! And I passed plenty of men. Presumably, in West Hollywood, they weren't interested in me. I couldn't believe how empty Robertson Boulevard was on a Friday night at 1 am, when we were kicked out of the club holding our party. Restaurants were closed, tons of street parking was now available... and I was window shopping for furniture and specifically kitchen designs. Oh those cabinets there! Yum! Exactly what I wanted, and the designer I had seen advertised in Architectural Digest!

I drove home. I parked in a spot 1/2 block from my building, but problematic in the morning, needing meter feeding at 8 but it couldn't be helped, and with my coat still on I walked, but the cleavage still revealed from the double breasted front of the coat... the same as it had been in W. Hollywood, where even at the company party, no one stared at me.... I could hear someone crossing the street as I crossed, someone sneezing, and we ended up walking parallel on opposite sides of the street, he a little further ahead of me. Keys out, eyes downcast, I walked to my building, trying hard not to call attention to myself. A car drove by, and then slowed down as it passed me, and then turned at the next street, ahead of me and past my building. The man walking parallel to me crossed after the car passed, and was still ahead of me but on my side of the street now. The car I now saw poking its nose out at the cross walk area ahead of me, apparently having used the street to turn around. He sat at the intersection, waiting. There was no traffic coming from any direction, he could go, yet he didn't. I turned to my building's entrance, opened the locked gate, and as I had noticed the walking man had slowed down, I wanted to see where he was since the door always took so long to close, I didn't want him slipping in behind me, catching me unawares in the courtyard. Our eyes met as I pulled the gate open, he remained standing, but turned towards me, I walked through the courtyard and as I stood at the next door to enter the building, struggling to get the key out of the lock, I looked again to see where he was, and he was standing at the end of the fence, where the building corner meets, holding the bars to get a good look through the gap in the foliage, moaning something to me in Spanish, and I could also still hear the engine of the car idling at the corner. It was a quiet night, and I slipped inside the building, relieved to have two locked doors between them and me.

Maybe that's why I don't like zombie movies or the concept of zombies. I experience it in my everyday life. I walk around in my neighborhood, and I always feel like I am dodging zombies. I must be alert, even though they are not particularly fast moving, but the ill intention is there. And they probably don't even think of it as malevolent, just I perceive it as unfriendly and unwanted. They probably think of it as appreciative. But it comes across as hungry. Depending on the hour of the night, they become more hungry, more desperate and potentially, more aggressive. I can actually appreciate the gated building, and two locked doors any entrance I come into the building. Two chances of not making it into my unit if following me. And it's not that I'm petrified and fearful for my life or chastity, or even incapacitated. I'm just wary, and angry. I can walk down the streets of Beverly Hills, Los Feliz, Silverlake, Echo Park, Westwood, any of the beach communities, Torrance, Downey, West Hollywood, those same hours, and feel safe and can focus my attention on store windows without fear of zombies getting me. Sure, I still have some of my attention on whether any cars seem to be slowing down as they pass me, I'm still concious of what pedestrians in my vicinity are doing, but for the most part, nothing.

In Westlake, the farther from the setting of the sun, the more the zombies come out. I guess it's my way of coping - if these men in my neighborhood are going to completely dehumanize me into treating me solely as a sexual object, I will reciprocate by completely dehumanizing them and they are now dead to me. The living dead, the walking dead and of no interest to me. Certainly not of interest to me in my desires. And like zombies, something to keep an eye on and a safe distance from. Sometimes while walking the attention I engender feels like I am the only one with a pulse, warmth, a heartbeat, and that is why they are drawn to me. It's more likely I am the only one with an ass, busom, clitoris and vagina, but it all comes down to I am nothing but a potential hole to them. So they are zombies to me, to be avoided like the plague I feel they may carry.

Besides holing myself up in my building, in my unit, I haven't got a clue with what I should do to become comfortable with this situation. Some people have told me I should be flattered by the attention, and take it as a compliment. Take it as a compliment my getting mistaken as a prostitute when the neighborhood one is so obviously not desireable? Wow, I'm flattered all right. It's what every woman wants, to be automatically mistaken as a prostitute by every man who sees her. How can I possibly ask for anything else for Christmas, when I have this already?