BF#4 - The Cougar Qualifier

I’d gone to dinner with Adam for our monthly outing in the middle of the week.  I still looked good after dinner so went to my local coffee shop to work on a website and see what the world looked like on a Thursday night.  My coffee shop held chess tournaments for the locals on Thursday night and apparently was the local hangout for men to get away from their wives.  So I walked in and immediately two septuagenarians hit on me.  They would have been super sexy in the 80’s.  One was a former body guard and the other a former Marine.  I smiled to myself a little at the kind of men I attracted even though they’d been retired forever.  I’d always been a good listener and asked a lot of questions (which they loved) so this prompted them to talk and talk.  One commented I was the strange yet beautiful woman that didn’t do most of the talking.  They loved it.  I loved it.  I like to hear how other people think and what they’ve done with their lives.  These two has accomplished a lot and if their bodies hadn’t given up on them, they would still be the action heroes they described themselves as.  As I chatted with them off and on, the place filled up with a younger mixed crowd who set up chess boards throughout the store. 

Side note:  One thing about older men (that I’ve found) is that they ask questions.  It seems the younger a man gets, the less questions he asks of a girl – unless he has a specific motive in mind (to get her to talk about something he wants to talk about, to get her number, to get in her pants, etc.).  Some older men seem to be able to ask questions just to hear what your answer will be.  They seem to genuinely be able to convey the persona of someone interested in what you have to say, even if they aren’t.  These two did that.  They also don’t have a problem sitting through silence.  We chatted and then they let me work for a minute without looking uncomfortable or even talking to each other.  It was relaxing – their way of crafting the conversation. 

After awhile, the men decided to leave and the former bodyguard asked me for my number (in case he ever needed a website).  I laughed but I figured it couldn’t hurt so I handed him my card.  Apparently all the men in our immediate company had been listening to our conversation and asked for my card too.  I handed out 10 cards.  As I chatted with the poet, the mobile app salesman, the playwright, the pilot and the motion graphics designer, I got to know the kind of men that hang out on Thursday nights at Starbucks.  It was comforting and I was glad to be one of the three girls in the place and the only on without a date.  Everyone had some kind of graphics work I could do for them in the future which made the impromptu networking event a success.  The designer was the most interested since he’d just arrived from California that week and was looking for a website, which I’d just sworn off doing ever again.  He talked me up for awhile but I noticed that he was very young and loved to talk about his aspirations.  He didn’t need much work to keep engaged.  I flirted with my eyes and tried my best to look interested in everything he said.  He ate it up and swore we’d get together to work on his projects.  He moved on to another chess game.  10 minutes later I got a phone call, answered it and he waved from across the room.  Cute.