A good friend and former student of mine is 45 years old and regularly dates women in their early 20’s. He’s incredible now, but he wasn’t very good with women less than two years ago. He got to this point by going out a few days a week and practicing in bars, clubs, and during the day as well.

So, he was recently chatting with one of these women. She’s twenty years his junior, and he’d been seeing her for some time.   They were watching the show “Top Chef” on TV. One of the hosts, the stunning Padma Lakshmi, is a model and the former wife of Salmon Rushdie (a highly respected author who is seven years older than her father, and not exactly conventionally handsome).

The woman he was with commented that she couldn’t believe Lakshmi could marry someone so much older and uglier. “What do you mean?” he responded. “She’s just a pretty girl.  She was born pretty. He’s one of the world’s greatest living authors.”

What a fantastic answer!  An interesting look came over her face as she realized that his comment also had some bearing on their relationship.

Her world seems shiny and exciting from the outside. But as an older man, your world is actually so much more interesting and rich, with so much more to offer. Don’t even try to play the game of trying to compete in her world.  You’ll lose. Instead, let her discover your world and all the amazing things you have to offer.

Embrace the Age Difference

You may be wondering if you are too old for her, and you may find yourself wanting to convince her that you aren’t. Perhaps she’s even brought it up.

Instead of trying to convince her that you aren’t too old for her, you should embrace the age difference. Start questioning whether she is experienced enough for you.

My 45-year-old friend is excellent at embracing the age difference.   He’ll ask the women whether they’ve seen “Midnight Cowboy,” “Mean Streets,” and “The Graduate,” three edgy classics from the golden age of American cinema, the late 60’s and early 70’s.

When she says no, he shakes his head and laments, “You need me, sistah. You realize that, right?  Now, I have to figure out if I need you.” These movies are in his DVD collection, so this sets up a nice movie night with take-out at his place.

He will also ask them about other experiences, like travel, restaurants, and books.  But when he “asks,” he’s really challenging her, because at her age there is no way she could have as many interesting experiences as he.

Make Her Feel Special

One of the challenges of dating someone who lives in such a different world than yours is being able to appreciate her. Sure, she looks sexy, and she’d certainly be a blast in bed, but how do you connect with a girl who lives in such a different world?

Well, how do you connect with anyone?   Building a connection with a woman comes down to making her feel special, making her feel valued, making her feel unique different than every other girl in the world.

And you don’t do this by showering her with compliments from the start. When you first meet a woman, particularly a younger one, you can’t act completely won over by her within the first minute.You want to be interested, but a little bit aloof, and gradually show more interest as she qualifies herself to you. Notice I said that she is qualifying herself to you.

You shouldn’t be sitting there talking on and on and on about everything in your life.  This will only show how badly you want to impress her. And trust me, she won’t be impressed.

The idea is to get her talking. Remember, it’s how you make her feel about herself, rather than how you make her feel about you. All it takes is a bit of genuine interest to make her feel like you’ve really gotten to know her.

But how can you possibly relate to someone so young, someone who lives in another world than you?   On top of that, how can you relate when you, as an older man, have so much to offer her, so much experience, so many great things that will be difficult for her match?

The answer is that no matter where you are in life, we all share commonalities.   We all have struggles and hopes and fears. We all feel joy and sadness.

Connect with her on the emotion. Open yourself up to her as well on an emotional level.  While commonalities can certainly help to build friendships, you celebrate the differences with your friends and learn from other people because of those differences.

The same holds true with younger women. You can learn so much from each other, if you can learn to connect on an emotional level.

Be Willing To Suck At This At the Beginning…

I coach a lot of younger guys as well as older guys. Sometimes I think to myself, “Oh man, I wish I’d learned to do this stuff in college!”

But being a little bit older has its advantages. There are certain advantages to having lived a little longer, to having been around the block once or twice.

I know how to motivate myself.  I have so much knowledge, insight and experience at my disposal that I didn’t have twenty years ago.

That experience makes my learning in the realm of women all that much richer and enjoyable. It takes a little bit of practice to get good at it.

You may not be successful the first few times you do it. You may think to yourself, “I’m good at so many things, why aren’t I good at this?”

But you know as well as I do: getting good at something you are not good at requires ACCEPTANCE that you aren’t good at it.

If you want to learn to play the drums, you have to be willing to sit in front of that drum kit and be all thumbs for a while until you get a feel for it.

The pain and struggle starts to become less and less, and the fun and creative expression starts to increase, the more you practice.

You won’t be a genius at this at first. And that’s okay. But keep working at it, and pretty soon you will have those hot young women in your life.

Click here for more tips on how to date younger girls.