I'm a cougar, or the boy becomes a man

Walking down the beach one recent evening, I nudged clamshells with my toes and overturned conchs half-buried in the sand. I skipped a few beach-bound sand dollars back into the surf. As I stooped to pick up a flattened scallop, I heard a voice hail from further back down the shore. I turned to locate the caller and saw a boy running in my direction.

"Mind if I walk with you?" He pulled alongside me, panting from his sprint.

I frowned.

"I'm Josh," he introduced himself. "I'm staying with my family back that way." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and pointed in the direction he'd come. "How about you?"

Now, I know when I'm being chatted up, and I'm usually a forgiving soul when it comes to the dating dance. It's hard enough without a girl putting on the ice queen routine. But this kid?

"Dude, how old are you?" I asked.

He raised his chin. "I'm 17."

"My God, you are ballsy for a 17-yearold."

He laughed. There was silence. "Ballsy?"

In the wiki world of online encyclopedic knowledge, a cougar "refers to older women, usually in their 40s, 50s or 60s who sexually pursue men in their 20s and 30s." Although I'm still in my [late] 20s, the beach boy episode points to a predisposition to cougardom I've noticed on my part. Thankfully, wikipedia lists a mathematical formula for deciding the appropriateness of a cougar relationship:

Age of Younger Individual . Age of Older Individual/2 + 7.

That is to say, the age of the younger person must be greater than half the age of the older person, plus seven. At 17, he is still younger than my 28 years divided by two added to seven (21). And, thus, a no-go.

My friend's younger brother, however, has potential. At 25, he is safely out of the too-young mathematical range yet fits nicely into my younger-man dating profile.

We first met 10 years ago during a pre-college visit to my university campus. He stayed with his brother in my dorm. It embarrasses me now to say I thought he was cute then, because - although the 3-year age gap is negligible at this point - the difference between a freshman in college and a high school sophomore is remarkable.

We were introduced and struck-up an easy friendship that has lasted out a decade. He e-mailed two weeks ago to say he was passing through Fort Myers on business and asked if I would like to have dinner. It was the first time we had seen one another in more than six years (not since my graduation) and the only time we were ever alone in each other's company.

He was charming and witty, effortlessly confident in the way I remembered with an adult sophistication I found appealing. Over drinks, he talked about his power-broker investment job and ran a hand across the dark stubble at his jaw. When he leaned in to kiss me, smelling of cologne and alcohol and all the things I associate with adult masculinity, the shadow of the boy I'd known slipped through my fingers, and I found myself faceto face with a man.

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