Over a nice bottle of wine Jana realised the much younger man wasn't for her. Photo / Instagram @janahocking
OPINION:
I think it would be safe to say I've had a full and robust love life. In fact, when people ask me what my "type" is, I struggle to answer.
You see, I've dated white collar, blue collar, tall, dark and handsome, blondies, bearded. You name it, I've properly gone on a date with it.
So when I heard the news this week, along with the rest of the world, that Kim Kardashian, 41, had split with Pete Davidson, 28, it got me pondering on age gap relationships.
I've shared my experience with dating an older bloke before, but when I heard rumours that Kim had broken up with Pete because of his immaturity it reminded me of my own dalliance with a younger man.
I had just turned 30, and in the midst of heartbreak, had decided to pack up shop and move up the coast for a fresh start, and a new career in radio. Having never really ventured far from Sydney during my adult life, this spur of the moment decision suddenly hit me when I found myself alone in a new (much smaller) city, and rather friendless.
I said yes to every after-work drinks invite I got, in a bid to make new friends. Romance was far from my radar due to a still rather broken heart, and thankfully most of the guys I worked with at the time were gay.
That was, until the radio station hosted a party for a visiting pop star, and we all went out for far too many drinks afterwards.
One of the promotional staff sidled up to me at the bar, his job was to hand out icy cold cans of Coke at listener events and do other various odd jobs to help promote the radio station to listeners. It's an entry level job into media, and usually filled with uni students, which he was.
After having had a couple of beers-of-courage he bumped hips with me and proclaimed, "you're hot".
I laughed and gave him a once-over. Sure, he was actually quite gorgeous, and if I was in uni I probably would have gone gaga over him, but as I took in his big blue eyes and sweet face, I decided that he was roughly eight or 10 years younger than me and that was far outside my age range.
I flirted with him for a little while, as I have a habit of doing by nature, and then avoided him for the rest of the night. What I didn't expect to enjoy though, was the feeling I got every time I looked up and he was attempting to make eyes with me.
Over the next couple of weeks, every time he was in the office he would make a habit of talking to me, or if we were on air, he would swing past the window and give me a cheeky wave. Ahh the confidence of a young man learning how to flirt. It started to become fun, and I found myself looking forward to his next attempt at banter.
So the next time we were out for post-work drinks I decided why not just give it a go. What's the harm in a night of fun with a cute guy. He came back to mine and as we made out in my lounge room, I felt like a 20-year-old again. His body was strong, he had the libido of an energiser bunny and the way he looked at me made me feel special.
What I didn't expect, was to then stay up all night laughing with him, and then the whole next day in bed. I've never been a fan of the next-day linger. No breakfast for me thank you, it's time to head home!
So the fact that I was enjoying his company so much, and his fresh take on life really took me by surprise. Over the next couple of weeks I just leaned into the feeling. We went on dates, he stayed over a lot and we grew quite close.
However, after the honeymoon glow began to fade I started noticing things relating to our age-gap that was just to hard to ignore.
His clothes would sometimes smell a little stale because like most guys in their 20s, he had a habit of leaving them to dry in the washing machine rather then hang them out. He would also get annoyed at me because we always stayed at my house, instead of his share house with a bunch of his uni housemates. Oh no, I just couldn't bear the thought of sitting at the breakfast table with a bunch of 20-year-olds on a Saturday morning.
The final blow was when a bunch of Sydney friends came to stay for the weekend. He came out with us for dinner, and as we drank wine, caught up on career moves, and shared our ambitions. I looked across the table at his poor panicked face and realised we were at completely different stages of our lives.
As I insisted he go meet up with his friends at the local nightclub after our dinner, I gently explained that we were at very different stages in our life and he should feel free to flirt with other women and let's remain great friends.
As happens when you accidentally date a 20-something-year-old, he didn't take it well and the next couple of weeks were tough! That's when I decided to tick "date a younger bloke" off my list and stick to my age or above. Far less drama, but for a while it rather tickled my fancy.
You can cook anything in an air fryer, right? Not quite.