For the most part, people in my age bracket (""20-somethings"") look at elderly people—anyone over the age of 40, maybe 50 if they have aged well—as a completely different species.
They don't have sweet lower- back tattoos, they don't communicate exclusively through text messages and BlackBerry Messenger and they most certainly don't listen to good music... like 3OH3!, Miley Cyrus and Lil Mama. 20-somethings just don't have anything in common with them.
Recently, however, I discovered I am not like my peers, but more like a 60-year-old woman: I have an affinity for prune juice, I get pleasure out of watching birds and I need to take cat naps just to make it through a 14-hour day. I've also realized that I have the same taste in men as they do.
This revelation came to me roughly two years ago when I first met my boss at the Nitty Gritty. Famed owner Marsh Shapiro is not just a Madison celebrity; he is also (fingers-crossed) my future first husband.
For those of you who are fortunate enough to have met Marsh, you'll know what a wonderful man he is. How could you blame me for loving a man who looks like the Jewish equivalent of Santa Claus and is no taller than the average s ixth grader?
Although my love of older men began with ""Marshall the Marshall,"" it did not end there.
Cue my first day of History 398, fall semester, junior year: I walk into the basement classroom in the dungeon (i.e. Humanities) expecting yet another ""syllabus"" day, as is the tradition on the first day of classes (if your professor isn't an evil, student-hating monster, of course). Instead, I found love at first sight: John Sharpless.
He walked into the classroom with a tweed coat and leather jacket. Hot. Then, he completely ignored us for the first five minutes of class. Even hotter. I love mind games.
For at least 15 minutes of the class, he told us about his far-right political beliefs and his love of motorcycles. Then, he talked about his daughter, his evil ex-wife and his obsession with young, redheaded women. Following that, he passed out our syllabi and walked out the door and into my heart forever.
Within moments of leaving the class I had already decided he was my favorite professor of all time and that I would be stopping at Walgreens on the way home to purchase red hair dye. For the next 15 weeks, I attended class religiously—a rarity for me—and hung onto his every word. Because of professor Sharpless my favorite U.S. president is Ronald Reagan, I hate communists—excluding my sister, but only because she is a blood relation—and I am now a history major. Profound is an understatement when it comes to the impact this crush had on my life.
Unfortunately, the only other course Sharpless teaches is History 101, and, as a senior, I can't really stomach the thought of being the only person in her 20s in a class of 300-plus students. My love affair has seemingly been put on hold.
That was until I stepped into my journalism lecture the first day, and there he stood: my older professor. Because I don't want to ruin my chances with him by disclosing his name and exposing him to possible scandal and ruin, I will refer to him as Bob.
Bob is different from Marsh and professor Sharpless because he is neither an adorably stout, St. Nick-esque figure nor a tall, skinny, seductive history professor. He is a cross between the two and, to top if off, he's a comedian.
Already this semester he has growled in class, played George Carlin's ""Seven Dirty Words"" skit and made fun of the tech geeks when they couldn't fix our projector—and we're only six weeks in! Every day with Bob is a new adventure.
What's best is Bob is not just my professor but my TA as well, meaning I get four doses a week compared to my classmates' measly three. Fate? I think so.
Each one of these men has my heart in the grips of his Medicare-protected hands. It's unfortunate that only one of them knows me by name and his wife happens to also be my boss.
How I'll convince these men to leave their families and run away with me I haven't quite figured out yet. Until then, I am forced to love them from a distance. But everyone knows... you can't deny fate forever.
If you think Jillian is a huge, home-wrecking creep who should date someone her own age, e-mail her at jlevy2@wisc.edu.
