I have missed out on yet another pop culture phenomenon by being married to a younger woman.
Older women-younger men is the trendy thing.
It gets you talked about on TV. You receive invitations to the swankiest parties, where you are the conversational centerpiece.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are only the most prominent example of this coupling trend. And, despite all the snarky remarks, they don't look anywhere near as creepy as 61-year-old Harrison Ford holding Calista Flockhart's 39-year-old hand.
There's been the more sublime, ongoing relationship between actors Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who met on the set of "Bull Durham" and have been together ever since. (Sarandon, by the way, also starred in "White Palace," a 1990 film in which she played an older waitress who has a fling with a younger advertising executive.)
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"The Graduate," the 1960s movie about an older woman seducing the son of her husband's business partner, has enjoyed a revival on Broadway. The movie version, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, has been replayed repeatedly on the American Movie Classics cable channel.
And, lo and behold, one of the hottest pop songs on the airwaves is "Stacy's Mom" by Fountains of Wayne in which a middle school-aged boy sings about his desire for a classmate's mother.
The hilarious lyrics in the perfect three minutes of pop musicianship also include the following delusional line: "Do you remember when I mowed your lawn/Your mom came out with just a towel on/I could tell she liked me from the way she stared/And the way she said, 'Ya missed a spot over there.' "
While men have gone hunting for trophy wives for ages -- Henry VIII and Michael Douglas come immediately to mind -- as they divorce, the phenomenon of older women attracting younger men is relatively new in the media spotlight.
The reasons for the attraction are numerous, according to Web sites that pop up when you type in "older women younger men."
Older women are usually financially secure and don't have to rely on a younger man to pick up the bill.
Women hit their sexual peak later than men, who usually reach that pinnacle when they're still too immature to do anything about it.
And older women can help younger men mature emotionally, financially and socially.
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In the final season of "Sex and the City," the HBO sitcom has continued the storyline of Samantha, the oversexed public relations expert, guiding the career of her younger stage actor boyfriend.
Older women dating younger men is almost as popular as homosexual men teaching heterosexual guys how to feng shui their furniture, mousse their hair and not mix stripes with plaids when dressing.
One would almost expect a reality TV show where a 50-year-old woman is pursued by 10 27-year-olds. It could be called "The Merry Widow."
In all of this cross-generational dating that is going on, the one thing I would like to have heard more than anything is the conversation that occurred when Moore returned with Kutcher to his mother's Iowa home.
Moore, who just turned 41, is only five years younger than her 25-year-old boyfriend's mother.
They would have had a lot in common to talk about, such as growing up in the 1970s, Moore's early screen career and how Bruce Willis was much better in "Moonlighting."
Meanwhile, I can just imagine Kutcher outside, mowing the lawn and humming "Stacy's Mom."
Readers can contact features editor Dean Rhodes at drhodes@forumcomm.com or (701) 241-5422
