I dated Joe when I was fourteen and he was almost eighteen, which scandalized some of my friends. I thought it was pretty awesome.

One of the awesomest things about dating an older guy? He can drive. While we were dating, mostly he drove his dad’s old van, but towards the end of his senior year, he acquired a piece-of-shit Honda CRX with the spoiler and everything.

I was less impressed with the car than my 12-year-old brother, but Joe did his best to convince me of its badassness. There were many too-fast drives to the movies or the pizza place with the windows rolled down and his bandana on to keep all that gorgeous blonde hair from getting tangled up. (My hair was of no concern and always looked like a rat’s nest after one of these rides. That scene where Bridget Jones loses her scarf in the convertible and then has to check in to a hotel and try not to look like a complete loon? Yeah.)

The too-fast drives were exhilarating (or maybe terrifying, but I was too young to know the difference). For some reason, though, I thought that a whoop of joyful abandon, a laugh, or even a big grin would somehow mean that I had lost my cool. So I sat as demurely as one can sit while one’s hair is blowing into all of one’s facial orifices.

Nice young ladies, after all, do not find fast things exhilarating– cars or otherwise. And, oh, how I desperately wanted to be a nice young lady.

Did you ever date an older man? Are you more attracted to a guy if he has a great car? Were you a nice young lady, or a rebel?