Hang on, when did I become a milf?

Times

7 days ago

When my marriage disbanded last October, and I knew I didn't want to rush into anything serious but I quite wanted to see what was 'out there', a friend recommended I get on Feeld. This is the ostensibly fun dating app where anything goes, and most people are looking for short-term 'interactions' rather than long-term relationships.
Feeling like a deer in the headlights, I finally, tentatively signed up this year. By Feeld standards my wants and needs were reserved. Other users say they're into multi-partner interactions, BDSM, shibali (ropes) or simply 'watching'. I, meanwhile, said I loved good food, nice hotels, and was up for lunch dates to see if there was a spark.
Unlike many others on the app (I later discovered), I was upfront and honest about my age, separation and co-parenting situation. 'That will sort the wheat from the chaff,' I thought, anticipating that declaring that I had three children — and the 47-year-old body that carried them — would put men off me, like a natural filter, so I'd only be left with a select few likes.
• Help! I've got part-time empty nest syndrome
How wrong I was. A week after posting my profile, I had over 1,000 likes from men. Some 25 per cent were older than me, ranging up to mid-seventies, but what surprised me — dumbfounded me, even — was that 75 per cent were younger than me. In fact 25 per cent of them were under 30; young enough, feasibly, to be my son. When I saw an 18-year-old blond boy who liked my profile and lived two miles away, my first thought was, 'But I might know your parents!'
At first I thought that all these boys/men had clicked on me by accident, or that they hadn't read the 'mother of 3' part of my profile properly. However, as the next week progressed, my app continued to fill up with new likes from very young men. What was strange was they were all good-looking, gym-honed, interesting, often creative and well travelled. They didn't look desperate.
• Why is everyone swinging — except me?
Gulp … does that mean I'm a milf? Having three children, life is busy, so my hair regularly goes unwashed, my legs are only shaved on special occasions, and I often wear the same clothes a few days in a row. I go to bed at 9pm and love nothing more than a good book in the bath, so it's not something I'd ever had cause to consider.
I'd always found the phrase repellent but when, at a dinner party a couple of years ago, a drunk dad-friend whispered over the table, 'Don't worry, you're a milf,' after I admitted the youngish waiter was attractive, I understood it as a compliment. At least he was my own age. Seeing all these 18-30s liking my profile was even more flattering. But in all honestly, it brought out a nurturing instinct rather than an erotic one. I felt more inclined to make them dinner and watch Stranger Things together than get naked with them.
In the interests of research, I messaged a couple of the boys/men as I was intrigued to find out why they'd liked my profile, but pretty soon each referred to my age. One said: 'I fancy older women, like you.' Another explained: 'Milfs are more confident, it's hot!' Then he asked: 'Are your kids my age?'
Cue me inwardly cringing and politely saying goodbye while feeling sorry that these Gen-Z daters aren't out in bars making eye contact with women their own age like we used to do in the Nineties, when most of them weren't even born.
• My first date after the split — oh dear, I got 'friendzoned'
Also, didn't they know there is nothing that's going to make a woman run away faster than being told she's an 'older woman'? It reminded me of the midwives at the hospital who kept telling me I was a 'geriatric mother' at the birth of my second child when I was 35 (let alone my third, four years later).
Since this experience, my thoughts on milfdom have changed. I've had a spring in my step from the attention, but it's not a kink I'm keen to explore. There's something appealing about having a conversation with someone my own age-ish. I'm not sure I even want to date someone in their thirties, as I enjoy banter with people who get the same cultural references, whose body is a similar vintage, and who don't view me as older by default.
Now I've set the Feeld filter to only see likes from men between 40 and 57. It's an arbitrary, non-scientific age pool, but I'm interested to see what those conversations bring. At least they won't need to ask me if they are older than my kids.
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