Then she steps into a rogue pool of light and is revealed as Blanche DuBois, two decades older than she wants to be.
“How would I make you feel good about yourself?” I ask as she slips back into the dark.
“Well, how old are you?” “Twenty-four.”
She smiles.
There is an inevitable attraction between the younger man and the older woman — that Mrs Robinson fantasy of youth and experience. But two events proved to me last week that this is nothing but a myth. Tuesday brought detailed accounts of Wayne Rooney’s trip to a Liverpool brothel (in which the words “grandmother” and “PVC catsuit” were forced into the same sentence), then on Wednesday I went “toy boy” speed dating.
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It is an event designed for older women who like younger men and younger men who haven’t got any money or haven’t been laid in a while. Twenty boys (aged 23-35), 20 ladies (35-50), 20 dates lasting three minutes and one objective: to pull.
My first date is with Sandy, who it would be nice not to have to call a slut. “You’re only as old as who you feel,” she giggles, stroking my leg. Sandy is like half the women here this evening: obsessed with youth. Not mine, or any other young man’s, but her own. At 50, she is a Sex and the City girl 10 years on. She is ageing but desperate to behave badly. “I never wanted a husband or children,” she tells me. “I’ve always been too much of a free spirit.”
Next is Caroline whose top is too low, skirt too short and heels too high. She is a pastiche of youth. In her late forties, her life of gigs and druggie weekends sounds more exciting than mine. “Men my age just can’t keep up with me,” she winks. “And even if they could they’re either weirdos or married.”
This turns out to be a common problem. Many of the women have been speed dating with men their age but according to Naomi, “they were a bunch of newly divorced freaks looking for someone to help them look after the kids at the weekend”.
As I hop from table to table I feel less the potential lover and more a potential accessory. Like their well-cut jeans and knee-high boots, I am an adornment to make these ladies feel young again. Botox in human form.
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On their website the organisers boast that nearly a quarter of women will marry a man younger than themselves. But to put that another way, this means three-quarters of women won’t. There is a stigma attached to the evening and everyone is feeling it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” says Christine, shell-shocked from her last date with a small, round oriental guy who apparently barked his interests at her during their three-minute date: “I like cooking! I like dogs!” She says, wide-eyed: “He seemed so much younger than my son.”
The men who turn up are far from debonair gigolos. Awkward and spoddy, most are post- graduate students or in their first job in the City. With their snorty laughs and befuddled come-ons (“So, how rich are you?”) they disappoint the women. As the men came for Anne Bancroft, so the women expected Richard Gere. Many of the pairs spend their dates in silence.
The second type of women here are the casualties of modern marriage. Divorced or dumped, they make the room reek of tragedy.
“If you’d told me six months ago I’d be here I’d have called you a liar,” says 48-year-old Louise. She had been married for 25 years when her husband ditched her. Now she is living in a council house and sick of the “narrow-minded bastards” her own age: “Every man of my generation still sees a woman as someone to cook and clean for him. I’m tired of being a slave.”
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Michelle, in her mid-forties, says: “I can’t pretend I was happy for the last 10 years of my marriage but I’d never thought it’d come to this.” She looks fearful. Michelle married at 22, had three children, but five months ago her husband left her for a Polish woman about my age.
“I’m having to do lots of things for the first time. I’ve never had a job before and never been on a date.” She admits that her life is wrecked and she now realises that speed dating is not the way out. Despite their sadness, I like these women much more than the youthaholics I met earlier. They’re obviously having a horrible time but they are without question brave.
Unlike the women who wanted me for my unlined face, the recently traumatised are not all that interested in external appearance. They want me for my uncomplicated mind. “You’re just so free-thinking,” breathes 40- year-old Estelle as she reels off a romantic history more tortuous than Liz Taylor’s. Lowlights include the two short-lived marriages and the old Etonian who recently chucked her because she “reminded him of his ex-wife”.
“With young guys there’s no baggage. Life can get pretty complex when you’re older and I just want to find someone more simple.”
When we were 15 my best friend had an affair with an internationally renowned older beauty. I don’t remember thinking it was unnatural; she seduced him and my God we were jealous. But now, despite the Ivana Trumps and Demi Moores who sport their toy boys with pride, I’m not so sure that the younger man is the appropriate bedfellow of the older woman. Sure he will have an all-right time, but what about her? I have no idea how to help these ladies put their lives back together.
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As I scuttle out, Sue shouts after me: “God, you make me feel old.” I leave her dancing solo.