Although the U.S. Census Bureau tracked these pairings differently between 1997 and 2003, the increase is clear: In 1997, fewer than half a million couples in America were a woman and a man at least ten years younger. In 2003, nearly 3 million couples were a woman and a man at least six years younger.

  And between 2002 and 2005, says the online dating service Match.com, the percentage of women in their database who were willing to date men ten or more years younger nearly doubled.

  Maybe it’s because older women with younger men has been all the rage in real-life Hollywood, too. The woman who played the nation’s first female president on Commander in Chief, 51-year-old Geena Davis, is married to 35-year-old Reza Jarrahy. Sixty–year-old Susan Sarandon has children with 48-year-old Tim Robbins. Nearly 50-year-old Madonna’s husband, Guy Ritchie, is 39.

  Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2005, citing U.S. Census data

  Proof positive of a trend, there’s now a name for women who date significantly younger men: Cougars. According to Valerie Gibson, sex columnist for the Toronto Sun and author of Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, the term started in Vancouver, British Columbia, as a put-down for older women who would go to bars and go home at the end of the night with whoever was left. But in recent years, it’s become more positive—signifying an older, single woman who knows what she wants, has the money and confidence to acquire it, and isn’t constrained by desires for babies and a white picket fence.

  And so now there are at least a half-dozen Web sites devoted to Cougar dating, complete with mugs and T-shirts. Oprah explored “Older Women in Love with Younger Men” in 2003. On the wildly popular Sex and the City, 40-something Samantha Jones dated “boy toy” Smith Jerrod longer than anyone else in the show’s six seasons. In 2005, Fran Drescher, star of the 1990s TV hit The Nanny, launched a new comedy called Living with Fran, a show about a mother of two who falls in love with a man half her age—apparently based on her real-life experience. VH1 presented Kept, a reality show in which a group of 20-something men compete to escort Mick Jagger’s ex-wife, the 50-year-old Jerry Hall, for the following year. All of these innovations in entertainment reflect a trend in real life.

  A couple of factors have triggered the growth of the Cougars. High divorce rates combined with longer life spans means a greater likelihood of women’s reentering the dating market. In fact, according to a 2004 survey conducted by AARP, 66 percent of “late-life divorces”—those that occur in a couple’s 40s, 50s, or 60s—are initiated by the women, not the men. Women’s success in the workforce means that some women want a man with a less developed career—so that he can move if she needs to, and perhaps be their kids’ primary caretaker. (Of course, men have pursued that arrangement for years.)

  But according to Valerie Gibson, it’s all about sex. A woman’s sexual peak is more aligned with that of the younger man. And having either rejected marriage or been through an unsuccessful one, the older woman is looking for something lighter and more frivolous. In her 40s and 50s, says Gibson, sex for women is recreational, not procreational.

  Unless, of course, she wants children. Over 100,000 women aged 40–44 gave birth in 2004, a 63 percent increase from ten years before. Over 5,000 women aged 45–49 did, too—a ten-year increase of 129 percent. So Cougars come in every stripe.

  What’s in it for the men?

  They, apparently, like the confidence and sexual experience of the older women, and that the women are generally not looking for commitment. And as distinct from decades ago, older women are looking younger every day—thanks to on-demand cosmetic surgery and 24/7 gyms.

  As a result, the men, too, at Match.com are interested in older women. Between 2002 and 2005, men interested in dating women five or more years older increased 44 percent. Those interested in a ten-or-more-year difference doubled.

  Where do America’s Cougars take us? In one sense, Cougars mean that younger men are finally getting even with older men, who since the dawn of time have been poaching their available dating pool. Maybe in that regard, the dating algorithms are all just evening out.

  On the other hand, single women—having a hard enough time as it is due to the increasing number of openly gay men—now have a new segment of competition from their older sisters and, indeed, their Moms. (The mother-daughter tension over the same man was the underlying text of The Graduate and Something’s Gotta Give.)

  But today’s Cougars are the result of the natural instinct for people with success to trade that success for sexual attractiveness. And what was once achievable only by older men with money is now within the reach of women with power and accomplishment (or a good inheritance). Just as billionaire men have to be on the watch for women on the make, biding their time until the money becomes theirs—so now Cougars need to beware of younger men seeking shelter from the storm. They, too, can use detective services to see what their younger boyfriends and spouses are up to; and they, too, need to worry about whether the younger mate will stick around if the older one gets ill, or simply isn’t as much fun in later years.

  And Cougars deserve a community. They seek guidance as to what kinds of men to seek and to avoid. They need new dating rules regarding finances, sex, and commitment. And they seek sisterly advice on how to handle the reactions of parents, siblings, ex-husbands, friends, and especially children. They need the right vacation spots. They even need just the right birthday cards. You may not have a Cougar in your family, but ask around or watch people on a busy street corner for a few minutes, and you will spot them soon enough. They are committed to their lifestyle, and it is an essential element of who they are and what they think about. And they are approaching that magical 1 percent that will make them a microtrend marketplace of interest to politicians, filmmakers, pastors, and marketers.

  Mrs. Robinson would be so proud.

  Office Romancers

  If there was one thing your mother might have warned you against—or your mentor, or your best friend who blew up his love life and his career at the same time—it was Don’t Date at Work. You’ll compound the heartbreak; you’ll compromise your professionalism; you’ll expose yourself to sex harassment suits. You’ll distract yourself from your job and misplace your affections. The polite aphorism was something like, “Don’t mix business with pleasure.”

  But according to a 2006 employee survey by Vault (“the most trusted name in career information”), nearly 60 percent of employees in America have been involved in an office romance, up from just 47 percent in 2003. And of the 42 percent who hadn’t had an office romance, 9 percent said they’d like to.

  Though many Office Romancers try to hide their affairs, almost everyone knows it’s going on: Forty-three percent of employees say there is an office romance currently happening at their workplace, and another 38 percent say there might be. (For many, the discovery is not so subtle: In another survey, by Hotjobs, a remarkable 44 percent of respondents said they’ve actually caught co-workers “getting amorous” on the job.) But the bottom line is: No one really minds. Fully 75 percent of workers think that romantic and sexual relationships between co-workers—at least if they are peers—are totally okay.

  Why the surge? In the long term, it’s of course because of the growing equality of men and women in the workforce. The gap has been steadily closing for decades.

  In the shorter term, it has to do with the rise of working singles. There are more of them than ever in the workforce (up 22 percent since 1995), and singles aged 25–34 are working more hours per week than they used to—up about 8 percent since 1970. (So really, where else could they find romance?)

  But of course, some married people are in on the action, too. The Vault survey found that 50 percent of workers have known a married co-worker to have an affair with someone else at the office.

  Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007

  Not surprisingly, men are more flirtatious at work than women (66 versus 52 percent, according to one survey); and substantially more men (45 percent) say they have had an interoffice romance than women (35 percent). That latter discrepancy either means that women are serial Office Romancers; that men are more boastful about this; that women more often leave the workplace after having an affair; or that some of those men’s affairs are homosexual. I think the bottom line is this: The office has become the twenty-first-century singles bar. Water is the new gin and tonic, and Muzak the new club beat.

  Evidently, some work settings are more conducive to the interoffice affair than others. The Vault surveys found that the number one industries for interoffice hookups are media and entertainment, followed by advertising/marketing and consulting. (Finance and technology, much more dominated by men, are the least likely fields to spawn a fling.) I’m the CEO of a public relations firm and the president of a consulting firm. I am proud to say we have had several interoffice marriages that started as office romances, so a lot of good can come from this—now that men and women are in the workforce with greater equality, and can find people at work with similar skills and interests.

  We’re not alone in having nurtured office romances into long-term love. In a 2006 study by the Society for Human Resource Management, over 60 percent of the HR professionals interviewed said that romances in their offices had resulted in marriage. I can attest from personal experience that having married couples on staff can be a big win—they share a passion for our work; they back each other up if there’s a crisis at home; and they are productive for the firm even in downtime, since (so they tell me) they wrestle with work challenges even as they give their kids a bath.

  The fusing of work and love is nothing new. Moms and Pops have worked side by side since the dawn of agriculture, and again since the dawn of commerce. In fact, married couples make up the majority of business owners in America, with more than 1.2 million husband-and-wife teams running companies. And Americans have always had a special place in their heart for couples who work together (from George Burns and Gracie Allen to Sonny and Cher) and workers who couple together (from Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie). Where would music be without famous crooning couples—from Johnny Cash and June Carter, to Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z? (Where would crime be without Bonnie and Clyde?)

  And of course, at-work affairs are not new. “The boss and his secretary” is about as old a horseplay cliché as existed in the twentieth century.

  But what’s different now is that Workers Who Couple, and Couples Who Work Together, are happening not just in larger-than-life Hollywood or in your basic mom-and-pop shops—although those businesses, too, are growing at record rates—but in big and medium-sized companies, which, as a result, need some new rules. According to the Vault survey, only about 1 in 5 companies has policies regarding interoffice romance. Given concerns about intruding on employees’ privacy, most companies have shied away from too much regulation, perhaps just venturing to ban supervisors’ relationships with subordinates, or stepping up their reminders about sexual harassment. (Wal-Mart’s policies are pretty aggressive, as you probably read about in 2007. After internal investigators found evidence that two high-level marketing executives, one senior and one junior, were having an affair, it fired them both—touching off a public relations storm that ended up with the couple’s intimate e-mails splashed across the front pages.)

  But are even those policies sufficient? Should even co-equal colleagues who are romantically involved be allowed to share a supervisor? A project? Office space? If all goes well, maybe it’s delightful all around—but if the romance sours, one of them could get vindictive.

  What about romance with clients, or vendors? How about with employees of competitors—especially if your employee is junior, and the competitor’s is senior? Is that some kind of nefarious competitive advantage?

  Moreover, as more and more office relationships take off, and more flings turn into rings, it is surely time to revisit the workforce rules, customs, and support systems regarding family employment. Right now in America, there are no uniform U.S. laws that prohibit the hiring of relatives, but it is estimated that up to 40 percent of companies still have rules on their books outlawing “nepotism”—a set of rules from the 1950s designed to stop white, male employees from hiring their underqualified relatives. (The word “nepotism” actually comes from the word “nephew.”) Sure, it’s still a good idea to stop unqualified nephews from sopping up company resources. But did we also intend to put at risk the jobs of colleagues who get married—and might suddenly violate company policy regarding spousal employment? Did we mean to discourage marriage between otherwise well-suited colleagues? When Congress tried to pass a ban on lawmakers’ spouses lobbying on Capitol Hill as part of its ethics cleanup in 2006, some people complained about that very problem, and confusion set in—was our sense of ethics now in conflict with our sense of family? Maybe there’s been new meaning given to the old expression that politics spawns strange bedfellows.

  Clearly, there is a whole host of HR needs going unaddressed at every level. Co-working spouses want to be reviewed and compensated without regard to the other—but, on the other hand, they would also appreciate it if one is laid off, the firm goes out of its way to retain the other. From the employers’ side, bosses need some kind of assurance that if co-working couples split up, they’ll keep the company out of it, and especially not take up colleagues’ time asking them to take sides. And speaking of colleagues, they, too, need some kind of guarantee that when it comes to deciding promotions, awards, or other compensation, the co-workers who happen to be married to the decision-makers won’t get preferential treatment. Maybe the new workplace policies, focused less on nephews and more on husbands and wives, should be called “nuptialism.”

  Beyond formal workplace policies, Office Romancers and Married Colleagues need a community, some fellow travelers with whom to work through shared experiences. What’s the best way to handle disclosure of the relationship, and the breakups? Workplace disagreements, or competitions that spill over to home? How about health insurance options, and parental leave? The double humiliation of a spouse’s in-office affair?

  On all fronts, we might look to universities. As the number of female Ph.D.’s skyrocketed—from about 8,000 in 1966 to over 20,000 in 2002—there was a huge boom in the number of academic couples. As a result, universities have been working for decades on ways not only to permit, but to encourage, positions for double-entry candidates. As this could be a wave of the workplace future, other employers may want to take note.

  Finally, couples themselves need to assess what it means to put all their proverbial eggs in one basket. With people working later and later into their lives, a co-working marriage could literally mean 24/7 togetherness for fifty or sixty years. Blissful, I know, for some. For others, maybe a little too close.

  It’s a new workplace out there, and in what was once a male-dominated office environment, where sexual harassment was the number one problem, the power structure is changing and so is the social structure. Sexual harassment remains a serious issue. But we can now look forward to a time where social collegiality, between truly co-equal men and women in executive positions, is a driving force in our work life and our social life.

  In the meantime, as the workforce works through these transitions, you are more likely than ever to stumble upon colleagues smooching (or more) on their lunch break. Could be hot gossip for the water cooler. Or, it could be just Mom and Pop, sneaking a little together time before the afternoon presentation.

  Commuter Couples

  In May 2006, the New York Times splashed a front-page color portrait of Bill and Hillary Clinton under the headline, “For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives.” Here it comes, readers thought. New, lurid details about the most dissected marriage in America.

  The story was compelling—although not from the point of view of either gossip or politics. It was compelling because the way that former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton live—two careers, two houses, seeing each other fourteen days a month, traveling to be together two out of every three weekends—is increasingly a way of life for married Americans. It’s called the Commuter Marriage, and the Clintons are far from alone—more than 3.5 million people are doing it.

  In 1990, an estimated 1.7 million married people in the United States were living apart for reasons other than separation. Fifteen years later, that number has more than doubled.

  Source: U.S. Census, 2006

  Did everyone start taking “A Room of One’s Own” just a little too seriously?

  The truth is, commuter marriages have always been big in our culture. Ben Franklin had one as our first ambassador to France—though he rarely got back home. Some of America’s most important jobs basically require them. Active-duty soldiers leave spouses and children for extended periods during deployment. Members of the U.S. House or Senate, like Hillary Clinton—and state legislators in places large enough to have a faraway capital—routinely bed down in apartments near work and then travel home on weekends. (Handfuls of U.S. congressmen live like college freshmen in shared quarters on Capitol Hill.)

  But increasingly, regular people—not just soldiers and public servants—are living apart from their spouses, too. Mostly they are dual-career couples who can’t, or don’t want to, uproot both of their professional lives just because one has to, or can, take a job or get a degree somewhere else. Forty years ago, such a decision would have been unthinkable. Women earned so little, there was such serious stigma attached to women living alone, and travel was so expensive that if a husband had to relocate, the wife pretty much always went along. But now that women make more, nearly 30 percent of American households are people living alone, and air travel is relatively cheap—commuter marriage is just one of the many ways that dual-earning couples are working out their life’s work. And, by the way, it’s not just for the young and starting-out. According to experts at AARP, the number of married people over 50 who live separately tripled between 2001 and 2005.