I have received some of the same unsolicited advice over and over again over the years: date older. Because men my age (28) or younger don’t want to commit, don’t know what they want, are immature, just want to get laid (um, newsflash, all men of any age just want to get laid), have a Peter Pan complex, etc…

I tend to agree with all these points about the gentlemen of my generation. So I have — from time to time — gone on a date with the odd 30+ year old.

Guess what. Those dates with the 30somethings went worse than the dates with the 20something Peter Pans.

I’m the first to point out that I have some immature tendencies so it’s probably not a good idea to try to date a 35-year-old when I possess the mental age and maturity of 24-year-old post-college sorority idiot. That being said, I have found men in their 30s to be smarmy, arrogant, hands-y, and just kind of annoying.

Case in point: I recently went on a drinks date with Jake*, a 34-year-old real estate broker from eHarmony. When I met him outside the Santa Monica bar, my first thought was, “Is this really what 34 looks like?” Because the guy looked way older than that. But I soldiered on and gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was being truthful about his age.

The conversation went alright but I felt very self-conscious talking to him because of the disarming front he put on. For example, I was acutely aware of how often I said the word, “like” (did I mention that I really was in a sorority?). By the second drink, he tried multiple times to touch my leg, even though I was sitting pretty far from him and giving him no signals that it was okay in any way to touch me anywhere. I excused myself from the date pretty quickly after the multiple creep touch attempts and thankfully have never heard from the 34 (or 30-faux?) year old again.

2nd case in point: Mr. Pretentious.

Hopefully, this just means I’m dating the wrong 30somethings and there are plenty of lovely, not horribly jaded 30+ year olds out there. Single ladies of the Internet – what have you found? Is it better to date your age, older, or younger?