My friend Tommy recently sent me an article about Maria Dahvana Headley’s book, “The Year of Yes.” It chronicles the author’s frustration with dating young intellectuals and her decision to go out with anyone who asked her. She wound up going on 150 dates, ranging from a lesbian to a mime to a homeless men to a famous playwright 25 years her senior. She married the last one, and now lives in Seattle with him and his two teenagers.

Headley claims that we’re too closed-minded when we come to dating – kind of like the lead character in “Something New,” who’s looking for the Ideal Black Man and ends up with her white-guy gardener. Maybe I've always had low standards -- er, been openminded -- because I’ve dated my share of mimes, busboys, men in skirts and people who only eat orange food. I could write a book. I could call it “Two Decades of Maybe.”

Because I’ve dated the man-with-kids, the tortured artist man, the tortured blue collar man, the tortured professional man, the tortured unemployed man, the still-married man, the much-older man, the much-younger man, the much-dumber man, the foreign man, the felon man, the psoriasis man, the homeless man, and three guys named Pedro.

There was the Basque architect who smoked and the Brahmin architect who did not; a Vietnam vet who played guitar and an Iraq vet who did not. There was the short man who drove a giant SUV and the 6'7" man who slept on his childhood twin bed; a rock star ex-lawyer and a Scottish Jewish Blue Man ex-lawyer and a pro football player with a "Nobody Does it Better" sign above his bed. There was a just-fired man who argued using a sock puppet on his hand and a drug dealer man with a three-foot Graffix bong and a yogi man whose apartment was entirely white and who fell asleep promptly at 9PM no matter what.

There was a man who dyed his hair black and couldn't get over the death of his dog, a 12-stepper who wouldn't ask for the check and a radio producer with one testicle and a music producer with one kidney and a man from the produce aisle and even a couple of brothers. In other words, I’ve gone out with everyone but the muffin man.

So it shouldn’t surprise me that after 20 years of trying to separate the wheat from the chaff I’m now with a man who has three grandchildren – one of whom is old enough to drive. I never thought I’d fall for someone who listens to the oldies station and remembers the Edgewater Beach Hotel -- which closed in 1967 -- and streetcars. He says things like, “My first date was at [long-gone amusement park] Riverview,” and “The last time I did yoga was in 1974.” That’s back when he lived at a commune where Spring Hill Mall now sits.

So maybe Headley and I are onto something – maybe older guys are the new young intellectuals.

And, if nothing else, I’m learning a lot about Chicago history.