First cougars, now nougars

A poster girl for nougars is 35-year-old singer Shakira, who is dating 25-year-old Barcelona player Gerard Pique.

A poster girl for nougars is 35-year-old singer Shakira, who is dating 25-year-old Barcelona player Gerard Pique.

Published Sep 19, 2012

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London - The Cougar has a competitor: the Nougar. Typically in her early to mid-30s - so about ten years younger than your average cougar - the nougar (which stands for new cougar, also known as cougarettes or pumas), refuses to grow up, take dating too seriously and thinks that because she’s still living like a 20-something she might as well go out with one, too.

While cougars such as Demi Moore and Courteney Cox hang up their Jimmy Choos and lick their wounds as their relationships with younger men founder, nougars are going on the hunt.

A poster girl for nougars is 35-year-old singer Shakira, who is dating 25-year-old Barcelona player Gerard Piqué. They met in 2010, when Piqué was also featured in the music video for Shakira’s Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), to celebrate South Africa hosting the World Cup.

The singer officially confirmed their relationship in March last year via Twitter and Facebook, posting a picture of the two of them with a caption reading “I present to you my sunshine” – written in Spanish.

Another is 32-year-old Caroline Flack, a British television presenter, known for presenting I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! NOW! from 2008 to 2010 and currently The Xtra Factor. She dated One Direction’s Harry Styles, 18, last year.

I was a nougar once, too, when, aged 33, I dated the 23-year-old Duncan (reader, I’ve since married him).

He made the first move, as I wouldn’t have dreamed of approaching him: ironically, one of the reasons the relationship worked is that I had zero expectations given the age gap.

Fast forward a few years (we’re now, respectively, 40 and 30 and have been married for five years) and a new generation of women in their 30s seem far more confident about approaching younger men.

“I’ve got nothing to prove,” says Jen, a 34-year-old film publicist who has been dating Tim, a man 11 years her junior for the past three months. “My relationship happened pretty naturally: we got talking in a bar and just hit it off.

“My attitude was, and is, ‘why not’? Tim’s quite mature while I still have a wild side, so we even out. Who knows if it will last, but right now I’m having too much fun.”

So will these new-generation cougars have more success with their cubs than their older counterparts?

Relationship expert Julia Coles thinks it’s all down to the way women view their younger partners.

“It’s about not taking it seriously,” she says. “It’s important to recognise the relationship primarily as a great ego boost.”

Most nougars aren’t looking to settle down, although that doesn’t prevent a happy-ever-after - just look at what happened to me. - Daily Mail

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