The young and the hopeless

Quick question, readers: is a thirty-nine year old woman being nervous about going on a date completely insane?  Scott and I have been chatting for a while since we met on a dating site, (no, he isn't the dud I discussed in 'Did the Internet kill romance?'), and I know a little apprehension is understandable, given the fact that my last date was just over a year ago, but can someone please explain to me why my brain is already swimming with worst case scenarios?  He is sweet, gorgeous and six years younger than me.  All that should be cause for celebration, right?  Once again my frontal lobe, that pesky little part of the brain responsible for, amongst other things, reasoning, has let me down by going into overdrive.  Sweetness, it tells me, is an act he's putting on, either to get into my pants or to lull me into a false sense of security long enough to get me into his car and drive me out into the middle of nowhere, where I'll become the seventeenth victim in his cross-country homicide spree.  The fact that he could pass for Taylor Lautner's older brother, it scoffs, is only going to make it even more humiliating when he sees me in daylight and marvels at what good lighting and a strategic camera angle can do for a profile shot.  All that has my palms sweaty enough to render holding precious objects dangerous, but it's on the subject of age that the internal bashing really starts.

A six year age gap might not seem huge, but I'll be forty next year.  There are couples whose age gap is wider, Deborah Lee Furness got Hugh Jackman and Demi Moore wakes up next to Ashton Kutcher every morning, but there are two key differences between these women and myself.  Deborah didn't have to worry about a teenager ruining the romantic mood by playing goth metal when she and Hugh first met, and all the expensive skin creams in the world aint gonna change the fact that the only thing Demi and I share is a sir name.  I was discussing this with my mother yesterday, and by discussing I mean obsessing, and she told me I was being ridiculous; I was beautiful and that I had nothing to worry about, but what else was she going to say?  "You got your looks from your Dad's side of the family, but don't worry; I'm sure he won't be concentrating on your face if you wear a tight dress."  Am I alone here?  Have you been K.O.'d by self doubt?  Let me know...it will give me something to ponder between slathering on youth serum and hiding all my 80's C.D's!