On the other hand, my understanding of the traditional mating dance presumes that men are encouraged to *ask* whoever they're hot after, leaving it to women to select or reject. I don't approve of it as a general cultural assumption, but in this case I see how it fits into game theory.
Older women don't get as many pings. That means that, at least in the short term, they are more likely to be pleasantly surprised by someone on-the-ball expressing interest than, say, a 19 year old would be. (Also, a man messaging someone 5-10 years his senior is already saying "I buck the social trend.") That spells a better chance of success for someone at the bottom end of her allowable range expressing interest.
Men are perfectly capable of raising their age expectations and *increasing* the number of women who are within 5-10 years who consider the age gap mutually acceptable.
I've never been short on queries from interested parties, and they've actually picked up as I've gotten older. Now in my mid-forties I get a lot more interest than I ever did in my mid-thirties. Of course, having freed myself from a repressive marriage has a lot to do with that...
Disagree strongly that older women are more desperate, though. In my circle at least, we're a lot pickier than we were as younger women, and our relationships are generally more satisfying.
re: desperationhydrolagusFebruary 18 2010, 18:13:09 UTC
I think desperation differs by (sub)culture. Women who are invested in a conventional timeline and status markers (marriage, kids, house, grandkids) may be more desperate as they age since they're diverging further and further from that timeline. Women whose priorities don't match that timeline are less likely to get desperate as they age. In my 38th year, I'm running into a swarm of my peers getting married or spawning--about 10 years later than the national average. Their 20s were spent in things like careers, degrees and self-discovery, and they hit their romantic stride later.
Re: re: desperationmemegardenFebruary 18 2010, 18:17:33 UTC
Yes, a lot of us do push the timing around like that. Unfortunately, there are biological limiting factors on the timing of children, for women, and unpredictably more so for some than others. It would be really nice if the easiest time for a woman to have kids were not also the best time to establish a career!
The one thing that really disappointed me about that article was that they completely neglected the (male) motivation of wanting to have children. Which selects strongly against a woman in their early forties or older. (Of course, in my case, the question is how much sanity am I willing to trade for reproductive ease?)
Although if you parse the article as being really about hey, consider dating women in their thirties, then I see that it makes more sense.
Agreed. I'm more interested in women a few years younger than me. I can "justify" that in terms of evolutionary psychology, or when that makes people huffy, in the more practical terms of wanting to have more children.
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And dating older has always worked out well for me.
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Older women don't get as many pings. That means that, at least in the short term, they are more likely to be pleasantly surprised by someone on-the-ball expressing interest than, say, a 19 year old would be. (Also, a man messaging someone 5-10 years his senior is already saying "I buck the social trend.") That spells a better chance of success for someone at the bottom end of her allowable range expressing interest.
Men are perfectly capable of raising their age expectations and *increasing* the number of women who are within 5-10 years who consider the age gap mutually acceptable.
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Disagree strongly that older women are more desperate, though. In my circle at least, we're a lot pickier than we were as younger women, and our relationships are generally more satisfying.
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Although if you parse the article as being really about hey, consider dating women in their thirties, then I see that it makes more sense.
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