
The above comment is typical. As it is, men between 22 and 30—nearly two-thirds of the male dating pool—focus almost exclusively on women younger than themselves. I'll be investigating this phenomenon today, with gusto and charts. Ultimately, I'll argue that they would be well-served to expand their search upwards, to women in their thirties and forties.
Because it has been a successful way to introduce previous posts, I wanted to put real faces on this demographic before I delve into a bunch of numbers. Pictured below are some single users in their mid-thirties or early forties, taken from the first couple pages of my own local match search. Nothing I'll talk about today pertains necessarily to any one of them, but I wanted to put forward some people to go with the statistical discussion.
Dating Preferences & Age
It's no secret that dating changes radically as you get older. As you can see below, the number of online daters peaks at 24, drops sharply at around 30, and then gradually tapers off, as the remaining singletons either find mates or withdraw themselves from contention:

The bar chart here shows how the woman to man ratio changes over time. As you can see, it's basically flat. In a better world, this would imply that older people don't necessarily have a harder time finding decent mates than younger ones, as the composition of the dating pool holds relatively steady from age to age. Put another way: a 45 year-old woman shouldn't in theory have a harder time finding a date than a 20 year-old, because the female-to-male ratios at those ages are equal (roughly 11:9).
Of course, we all know that 45 year-olds do have a much harder time, because the male fixation on youth distorts the dating pool. Look at how men have set their age preferences on OkCupid:

As you can see, a man, as he gets older, searches for relatively younger and younger women. Meanwhile his upper acceptable limit hovers only a token amount above his own age. a man, as he gets older, searches for relatively younger and younger womenThe median 31 year-old guy, for example, sets his allowable match age range from 22 to 35—nine years younger, but only four years older, than himself. This skewed mindset worsens with age; the median 42 year-old will accept a woman up to fifteen years younger, but no more than three years older.
A man's bias toward younger women becomes even more evident when we overlay his stated preferences with his actual messaging habits.
This next graph is what's called a heat map. It shows messaging concentrations by age; for each vertical age bracket, the greenest areas have the most messages, the reddest have the fewest, and the yellow have the average.

As you can see, men tend to focus on the youngest women in their already skewed preference pool, and, what's more, they spend athe median 30 year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age significant amount of energy pursuing women even younger than their stated minimum. No matter what he's telling himself on his setting page, a 30 year-old man spends as much time messaging 18 and 19 year-olds as he does women his own age. On the other hand, women only a few years older are largely neglected.
So you can see how differently women think about dating and age, here are the corresponding charts for them:

Except in their early to mid-twenties, when they apparently want nothing to do with younger guys (i.e. guys who are still in school?), women show an admirable openness to both reasonably younger and reasonably older men. Notice also how a woman's actual messaging activity, shown in the heat map below, is roughly centered on her own age (as illustrated by the dotted "age parity" line).

This second chart also contains something very peculiar that we didn't see at all in men. Notice the vertical stripes at ages 20 and 29. These color discontinuities indicate dramatic changes in a woman's dating mentality: when a women turns 20 she decides it's okay to message significantly older men (i.e. the upper reaches of the chart suddenly become less red). At 29, a woman becomes even more open to older men and, in addition, stops writing the youngest ones. The typical 28 year-old women sends a small but significant number of messages to men too young to drink. The typical 29 year-old sends practically none.
In any event, here's what happens when we synthesize all the above data. By tallying the number of people interested in each age group and gender, we can get a dynamic picture of the dating pools. I've made a little javascript widget to illustrate what's going on.
a by-age distribution of men who would date an 18 year-old woman


I was tempted to title this The Tides Of Longing. Move the slider to the right, toward middle age, and you can watch the pool of dating possibilities gather, crest, then drain away. Metaphors aside, we can evaluate the potential matches for a given age/gender by summing the area under the curve (AP Calculus, ftw!) I made these calculations in the chart below, and we can see that women have more pursuers than men until age 26, but thereafter a man can expect many more potential dates than a woman of the same age. At the graph's outer edge, at age 48, men are nearly twice as sought-after as women. Here's the data:

A woman's desirability peaks at 21, which, ironically enough is the age that men just begin their "prime," i.e. become more desirable than average. Following that dotted line out, statistically speaking, a woman's desirability
peaks at 21you can see that a woman of 31 is already "past her prime," while a man doesn't become so until 36. As we mentioned above, after age 26, a man has more potential matches than his female counterparts, which is a drastic reversal of the proportion in young adulthood, when women are much more sought-after. Because men's dating preferences skew so young, and women's are age-equitable, men peak later, and have a longer plateau of desirability, than women.
So that's the lay of the land, and now I'd like to say why I think it could be different. In the next three sections of this post, I will show that an older woman's attitudes, both about sex and life, are just as good if not better than her younger counterparts', and hopefully I'll convince more guys to venture north of their current age-limits:

Sex
Articles touting a woman's mid-thirties "sexual peak" have stalked the pages of Cosmo since time immemorial, but these articles typically cite clinical testosterone/estrogen/progesterone studies and attempt to make the leap to "sexual peak" from there—if they bother to cite any data at all. I, on the other hand, can make my claim by looking at a woman's stated preferences:



This is a nationwide "age progression" of American women, a normalized heat map similar to the ones you saw above, but with an added geographical component. By moving the slider you can watch how attitudes become more sex-positive as the population gets older.
This older-women-are-more-sexual pattern repeats across almost every proposition. Here are a few more data sets just as sparklines (computed, like the map above, for our sample set of 100,000 women). Again, these are just a handful of examples; whether we ask about bondage or kissing, women are the most sexual in their thirties.
Researching this post, I also came upon an interesting complementary pair of graphs illustrating sexual dominance preferences. Younger men want to be dominated. Older women are generally interested in doing just that.

In addition their lack of physical inhibitions, older women have much healthier attitudes in two other areas of sexual concern: STD testing and contraception.






Attitude
There are two operative stereotypes of older single women: the sad-sack (à la Bridget Jones) and the "cougar" (à la Samantha from Sex In The City) and both, like all stereotypes, are reductionist and stupid and I've tried to avoid them. I hesitated beginning my case for older women with something about their sexuality, like I did in Exhibit A, because that territory borders right on cougar country. But the evidence there was too compelling to ignore.
On the other hand, I found no basis whatsoever for Ms. Zellweger's version of the thirty-something single woman. The data indicate that they are in fact way better adjusted than their younger counterparts. For example:


It might be hard to eyeball, because the bottom graph isn't steeply sloped, but women in their thirties are 4.0% more likely to be happy than their younger counterparts. As anyone who's been in a relationship with someone who lacks them can attest, self-sufficiency and confidence are awesome qualities in a match.
The graph below shows a similar trend, until a poignant drop at the end.

Either something very sad happens to a woman at 40, or something incredibly awesome happens at 39. Hard to tell. And I also want to say, guys, that just because a woman is older, she's not necessarily on the fast-track to marriage:

Looks
The final thing I want to address is looks, because I think that is guys' most fundamental worry about dating someone older. There's no doubt that younger people are are more physically attractive—indeed in many ways beauty and youth are inextricable. That's why most of the models you see in magazines are teenagers, and turn-back-the-clock surgeries like face-lifts are so popular. There's no getting around this fact, and I don't want to hide it:

But, combing through the data, I intuitively felt like this graph didn't tell the whole story. So I dug deeper, and found something interesting. If you separate out the absolute best-looking women, almost all of whom are very young, and also remove the people you won't realistically want to date (the worst-looking women), you find that everyone else's attractiveness doesn't change much with age:

In other words, given that nobody is drop-dead gorgeous or drop-dead hideous, your average 25 year-old is roughly as good-looking as your average 35 year-old. for the vast majority of men, dating the absolute hottest girls isn't realisticYes, throwing out the prettiest of the pretty young things is a clumsy handicap to put on an age-by-age comparison. But at the same time, for the vast majority of men, the best-looking women are simply out of reach, so it's actually accurate to exclude them as possibilities. In fact, unrealistic male expectations inspired this article, so we want to do everything we can to correct for them.
Many of you are probably scoffing at the idea that many 35 year-olds are as attractive as many 25 year-olds, but there are social factors at work that you might not consider as you go through life making judgments. Most importantly: nationwide, thirtysomethings are much more likely to be married and therefore much more likely to have stopped optimizing their attractiveness. So the typical 35 year-old woman you see out in the world isn't representative of the single 35 year-olds who are still dating and looking good.
Anyhow, that just about concludes my case. Ultimately, you be the judge. Here are single women in their mid-twenties and women in their mid-thirties, all in the 70th percentile of attractiveness, side by side. The older women are on the left, in case you can't tell.






Of course, you could also do your own search and see for yourself. Thanks for reading.
Older women rule. If she’s hot and keeps things tight, it’s MILF and cookies baby!
alexander.
Believe it or not, there are many women in the 32-40 group who are not actively seeking a man just to have babies soon. There are actually women who have decided that having children is not for them, and they are very involved in their careers, social services, volunteer activities, hobbies, etc. I know this is a small minority of women, but in large cities, there seems to be more women that I’ve met and heard about who are not in a rush to find a man to have children with, despite the fact their biological clock ticking away. Some women just don’t want to cave in to their biological clock, when their emotional clock may not be ready for such a serious commitment. Some women may want a child, but don’t want to pick just the first available man because they are running out of time. Some women actually have their eggs frozen, or maybe thinking of possible adoption later on. I think if a man really falls in love with a woman they would love her, for who she is, not for her ability to bear children. He would be willing to adopt or try another method. Of course, this is most likely just a very small % of men as well. But personally if I don’t find the man whom I really connect with before my bio clock is dead, then I’d rather stay single and maybe adopt (even become a foster parent of an older child) since I refuse to settle for someone whom is not a true match or just get married w/o really ‘feeling’ it, and then later regret it and end up divorced. For now, most of my friends are just interested in dating someone they can talk to, have a good time with, share passions, conversations, and just enjoy life.
ancattedubh-
THIS IS FABULOUS! I thought it was worth repeating! I’m married, and am so glad that people like you are out there dating. It restores my faith in humanity! I would not mind my daughter dating someone of almost any age that thinks like this!
ancattedubh-
“& I don’t see how the current balances will be tipped in womens’ favor until a considerably larger percentage of the female populous is willing to take on the responsibility inherent in feminism, of proactively favoring men of their choice–rather than reactively favoring only men who show their interest first. Until then we all suffer equally from the 2nd (+now 3rd) generational fall out of an apparent lack of faith in sexual equality . . . or at least socially reciprocal equity.”
THIS IS FABULOUS! I thought it was worth repeating! I’m married, and am so glad that people like you are out there dating. It restores my faith in humanity! I would not mind my daughter dating someone of almost any age that thinks like this!
I think you left out a key reason for why men tend to go after younger women, as opposed to older women. Since women have made great strides in the workplace and in academia over the last 40 years, an older woman is more likely to have a career/salary just as good, if not better than a younger man. Sounds like a great deal for the younger guy, right? Not so much. Men tend to want to “wear the pants” in the relationship i.e. have the bread winner/hunter-gatherer role. Its hard to assert that role as a younger man, with an older woman who may very well make twice your salary. This need for the upper hand in the bank account department is natural in our patriarchal society. I hate to admit it, but I might have a hard time being in a relationship with a woman who made much more money than I do. Its prideful and possibly stupid, but being a man in our society is very tied to being in control and ‘handling your business’. Making much less money and or having a lesser career than the woman you’re dating just doesn’t jibe very well with that ideal.
OlderWoman, we can spot an aging, angry, bitter, man-hating shrew a mile away. You had your chance at a relationship, and you lost it.
WOmen over 40 are almost never attractive.
Soo…..No “jaded” metric? How about a graph showing all the hoops a guy must jump through to prove he is not like her last 10 boyfriends?
And maybe most important
No income/financial data? Because that is not important is the real world? I’m 47, and every time I go to a party/event/gathering where some of the people know my financial situation and that I am single, I always find women of all ages orbiting around me. Suddenly I am funny and attractive, insightful and intelligent. Well, I am intelligent, that is how I got the money.
A famous CW singer gave me a piece of wisdom one time while we smoked a “j” in a LV casino parking lot.
“money makes women horny”.
Empowering and scary at the same time. Because it is all too true. Young men, listen to your fathers advice, as stupid as you think he is. Date a woman your own age till your thirty, then as young as you can legally/morally get away with for as long as you can get away with it.
Funny how women think when they date younger they are “cougars”, but guys who date younger are “dirty old men” “creepy” or “gross”.
Your article was a tour de force of data presentation. Wow.
The comments include many insightful criticisms & real life experiences.
I’m 57 & married for decades — I saw this because a single friend posted the link on Facebook & I got curious.
Reminds me — when I was 24, I had a short relationship with a 32-year-old single mom. It had never occurred to me that I might find someone that much older, with that much baggage, attractive. Well… I did. The relationship didn’t last, but I have remained great friends with her and her now-40-something daughters, and I am pleased to have played a minor role in their upbringing. These have turned into highly treasured friendships.
I’m not here to agree or disagree with the research and published results, but I just want to point out that I personally know women whom I’ve found are more physically attractive than when they were younger. This piqued my curiosity. I also enjoy the projected maturity, from their thought processes, views on issues or topics, stability to how one treats others and how one acts. This is probably merely my experience, and so I cannot say that it is descriptive of the general woman, but also cannot ignore it to temper some of those biases the article and statistics mention and bemoan. Also, this may be due to the fact that two of the women I’m referring to are, personality-type wise, both probably ExFJs (read about those types if you don’t think my mention of it is relevant), and so I’m not really surprised about what I am seeing. They, as examples are aging beautifully, so far. I find that I do intuit that older women do not or would not consider someone younger such as myself, not only b/c of practical reasons, but probably also for maturity reasons as well. For a while, it has been asserted that women mature younger than men, and thus a younger man might not meet the standards of maturity desired for sharing real life together. Again, this mainly is speculation, consideration, and my own developing thoughts (as I write/type), and based upon my own experience (which is probably different than many others’ experiences), so don’t be tempted (I doubt one would anyway) to “take this to the bank” as reliable. Just my “two cents,” as much as I generally hate to use that expression. I hope you enjoyed wasting your time reading this.
TLDR: Go for MILFs
(data curious; thesis completely invalid: mutuality not considered, partnership as a child-bearing enterprise not considered, previous children factor not considered)
Comments:
1) 10± years age diff is much.
2) I avoid wishy washy pop-psyche/brainwash terms such as “confidence”, “intimidated”, “mature”, etc.
3) (Possibly i didn’t peruse your article carefully enough, but) i don’t see an abrupt point in the (nearest) graphs to correlate w/ your, “[something] incredibly awesome happens [dating site women] at 39.” the something happens at 40 is an abrupt drop in the line. maybe your “something good at 39″ expresses a “glass half full” perspective upon that same kink in the graph?
4) Most of the graphs across age are flat, or so shallow within 10 year range, that the graph may as well be flat.
40 (yo) is the symbolic age at which women give up on marriage, kids, “youth”, etc.
(continued)
5) I’ll agree with many who believe that women peak in their 30’s. the obvious advantage of 20’s is physical including energy-levels (however, once past my 30’s, early 20’s women tended to have more energy than i had.)
Less obvious characteristic of 20’s women is a more open sense of humor, which tends to die abruptly in women during their late 20’s. humor seems to pick up again after menopause.
So, lots of tradeoffs if we could choose, but in fact we can’t. established couples’ age diffs are usually pretty small.
6.a) After realizing this, many people “excitedly discover” various personal pref niches (eg, woman who never wants kids or marriage, nonreligious woman, gun or golf crazy woman, moonie). unfortunately, women found in those niches are also “snapped up” quickest.
Same is true for men.
“The good ones are taken” whether generally popular (hot, “wealthy”, sitcom funny, etc) or niche (wild-minded freethinker, rational, ethical, esoteric humor, opera-loving het males, etc).
6.b) I recommend that the cultural activities be relegated to “icing/optional”, not selection criteria. in my case, I don’t expect any woman to listen to music i like (which varies, but is generally tricky and busy|energetic). And if she likes cross stitching, astronomy, and pet tarantulas, then good for *her*.
6.c) Any gender differences appear starkly amplified when the leftover fringes are staring at each other (the other leftovers).
‘Guys, you too age and contribute to the risk of having a disabled kid.’
and consider that the soonest birth of 1st offspring would be a few years from “now”. then consider that parents need be relatively wise to optimally guide an infant’s growth. and, consider a parent’s age later, when “handling” that kid at 12-14 yo.
ime, (with other people’s kids) 30’s are optimum parental age. (so, bear baby in mid to late 20’s)
‘So the typical 35 year-old woman you see out in the world isn’t representative of the single 35 year-olds who are still dating and looking good.’
i seem to find only “taken” women ITRW. they are “attractive”. some look older than your 6-photo set, but many are as good (or better) looking.
Cue the classic lament: “where are the single women/men/codgers/femmes/flammes/straightacting/caribou/klingons/emos/emus/amoebae(fill in blank)?”
I wouldn’t WANT to date a younger man. The reason I’d go for a man close in age to me is for maturity reasons. People have a hard time treating each other like equals when clearly, experience-wise, they aren’t. Also, people from varying age-groups have different kinds of knowledge. I’m 34. I couldn’t fathom dating a guy who was an infant when the Challenger exploded, or who was in high school during 9/11. While that may, on the surface, seem unimportant… I’d have a hard time talking politics with a guy who’s comparatively clueless, or who only knows what the history books told him. I also couldn’t share my love of the old classics with someone who wasn’t alive when the actors were still alive. I cried when Lucille Ball died, and I was 12 when Star Trek TNG came out. If he can’t say the same, then we don’t have much in common. And, here’s a fun little fact: older men gross me out. Plain and simple. I don’t have a problem growing old with someone, but I do have a problem with not being able to share that experience together with him. I also don’t need to have a dad-aged penis in me. Nor a son-aged one. I mean really, that’s just gross.
As an attractive forty something..I must tell you..its fun to try again..and really ackward when I am attracting men 10 yrs younger..for relationships.
Let me start by saying that I’m 22.
I agree that there are maturity differences in general, but everyone is different. If you actually take the time to message someone and get a feel for their personality, and you can tell that they’re mature, decided they’re too young based simply on their age is asinine and extremely closed-minded.
So I’m not the norm. I own my own business ($), have been involved in focused self-improvement for several years (maturity)… I could continue, but suffice to say, every woman who really knows me thinks I’m a fabulous guy. Life is a journey, not a destination, and I’ll be the first and most vehement to admit that I’m FAR from perfect, but… personality, maturity, money… it may sound arrogant, but I really do have these things in the bag.
Doesn’t seem to make a bit of difference.
Perfect example:
I met a woman here on OkC who was 28. Not a soulmate or a solid 10, but attractive and cool nevertheless. I was mostly just interested in friendship (unless it’s obvious from the start, I don’t decide til I meet someone in person), but that didn’t seem to make a difference… after messaging back and forth several times, she told me I was really fun and absolutely hysterical, but “just too young” to meet in person. Even as a friend.
I’m totally down w/ dating older women – your perceived success & maturity doesn’t threaten me in the slightest – but I have yet to meet an older woman who is truly down w/ even the thought of dating a younger man.
Sex appeal seems to be a variable of many factors and it seems to me that you only need a certain number of the factors to be considered sexy/attractive. You can switch ‘em up in different orders according to preference, age, beauty, talent, power etc. So it seems there are quite a number o combinations an permutations( if you rank them)that can attract the avg OKCupid guy/gal. Age is only one factor and it seems that it is not consistently a negative factor as it increases.
Perhaps on average, and within a certain standard deviation it is still considered negative to be old. but I’ve always thought that a lot of sex appeal deals with things that are on the edge, slightly extreme. Sex appeal seems to be a factor of exaggerated things. Like extreme thinness or large breasts, silver hair, power, wealth, class, and perhaps age.
I found this article completely fascinating. But what I found even more fascinating was the comments that followed.
I think there is a lot of sterotyping that is freely applied to older women – we are of course less attractive than even many of our 40 year old counterparts, but we are not all shrewish, or bitter or saddled with bad attitudes tempered by years of lonely dating dissapointment.
Most of us have reached a point where we know ourselves very well and have let go of much of the dishonesty that creeps into dating. We are ready for sex, companionship , love and fun in a whole new way.
I have also found that while I have personally had many opportunities ( and offers) to date younger, I have not done so because I find men who are APROXIMATELY my age more attractive. Additionally men in my age range ( 45 – 55) do not generally want any more kids – so there are those considerations as well.
One final comment – I always laugh when men put in thier profiles that they look MUCH younger than thier stated age. No guys, for the most part you DO NOT. You look like men exactly your age, but you are keeping yourself up and we appreciate you for it!
Thank you, OkC! I’m fresh out of a relationship w/ a guy 10 years younger, but I’d still do it again in a heartbeat because — over time — GUYS get emotional baggage that inhibits THEM from falling in love again.
I’ve had other younger guys approach me, saying that they felt that going older would mean “less drama”. Why? Because an older woman is more likely to have herself figured out! And someone who has herself figured out is not going to be phased by the crap that would phase someone who has not figured herself out.
ALSO — Guys are notorious for not looking after their emotional development. If a guy is open for it… being with someone who has well looked after hers could jumpstart his.
I also hope that your article will encourage guys to present themselves as their real ages (instead of lying and saying that they are younger in hopes of getting a younger girl). Unless you can lose the emotional baggage & are willing to shave your chest & get hair implants, don’t try to tell me that you’re 24 when you are over 30.
Fantastic article, one of the best I’ve read in a long time! And your graphs and supporting statistics are amazing! Really an eye-opener! Thanks!
BULLSHIT!
Fuck this shit, I am 24 and all I get are young bimbos trying to tell me that birbs have insulated feet. All of the older women tell me I am too young and to buzz off.
I find that most older women are completely jaded.
They feel superior to younger men based on an arbitrary number.
“I cant imagine dating a guy in high school during 9/11″
Calling a younger man completely clueless is absurd.
I have met 40 year olds as politically versed as a chipmunk.
I have met 17 years smarter than my grandparents.
Being 23 and considered a genius it is EXTREMELY difficult to date younger women.
There are smart people of all ages but maturity wise I find a greater concentration with age.
The difference is that I will give everyone a chance young or old (to a point) while most older women “just cant date someone that young”
I don’t go for older women because, somehow, between the years and chemicals being put in the water, I look younger than I am. Women I’ve met online tend to look 42 when they are 31. (heavy smokers?) I’ve been turned down for future dates because “I look like I could be her son”.
I think, “date people from the age you look”. I don’t worry about age at all. If you like a person, go for it.
Also, where’s the “study” on women?
I think it just comes down to intimidation… Young men are afraid that they will be read into a whole lot more by more mature women since they have bee around and seen a few things, Its a bit easier to pull the wool over the eyes of younger women. Sad but true.
i like yr report i agree with y thisis not only in usa thisis in allll the world
why
1- famlefrom 10-20 looking for sex and gays lie with them to have sex
2-20-28-she has sex tray and test alos broken her heart she looking for here self jop studies or take caer of childs
3-28-38women looking for man respact here but how she see alot i thing women is mam and she is like paper when we write on she looking for man ready and realy for siting but how she is not like girl has 18-28yearsold
4-more than 39- she looking for man take care of she and be respactfull house home jope sex and trat here like girl 18- but how
the peroplem is women is make proplem for here self
we now realy well women is more than man
and if man get married one women we have alot of women stay without man
so must man get married 1234women one is bretty and others are divoers-woidow- disbled ugly ……etc
also must women learn how can she make good boys and girl for future by respact here self and dont be like tolit for every one
i hope y accpet my slutuion
\adel
Interesting article and well written, but I think there came a point about midway through when conjecture and opinion started, and data was kinda thrown out the window. Also, I disagree with a couple of things. I don’t think a man has to sacrifice physically to date a woman in her 30s, I think women actually hit their beauty peak and are the most gorgeous in their 30s. When you’re in your 20s, you’re still teenage looking and maybe a “hot girl”, but typically you don’t look like a woman. I think it’s when a female enters her 30s that she develops into an actual woman, she knows her style and what looks good on her, shes comfortable with herself, her body parts arent sagging yet and are still taut and firm, etc. I am much more attractive now than I was in my 20s. And look at most of the beauty icons in Hollywood, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Catherine Zeta Jones. People say that Lindsey Lohan and some of these other girls are “hot” or “cute”, but rarely use the phrase “beautiful woman”. Also, I have actually found that I have more dating options in my 30s than I did in my 20s. I think in your 30s you’re right in the middle, so you can easily attract men in their 40s, as well as still attract men in their 20s. On OkC, for some reason I am almost exclusively contacted by younger men. I find younger men to actually be more open, sweeter, and more respectful. But on the other hand, it does seem like they are typically just looking for a sex partner, so I treat them that same way, and don’t take them as serious relationship material. When it comes to a relationship, I probably would prefer to just stick with someone my own age, but I have found attractive single men in their 30s looking to commit to be an almost impossible commodity.
I enjoyed reading your findings and seeing your graphs. Perhaps we should all broaden our horizons and become more like the California 49ers spectating for gold! Hey… ya never know when you might strike a vein!! (or, vane or vain… haha).
Peace ~
For as long as I can remember I’ve always been attracted to older women (not my sister’s friends, my mom’s friends) and have never had a problem attracting them or dating them. Eventually though, they make our ages an issue and break it off. I’m a mature young professional, but this seems to be the one metric that isn’t tracked in this article.
All the same, very well done.
Quite interesting, it does seem though that I’m mildly out of luck as in my age range most women are looking for older men, probably the ability to go out to bars/for a drink (just gained) and school-age sort of thing. Generally my preference is actually older, mostly slightly older as I have a mental block of rejection anywhere above 3-4 years. though I doubt that’s the problem with the general male populace.
I agree about the older woman thing, as the girl I’m currently dating (met her on this website) is five years older than me (she’s 28). Best girl I’ve ever dated. What I really want, though, is to get in on that math.
Just when I think you can’t possibly top yourselves, you write this post. This is so utterly fascinating and fun to read. I could mess with the maps with the sliders all day. What’s the deal with horny people in southeast Oregon?
To the business owner and the EXTREMELY intelligent fellow above.
You guys may have cash flow and intelligence, and maybe even maturity, but those aren’t the only factors.
Not to say i’ve got a wealth of smooth banter inside my head, but sometimes the approach matters a lot.
I’m 23, and have been meeting a lot of older women for casual dating lately. I get rejected the first email or two, but more often than not, an impassioned, somewhat fun reply makes all the difference.
I.e., try a little more Cary Grant, with a dash of Woody Allen, and a little less Rupert Murdoch and Steve Hawking, you know?
By all means. It was nice to be able to test drive your matching algorithm. I especially like oktrends and, incidentally, this is why I’m leaving. You’ve convinced me. “the case for an older woman” and the stats analysis is quite compelling; this is no place for anyone above 35 years of age, We simply slide off the curve
Obviously you are right about the inherent male bias towards younger ( or younger looking ) women. The problem, for me at least, is that while I would love to meet datable women my age, I find _most_ of the ones in the symmetrical age bracket of 35-55 ( I am 45 years old) I’ve seen here to be immature, unappetizing or just plain wrong for me for. I don’t really care what that says about me, because I already know that I’m not particularly intelligent, nor am I good looking, rich or charismatic. I am also not particularly picky. I am, for lack of better words, the average 45 year old bloke who won’t humor infants and refuses to lavish his attentions on women who look as though life mugged them with a sockfull of pennies.
I know, I know, I’m superficial, age-ist and there are probably dozens of other uncomplimentary adjectives…does that mean that at 45 years of age I OUGHT to pursue women I find immature, unappetizing OR “withdraw from contention” ? I think that at least THAT assumption is mistaken. Older folks don’t “withdraw from contention” they simply don’t contend on okcupid.
Where, oh where are the datable women my age? Not here.
Best regards, congrats on creating a lovely site; I envy you your datasets.
Then_What
As a 43 year old woman, I was happy to see this post. 2 things I wish you’d addressed:
1) reading this makes me REALLY TEMPTED TO LIE about my age. Don’t know how you’d crunch the #s, but I’d love to find out the er… cost-benefit analysis of lying. Should I lie in hopes of getting more hits, and then fess up? Or is that worse in the long run.
Favorite observation: Attractiveness differential between older women who are single vs. married. Yuh, our married sisters do us NO FAVORS!
2) the article doesn’t acknowledge fertility. I do understand men being wary of dating women in their late 30s b/c they know the pressure is going to be on to make it a real relationship, marry and have kids right away. And that is scary. However, you’d expect to see that above ages, say, 43, 44, 45, that the numbers would balance out again, but they don’t seem to. Could be that the older men still want to have kids… but even so…I’d love to hear more about that.
Thoughts you #crunching geniuses?
Show me an article about sex that has a lot of graphs and I’ll show you an article that I won’t read, don’t care about, and that, IMO, is not useful, except to people who like the illusion that graphs are useful.
age does matter, but not as much as the person
Many useful statistics about men and women, basically about us. Interesting enough that the majority of men rule out the prettiest women for any kind of reasons. Maybe they are just too good to be true or maybe they just think that they would not be interested in them at all. Who knows?
I’ll call BS. Ok I buy it for 22 to say 25 but after that not considering “older” women is just plain dopey – and prolly not the type of guy worth your time anyways.
There’s young and heart
and tired old fart
– neither are linked to a numeric age.
None of my 35+ friends (me included) need help attracting the under 30 guys- its the guys at 30 to 40 who seem to be going to the women in their 20s. What are your arguments for those guys?
This is really, really interesting. Thanks for a compelling analysis.
I’m an “older woman” totally off your charts, but I’d like to offer an observation or two. I think it would be fascinating to apply your analysis to the “silent majority” of single adults who happen to be over 40 … many are single because of divorce, death, or choice; and I suspect a slew of other factors. I believe you would find that most are interested in meeting new people and very open to new friendships. But we are a rather quiet group when it comes to dating, as that precipitous fall at the end of one of your charts illustrates beautifully.
I can see that I’m not your demographic; so, please forgive the personal comment, but an interesting thing happened to me once I made it through menopause. Suddenly I found I’m a completely sexual being – better late than never, I guess. I’m in love with my body for the first time in my life, and I’m in better shape physically than I ever thought possible. My children are all out of high school, I have a satisfying career, an abundance of energy, and a thirst for life. I’m single and all that energy that once went into raising a family and nurturing a husband is now totally mine to enjoy in every possible way. If anyone had suggested to me at 35 years old that I could experience this “re-birth” in my 50s I would have laughed at them. At 35 I couldn’t even relate to 55! What prejudice!
I’m no cougar but I DO think I’m the normal “older woman”. And I’ll tell you one thing: I’m in no danger of becoming pregnant. Been there, done that. I have no desire to dominate a man; I just want a good friend. I intend to have fun learning about this fascinating world we live in and I would love to share it with others. I love men of all ages and have found that sex just gets better and better. Everyday suits me just fine. And my outer limits of desirable age spread have expanded in both directions exponentially. Anyone between ages 21-101 is of interest to me. You get to a point in life where age just doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. It’s the inner beauty of the person that truly shines through.
I guess that’s my way of saying that I suspect there is something MUCH more interesting beyond the parameters of your demographic. I love your site. Thanks for the data crunching.
Fascinating discussion, but what’s awfully depressing is that your graphs don’t even go up to age fifty, male or female! Is this demographic relegated to the senior singles online websites? Barf.
The assumption among some posters seems to be, as well, that older women are damaged goods in some way, those “Never marrieds” or bitter, haggard divorces. I would certainly take issue with that. But there’s more…Some of us over forty/over fifty types have been widowed, and some of us take interest in younger men because of the ways in which we’ve watched illness accelerate the premature aging–and then the death–of our spouses and partners, some of many years. If you’ve spent years dealing with a spouse’s illness, like I did, you may be inclined toward more youthful partners (like I am) because of time and enjoyment that you feel you’ve missed out on; you may feel like you’re living in a time warp. You want to grab back that lost pleasure, both emotional and physical. It’s all a state of mind, of course. But to make statements like older women are “almost never attractive” is really not constructive!!!
In addition to all the reasons mentioned above, I’ve found that older women are just moer INTERESTING. I’m in my early twenties, and though I’ve mostly dated people younger than myself, as I’ve started to branch out in dating I have found – much to my surprise – that older women are more attractive to me on a lot of the more important levels. Intellectually, they tend to be better read. Emotionally, they tend to be more stable. Philosophically, they tend to be more deep. They tend to have more things to say, say them better, and take the things you say less personally.
So, hear-hear. Huzzah for older women!
…To be honest, most of those heat graphs lack the “smoking gun” evidence which our author touts. Not to my eyes anyway. And, I gain another interpretation from our author’s interpretation of the heat charts: women apparently believe that a man must be older in order for him to be more of a match (I assume in maturity, from my own sampling of reasons why women would be this way). To which I say: this article is nonsense except in that it exposes how people focus far too much on the numbers and less on the depth of a potential match’s work on their profile. It’s truly hypocrisy to sit here and throw numbers at me about age when maturity, compatibility, and general ability to get along are far more subjective terms. If anything, OkCupid ought to spend more time setting up ways to get people to interact more (something like a randomly generated live chat feed with someone else who highlights the same important things that interest them) and less time writing articles and compiling data about the trend in dating ages.
Amazing! Unfortunately, it’s true! I just turned 41 and it’s like I’ve disappeared. Regardless of whether or not I look better or make more money or whatever. However, Time does not stop for anyone. We ALL get old and we ALL will be in the same position. The only thing that stinks about this data is what it indicates……..men are the ones who have this age problem. The one thing I find interesting about men is that they think women do not judge them by the same criteria. I hate to say this guys, but you are getting older too. What men also do not realize is that many women settle. Now this is OUR fault! But this is another discussion. This is not new information, it just reaffirms what goes on in our society.
I just think it is sad because I bet there are a lot of GREAT women out there, but because of their age they will be overlooked. Men are delaying their happiness and their chances of finding the one. And on the same token, women should hang in there and be confident. No need to waste your time with someone who doesn’t want you. Press on and you will find the one.
Interesting read. I’ve always considered dating older women. I tend to find that I don’t get along too well with women my age when it comes to having an intellectually stimulating conversation, maybe an older woman could be the key to solving this problem.
O well, I know a lot of people judge you by your age so I guess I’ll have to wait a while before I can get taken seriously, ahaha.
Anyway, good read, thanks for reminding me how boring girls my age are
Interesting article – and particularly interesting that you’ve ignored those of us who are 50+ in your study.
I just turned 55 and I’d like to say “55 and Fabulous”.
I’m attractive, fit, an avid outdoorswoman, flyfisherman, kayaker, nature photographer with my own home, nice car, portfolio and interests. I’d love to have a nice guy to share some of all of my accomplishments with….am I desperate? NOT!!! I get lots of hits on OKC, but I’ve earned the right to be selective.
I’ve laughed out loud in reading about the guys who ‘want to wear the financial pants’ in a relationship. You go guys -> but I have to tell you that in these tough economic times, you’ll be lucky to find a place to hang those pants.
As a fisherman, I know that you can catch the fish of a lifetime in a place you’ve never considered casting your line. Think outside the box – a wise woman wrote above that her life was reborn after 50 – she’s absolutely right. Older women ROCK!
My sister, an M.D., calls it the “Y” chromosome defect -> why men behave this way. She’s right, but not all of you have that defect. Think outside the box -> Lead the pack, don’t run with the herd and you’ll find the love of your life.
I think there’s something big missing here with the older man / younger woman thing. There is a fundamental (as in deep within the brain) reason that men tend to want to date someone younger than themselves. It happens in gay and straight males too. Read “The Evolution of Desire” sometime. We look for younger women because they are more likely to produce successful offspring. It’s down there deep in our brains whether we like it or not. Those sorts of preferences are hard to ignore.
Interesting article… As an anonymous reply stated above – we’re not all bitter and divorced. At 48 and widowed (my husband was 10 yrs older); I found a new freedom to do what I please, when I please. I’m living one of the better moments of my life at present. However, because of the trends illustrated above, I have not been successful finding a proper mate with online dating sites but I sure get a lot of solicitation from men of all ages. Unfortunately, most just want to get laid and act like a kid in a candy store wanting to taste them all. The others, especially within a 10 year range of my age group, are a little more desperate, lonely and often boring. I do better in the real world where propositions also come from men of all ages. I’m presently seeing a man who is 36 – I met him at a mutual friend’s about 3 years ago, started seeing him on occasion and now he’s been a steady for the past year. It’s fun but I know it won’t last, it’s not just the age; it’s the guy…
What I’m trying to say is that it’s hard to generalize anything in life – there are always exceptions to every rule. Think positive, open your minds and broaden your horizons – you may be missing out on some very good times…
PS: I don’t consider myself a cougar. I find that term to be rather derogatory. I don’t sit there and think about my age or anyone else’s. I just think about the person I’m with at the moment, everyone has something to say, no matter the age…
I tell you what; when women start considering men shorter than themselves, I’ll start considering women older than myself.
The fact is, women are into tall guys, and men are into young women. Except men are constantly called out for being shallow about their desires, while women get a free pass.