The Case For An Older Woman

February 16th, 2010 by Christian

"Women older than me keep messaging me. Sorry, but that is not going to happen."—recent feedback from a male user

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.

The Back Story
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.

The Shape Of The Dating Pool

a by-age distribution of men who would date an 18 year-old woman

men seeking women women seeking men

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 21
you 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:

Exhibit A
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:

Ideally, how often would you have sex?
age of the population

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.

Is contraception morally wrong?
age of the population
How often do you get tested for STDs?
age of the population
These maps lead directly into my next topic:
Exhibit B
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:

Exhibit C
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.

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303 Responses to “The Case For An Older Woman”

  1. Shoot, I’ve always been into women my age or a little older. I’m 30 now and am really into women my age. I’ve never cared for younger women because they talk and care about too much nonsense and many of them don’t know how to do practical things.

  2. Delighted to see both post and comments. I am an older woman who began dating younger men because they approached me, and thoroughly enjoys it. I am deliberately very public about the fact that I date younger men, not simply to champion the older woman-younger man relationship model, but to make a bigger point: that everyone should be free to pursue the dating scenario that works for them.

    My friend Julia Macmillan is the founder of http://www.toyboywarehouse.com, a deliberately light-heartedly named UK dating website for older women and younger men which is having great success in the UK and will be launching into the US later on this year. Check it out!

  3. Rachel

    really interesting data. i’d love to see the gay version lol

  4. Heather

    I wonder if men wanting younger women is something more primal and /or evolutionary? A twenty-something girl is likely more fertile than her thirty-something counterpart.

  5. Hi, I’m older than thirty something and get a lot of e mails and dates so, women that are a little older should not despair. Life is for us older people too and everyone should try tto make the best of it and live life to the fullest.’
    Funnime or Carol

  6. Calvin

    Great article. I personally adore older women. Even in my 20’s I was dating women in their mid-late 30’s. Older women and the “Zone of Greatness!” Nothing better.

  7. JL

    “I wonder if men wanting younger women is something more primal and /or evolutionary? A twenty-something girl is likely more fertile than her thirty-something counterpart.”

    This is one of those difficult to answer questions. Similar to “Is the Pope Catholic?” I guess we’ll never know.

  8. Diogenes

    The vertical band in your graph of women’s preferences at age 29 exists because the average 29-year-old woman is 31.

  9. Taf

    I think heather has something there. If looks remain the same, and sexually older women should be more appetizing (for a lack of a better word), then why do women (until their 30’s) something normally look for older men, and men normally look for women in ther 20 somethings? I’d say primal instincts play a too stronger role (just as attractivness is usually stronger than anything else that “should” be a better match maker). At the end of the day, men look for the more fertile women, as they represent the stronger breeders (but not too young that it shocks social norms). And women typically look for the slightly older (although those continuities do look intresting). The other thing i see (and a simpler reasoning) is that singles extend their look towards the dating pool, men look for younger, much younger cause of instinct, and women look for slightly younger, cause of necessity… The “ideally would have sex” also is curious though… whats the universe? All women? Only Single Women? Could availability of resource have an influence here? (as in, easier to have, makes it less desirable, harder to have, makes you whish you want more than you actually would have…)

  10. cleokimball

    Christian, I was just saying to a friend yesterday that I was going to write in and ask you to do this. Thanks! The maps with age slides are especially engaging.

  11. Karen

    Brilliant mix of interactive graphs, charts and explanation to make some pretty sophisticated in-depth research and analysis clear and accessible to all. Your post is a real inspiration. Many thanks!

  12. rob thomas

    The problem with these graphs is that they show preferences for dating or sex, and not long-term commitment. When I was 23, I was dating a 32-year-old woman. Sexually we were very compatible, we had great chemistry, and we fell in love. But eventually we had to have a talk about what came next. She was ready to start a family and I was not.

    Dating is important, sure, but marriage and families are the fabric of society. Dating older women is awesome, but if you want a fulfilling life, you need to be realistic about the kind of commitment dating an older women will eventually require.

    If you’re dating to have sex, the older-woman-younger-man thing works. But if you’re dating to marry, you might want to reconsider.

  13. Matt

    My biggest question is whether men want to date younger women because they are more similar. Older women may be happier and more confident, but what if older men more closely resemble younger women. I would argue that most people are happiest with someone similar to themselves, instead of their betters.

  14. Hester

    Ah, but do us slightly older ladies want the immature, inexperienced young ones? I’ve found that gentlemen from 35 to 45 tend to make much better dates and playmates. I’m done with boys with plenty of energy but no focus…always in a hurry…in and out of the bedroom.

  15. Bibliofilly

    I met my husband on OKCupid. We dated four months and decided we were perfect for each other. It almost didn’t happen – I was 38 and he was 32. I was not in the age range he was searching for – he was cutting off around 35, despite our having a 90% compatibility rating. Luckily, as an older woman I have more confidence and self-knowledge and contacted him myself when I saw his profile.

  16. Trixie

    I agree with Matt ^ that people will gravitate to the age group whose interests or motivations most closely agree with their own. It makes sense. I date younger men because men my age seem to me to be in a different world…sadly more like my own parents than me. If you have not been married or raised a family and have been single for a long time, chances are that your interests are very different from someone who has had a family and focused on them rather than being “out there” with single people, social media and networking. The culture one becomes exposed to as a single person is so different – I’m a 40-something whose friends are all married with children, so I see this first hand.

  17. I have always found this male fertility quest to be a bit short-sighted. Do you really want a fertile woman? Only if you want to have children, right? And if you want to have children, you want to pick a woman who is stable enough to handle motherhood and form a aolid relationship with you so that you can have a bond with your children as their father and not just be required to provide money? Or are these men looking to dine-and-dash, so to speak, subconsciously, thinking they will create a baby and not have to deal with it?

  18. Pixiedust76

    I am 33 and newly single. When I started dating again I was shocked by the number of younger men that contacted me and I was really not into that. I have given it a shot, with some success. Perhaps living near a university could explain why I get so many messages, since it would seem from this post that it is not common.

    And one more thing, the concept of women hitting their peak in their 30s. Entirely true for me. I turned 31 and something switched on. Then again, maybe it’s because the children were sleeping through the night and potty trained. Hard to tell.

  19. Laurel Kirtz

    I can only assume the obsession with younger women is an obsession with control and power. Firstly and obviously, younger women are more easily manipulated. I’ve noticed the older a woman gets, the more comfortable she is with asking for what she wants, and pursuing it. But secondly, I think some dudes don’t want to grow up, so by dating a far younger woman, they put less responsibility on themselves to be mature… that being related to control, but with a focus on NOT controlling oneself. Mature healthy men, are attracted to women who can provide true companionship, and be “an equal”, and I’ve noticed those men go for women their age.
    And lastly, who the hell really wants to date someone in his or her young 20’s anyways?? Boys and girls alike are just so childish until age 24… with a few exceptions, kids who’ve been emancipated from their parents, kids with Diabetes Type 1, kids whose parents were addicts and the kids had to parent the parents…. etc.
    But the point is, people in their young 20’s are so into clothes and music and friends and being cool, most adults can’t relate to that. I love seeing college kids date high school kids, they are a match! But I remember being in my young 20’s and older guys were always trying to date me, and it just never worked. For me my line was 26, after that age I felt like I could relate to older people in a dating way, and up until that point, I was a young mess. Like most young people.
    From a 35 year old woman who dates a 31 year old male.

  20. John

    I was 20 and engaged to a 27 year old woman. I was with her for 2 and a half years, but it didn’t work out; we’re still good friends.

    I love older (as in older than myself, not OLD by definition) women, and I have never had a bias towards the younger age…I honestly find that women in their late 20’s up through late 30’s are very desirable and are very attractive. That will probably shift even higher as I grow older. In fact I’m sure it will.

    In case you were wondering, I’m 23.

  21. I have to say that one of the most awesomely passionate sexual relationships was with a 41 year old runner. She shared a lot of my interests, had a body that put girls my age(and younger!) to shame, and had black hair and piercing blue eyes. We were both into 80’s music, enjoyed really taboo things, and she even offered to buy me a plane ticket to New York. Yes, older women are a fantastic roller coaster ride of sexual energy.

  22. kissesfools

    I loved this! I like to date younger man, I’m 35. Thanx for informing people of the advantages!!!

  23. Excellent work on the data!

  24. Uh huh…I always figured that the older man younger woman thing was just because the older men are too lazy in bed and out for women their age to tolerate them. So instead they find some girl with daddy issues who doesn’t know she doesn’t have to put up with his crap, and will take awhile to figure out he’s a boobie prize and not an actual prize.

  25. gloria

    I think the article was well written and meaningful. I don’t, unfortunately, think it will change too many minds.

    I’m 68-years old, but look about 20 years younger. No lie. Good genes, healthy living, and modern technology has helped. It seems the older a man gets, the younger he wants his woman. Unfortunately, he can get that because the pool for him, is an olympic one. A man of my age is facing possible prostate problems, heart problems, diabetic and blood pressure problems, and possibly arthritis…osteo or rheumatoid.

    It’s a sad position for healthy, youngish almost 70-year old woman.

    Thanks for the article.
    gloria

  26. jerad

    Great article. 40yr old male have always preferred same or older women. They know what they like and most, due to experience are more willing to take calculated risks with their sexuality.

  27. Lally

    This is very interesting, and makes a case for men adjusting their expectations and preferences toward dating and sex with older women than they now specify. I don’t think the corresponding case about women’s preferences is made here. I imagine it is always difficult to change something so emotional purely on the basis of numbers; however, good effort on the illustrations of lovely women over thirty! I’d still prefer a male partner my age or older, although I have dated younger men. I will think on, and maybe a future article will enlighten me. Of course the hope for anyone visiting this site is that they will meet lovely, specific people who will take the matter out of the realm of statistics and into delightful particulars. I wish us all the best results!

  28. Chellie

    Thanks for the graphs, Chris and thanks for having the cut-off age before my own. Either this means I am going to die eight years ago, or these graphs only pertain to American men and women. Also, you did not take into account that not everyone in a specific age group is Internet-conversant, so might be hesitant to even be using such sites as OkCupid and would not show up in your databases. Also, it would be interesting if you did this same graph for non-Americans who hold differing attitudes. When you query men and women who are NOT Americans your graphs would go off the deep end. For example, European men are not as hung up on a woman’s age as American men are. They are not blasted with youthful images of underaged Calvin Klein waifs for one thing. (The word for this kind of appeal is “pedophilia”) And they appreciate maturity, intellect and accomplishment more than their American brethren. I have noted that men on dating sites here in Israel that also cater to Americans show some interesting differences. Men who are in their mid-40s who are divorced with kids claim to be looking for women who are anywhere from 15-20 years younger. They usually claim they are interested in having “more children” which does not square with reality as a woman that much younger wants a man around her own age. Looking to have more kids means that a man is either not comfortable with his age or in his own skin because he realizes he is not getting any younger. As for me, I tried dating men closer to my age and was disappointed and gave up. I know exactly the age of man I prefer: men who are potty-trained, successful, not frantic, not hyper, not unemployed, unfocused. 20-somethings do not fall in this category. The men who assume that because I never had kids I must hate them is a common comment and it is regrettable and false. A man can have kids and I will probably like them as much as he would like my cats. If I meet a man who is single in his late 30’s or early 40’s and he is clear he doesn’t expect to have a family, this is a reality guy and a good match for me. Many people believe that because they CAN have children they SHOULD have them which is a big mistake.

  29. Tongboy

    My roommate and I were talking about this just last night. We’re both of the same mindset that despite both being in our mid 20’s we’re pretty tired of dating mid/young 20 something girls.

    It’s a PITA to try and get a girl who has nothing but school for life experience to understand business meetings or let alone have cash for fun outings. A same age or older girl fits great into that – they are usually grounded in reality, have their own money and aren’t so disillusioned by guys trying to get into their pants that they can actually be themselves.

  30. David

    The more striking, and underplayed in the article, aspect of the graph is that women in their 20s have a very strong preference for older men. Playing it down as not wanting to date men in high school is a disingenuous dismissal. This age group represents a large portion of people on OKCupid. This article focusing on male preference for youth as a problem while ignoring a more pronounced female preference for older men doesn’t make sense.

  31. Elizabeth Walden

    Men are just gross! Makes me wish I were a lesbian.

  32. Whether you’re an older or a younger woman, you don’t want a guy who dictates the age of the women he wants to meet. Although I understand that everyone has their preferences and far be it for me to judge them, I wouldn’t want to be some cradle-robber’s “first time” old chick.

    I am on a mission to be in the driver’s seat, so I’m on Match, eHarmony, and this new site HerWay (women do all the searching) and am making a point to be the instigator.

    You wouldn’t search for me cause of my age, huh? Well guess what- I wouldn’t search for you either.

  33. Marc

    Personally, I would like to date a woman my age or older. The problem is that I am still in college and where I live, alot of women who are my age or older are either married or engaged. Some are still not looking for boyfriends. Some women my age are looking for men much older. What I am seeing is this. Alot of men between 22 and 30 want women much younger than them. Some women are staying single into their mid-upper 20’s. Many in this age group are looking for men at least a year older than them, but many of those men look for younger women. Many women would rather not dating men younger than them and many of the men specifically want women younger than them. Myself, I have never had a girlfriend. Part of it has to do with many women looking for men older or taller than me. Many of the women who have men their own age probably have been dating those men since high school and most likely met in high school.

  34. It’s analysis like this that makes OKC one of the best (if not THE best) dating sites out there. The others attempt to ‘forcibly’ match members, using all those compatibility formulas. With OKC, the member has all the tools at their disposal, but are free to explore on their own, information in hand, with only the most benign and gentle nudges from the staff. And you aren’t charged insane monthly fees for the service! Thanks, OKC!

  35. Lizzi

    Why do so many guys say their “value” goes up when they are older? Yeah, a 40 year old guy gets more attention than a 40 year old woman, but he still gets waay less than a 25 year old guy. Look at the “How a Persons Desirability Changes with Time” graph.

    I’m 22 and hate older guys….no wonder they keep on messaging girls if they think their “value goes up”. Sorry no. You are old. Your value is slightly higher than an old woman’s, but it’s not the same as a younger guys, let alone a younger girl. Sure older women are more likely to have kids, but that’s part of life.

  36. (I’m reposting this from a thread I started in the “Help” forum, because I didn’t see the comments section at the bottom of this page. My apologies.)

    Dear okcupid,

    As a 21-year-old, I’m apparently on the brink of the magical age group where I can date any woman within several years, ahead or behind, of me. But even though “The Case for an Older Woman” argues, obviously, that I should chase older women, “The Shape of the Dating Pool” (”The Tide of Longing”) argues otherwise.

    Even before reading the article, I was convinced that I should pursue the younger and the older equally – because my lower limit was 18, three years younger, my higher limit should be 24, three years older. But most older women I’ve messaged have replied, rather dismissively, that they aren’t interested in younger men – and “The Shape of the Dating Pool” concurs. At every age, the pool of women who would date me are, for the most part, younger than me; the interest in younger members of the opposite gender tapers off far more sharply for women than for men. While it’s true that there isn’t a lot of 20-30 male interest in 30+ females, if there isn’t a lot of 30+ female interest in 20-30 males, isn’t the point kind of moot?

    Older women are cool; your article convinced me of that. But the title may as well have read “The case for younger men dating older women, and vice-versa.” Because unless there’s something I’m not seeing here, cool as older women may be, they aren’t interested in yours truly. “The Zone of Greatness” sounds great in theory, but evidence says that it will be disappointing in practice.

    Am I underestimating my own appeal, or should I contact them even knowing while that, statistically, I’m probably not going to be what they’re looking for? Help me out, okcupid. I’m not sure what you’re asking of me.

    Sincerely,
    - Simple-Green

    P.S. On the off-chance any older women in my local area read this and are interested in me, by all means, contact me.

  37. Chris

    Are you done showing us a bunch of fucking graphs now or are you eventually going to get to a good reason why I should be looking towards hooking up with an old hag who just wants to use me for my money?

  38. Clinton

    I prefer older women but I normally get rejected by them because I look young. I’m 27 look about 18-20. So I usually only attract teens and sometimes they get put off once they know my age. Needless to say dating is pretty difficult for a man like myself. Being old while looking young is very bad for a man.

  39. Agree with Gloria. I also am over 60 and finally learned to “fudge” a few years off of my age so that men will actually communicate with me. I look and act at least 10 – 15 years my junior and have now been dating men between 6 and 12 years younger than me. I always confess my age during the first date if there is any chemistry. Shock is the normal reaction. One man whose listed age was 2 years older than mine grilled me on my state of health since he was healthy himself. I would love to date a man my age who was young at heart and healthy. Do older men want younger woman so the woman can take care of them in their declining years? Just a thought.

  40. Much of the behavior of many guys is dictated by their peers… so often they think “what girl is less likely to inspire ridicule from my peers.” So the preference for younger women is partially based on a cultural preference these men have, these women just also happen to be more fertile.

    There is no rule that says crows feet are ugly, the media and even our own family and friends are the ones that reinforce it. Men that think for themselves will go for whatever floats their boat and not what impresses friends.

  41. Ha, I laugh at all the people who leave their “everybody knows that …” comments, ignoring the graphs that tell the actual story.

    All the best advice your mother ever gave you, rings the most true as a woman ages:

    1. Keep your hair long.

    2. Stay thin. Do not gain weight thinking you will be able to loose it later.

    3. Don’t tan. You will REALLY regret it when you are over 30.

    4. Don’t get tattoos with a lot of detail. The detail merges into blobs that makes you look older because they look like melanoma.

  42. Psychopompous

    Interesting stuff to think about. I’ll be considering this, but I do have a few comments. For whatever reason women who show up on my match search with a really high match percentage tend to be 20… well, 18-22. I’m not exactly sure why that is, I consider that a bit young, I’m not really interested in dating a woman under 21 years old at the moment (I’m 26). More importantly, when I expanded the age-range for my search significantly above my own age… nobody new showed up on the first two pages (by match percentage).

    I have heard from a fairly large number of women that they prefer (slightly) older men and I don’t think it’s too unreasonable to look for a woman a couple of years younger than myself, although I’m perfectly willing to consider women around my own age and always have been… the big issue is really match percentage, which seems to bring up a lot of younger women. I can barely begin to speculate about why that might be.

  43. I know in general, the media always have down played women that become older, It can be changed if women stand together and push through this issue. This is not the way women believe. They are also attracted to young men, and there is no difference. I believe that men have been in control so long that now time is changing, and women are becoming aware at 20 that their desirabilty will end in 10 years according to all this b.s. It is wrong to tell a women that she is no more desirable, usful, and worth nothing, because she is no longer a false statistical age. Who come up with all these statistic, MEN, this is why it has been in favor for them. I am HERE to tell you that I am a beautiful 46 year old woman not twenty, and would not have anything to do with most of you guys my age, because you are going through midlife and yes, you are trying to act like those 20 year old guys, so may I say what is the difference if we choose to date younger guys. I don ‘t mind being with someone my age, but never someone over 55, the are not as strong as most women at that age. Women need cross examine every time their is an article out that a man should date a much younger women, This is what the want to hear, but guys it is not right and I will change completely in twenty years, Wait and see.

  44. Clay

    If older women were worth dating, it wouldn’t take a blog and a bunch of voodoo statistics to ‘make a case’ for them.

  45. John

    Heather has it correct, in my opinion, relative to why this age disparity is a timeless dynamic. Men are, by primal instinct or overt admission (as in my case), searching for a more fertile woman. In many instances, we’re totally serious about wanting to have children. This is not to say that dating an older woman or a woman of your same age is out of the question. I know a lot of exceptional, intelligent, entertaining and beautiful women my same age (44). However, the women I seek to date are in their 30’s. I don’t have kids. I want to have children. So, while I’m still at a point in life where having children is reasonable and safe, statistics and my own instincts drive me to pursue the younger women in their 30’s. This does not mean that I’m looking for a “baby machine”. Far from it, I am looking for the magic of romance and my ideal match for the rest of my life. Because, in the end, the kids grow up and you’re left alone with that very special significant other. So romance, compatibility, the connection of souls…all of the one to one relationship is vital. On top of those high expectations for the perfect soulmate, however, there is also the desire to find a woman with whom I can have children, enjoy family life, and the American dream. After achieving my goals professionally at this point in life and also finally maturing to the point where I know who I am myself (which, yes, took a while)…now I’m finally ready to meet the “right” woman. Might have met her in years past, but I know I was too immature to make it work. At 44, men reach the right maturity at the right time. And women in their 30’s are just the natural age range for marriage and lifetime relationship. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for in the end?

  46. Two of my strongest “connections” ended up with people originally outside my “upper” age limit. Simply because I’d written a relationship off, I focused on friendship, and in turn this made the whole process much more enjoyable. In one case this made the jump to my current relationship, although, these days having someone 4 years older than me (I’m 25) doesn’t feel so weird.

    Honestly, I believe it depends on the person – you can see people at 24 who have worked since 18 or 21, have their own place and their own life, and you can see people at 24 who still live at home with their parents and haven’t decided on what they want from life and thus what makes them happy.

    My mother is in her early to mid 40s and is smoking hot: she gets far more attention on dating sites and in other dating methods than I ever did, even at 18/19 years old. It amuses me that she pulls much more attractive men that are only a few years older than me and are waaay out of my league (at least on the physical end of things). And she lived her life, and didn’t do any of the silly things that were suggested earlier in the comments, eg don’t get tattoos, don’t tan, etc etc. She did what she wanted, and I feel that by your 40s, that pays off: there’s a vibrancy in women who are proud of who they are.

    That said, she wont use OKC… “too nerdy” apparently. *sigh*

  47. I am a big fan of the olda girls. Most of my best dates have been with ladies a few years older than me. Honestly, the touch-off is what era of life you’re in. I don’t have a lot in common with most 21 year old girls, and that’s fine, because I probably shouldn’t be picking up girls at sororities. I’m a working dude out in the world, and I should be looking for ladies who are in a similar position.

    Though this has convinced me to up my maximum age by a few years, shoot for about 10 years older than me rather than about 7. Older girls pictured here are stone hotties, so even I am clearly underestimating it.

  48. what graphing software did you use to generate the maps? :)

  49. Mike

    I hope there is a follow-up for men seeking men..

  50. sbc

    I was 28 and messaged by a 59 year old man. In my profile I said “if you are several decades older than me, you might want to check out my mom’s profile”. He told me “don’t judge me by age” and also said “and I don’t want to meet your mother. I want to meet you”. So in other words he judged other people by their age yet didn’t want to be judged for his age. I don’t necessarily care about a person’s age and I have a bf who’s 15 years older, but it’s this hypocrisy that annoys me.

    Your graphs seem to show that women are more mature, don’t care so much about age, meanwhile when men get older, they’re just creepy, lusting after 20 year olds when they’re 50 (most of them married too). They probably won’t get what they want.

    Well, my romantic and sexual life was abysmal in my teens and early 20s–long periods of celibacy, rejection, a few crappy relationships. Half decent in my mid-20s. By now, at age 29 my relationships and sex are both completely awesome, and age is such a non-issue among the people I hang around with.