In The Case For An Older Woman, the OkCupid tackles a tricky topic, unrealistic expectations of male daters. In this case, mainly that men want to date much younger women. I’m going to point to a few choice quotes and leave it at that.
…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.
The median 30 year-old man spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age. On the other hand, women only a few years older are largely neglected.
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.
Either something very sad happens to a woman at 40, or something incredibly awesome happens at 39.
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.
…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.
Check out The Shape of the Dating Pool, it’s an interactive widget, as are a few others. The Tides Of Longing, the Zone of Greatness, older-women-are-more-sexual pattern, this is great stuff! OKCupid is absolutely killing it with this research. Bows and applause all around for the team.
I could quote this article all day long, why we both save ourselves some time, go read The Case For An Older Woman.
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How ironic that when I just tried to email someone on OKC who was 4 years younger than me that is said I don’t meet her requirements. What I find strange is that I *can* send an email, but it will show up with a filter warning. What is that about OKC? Either it’s a filter, or it’s not.
Well dave, looks like you can have your pick of a sugar mommy. So, I should only go after women 26 or older because they will be more desperate to get married?
You are free to interpret the data however you reach :-)
Nothing okcupid posts holds true on POF, and i very much doubt they hold true on other dating sites. The data they release clearly places the site in the social networking world not in the dating site category.
I wouldn’t expect that it holds true on POF either, totally different demographic than OKCupid. What makes you say that OKC data is more akin to social networks? That’s a curious statement. It certainly skews younger, but what is more social networking-ish about the data?
Where is everyone who is over 48? As a midlife dating expert and coach, I work primarily with men and women between 40 and 70. Women in that demographic often complain that men only want to date younger women, men mostly tell me they are looking for someone who is their age. (Maybe because they don’t want to offend me??)
I would love to see a study that incorporates midlife daters, and their preferences and online behavior. Does anyone have any info?
OKCupid is a much younger audience, if that’s what you’re asking. Where are the majority of your clients dating online?
Midlife dating expert and coach, nice market. I haven’t seen any midlife dating research either that I can remember. Crazy that men will pay you for coaching and not come clean about their intent to date younger women.
I hope that OKCupid gets more dating sites to release this sort of information. Problem is, most aren’t able to do this sort of research easily.
Most of my clients are dating on Match and POF, as well as niche sites such as JDate, Shaadi.com, or Fitness Singles for the younger edge. I’m still searching for a good site for African American women, although many do OK on Match and POF.
Matchmaking sites don’t work well at this age, particularly for women. Many of the matches they send clients are just plain wrong. I think it’s partly because the older you get, your more diversified experience doesn’t translate into matching algorithms so easily.
I love working with midlife dating.
Interesting. Today, just as an exercise when I should have been finding a date (or working) I decided to do screen shots of my 50 search results and then look at the data. I’m 44 (female) and my age range for men is 38 to 50.
Of the 50 men who came up in my search, 24 would not date women their own age (but only lower by a few years). Of the remaining 26, at least half of those would only date women their own age or younger. And then about half of the rest would date someone only a year older than they were. A few outliers would date someone several years older.
You would think that all those guys seeking younger women wanted to make babies. Seems fair. But a random selection pulled up guys who didn’t want kids or weren’t sure. So my theory that they wanted younger women for baby making was blown.
I’m always told I look about 32, and I have the same cute figure I did in high school. Remember we’re also in our sexual prime boys!
What I wonder is, what exactly are men thinking that someone a couple years older than they are is like? It’s bizarre. Thank god I’m pretty happy on my own. I’m not quite ready to start dating 60-yr olds.
For men I don’t think it’s unrealistic for men in their late 20′s to mid 30′s to date younger women because they don’t want the pressure of women’s biological clock ticking and the constant ok ok let’s get the move on it’s not like I have yr’s to have kids. I think that’s primarly why we men want to date younger women is it gives us time we don’t want to be under the gun until were both ready. If we start to date a women that is 35 going on 36 that’s when the biological clock starts and then it’s her putting pressure on the men to start the family even though he wants the family he might not be ready. The way I think a lot of men look at it is if were in our late 20′s to mid 30′s we date and get into a relationship with a younger lady then we have time until were ready to start the family. By doing that we then can add a good 4 to 6 yrs of dating before we think about marriage and starting the family.
I think also on the other hand that women have way over unrealistic expectations when it come to dating men. Most women these days are so dead set and are too unrealistic about men’s height. Yeah then women are constantly complaining about ugh where are all the good men I just want to date a decent nice guy oh boo hoo. Yet he’s standing right there he’s right in front of you and you probably gave him the “just friends” speech and then your trying to crawl back to him because you finally realized that you screwed up because you thought the tall, asshole, complete douchebag was “it” and now once you realized he was a complete asshole, douchebag and they won’t ever change you want the “nice guy”. But again height obsession kills just kills women because they are so set on they must have him the super super tall guy and the perfectly guy is standing right by you even though he’s in the 5′ 10″ range you have your blinders on because you’re too set on having a guy that is a minimum of 6′ tall.
I have never had a female friend say they had a height limit for men. Now that I think of it, not a single female friend has a tall boyfriend. A good personality and positive attitude is key. And the reality is, to say that a perfectly acceptable person is standing right next to you, overlooks the fact that you need to feel attracted to the person. You either are or aren’t. You can’t force yourself. I don’t know anyone who has overlooked someone they totally clicked with because they were a little short.
The biological clock thing and men wanting to date younger women is obvious, fair and makes sense. But my survey of men online whose upper age limit of women is several years younger than they are was consistent, whether those women fall into babymaking years or not. These are also guys who didn’t want kids or weren’t sure. The 50 yr olds wanted to date 46 yr olds. The 46 yr olds wanted to date 42 yr olds, and so on. To me, this is just strange.
I came across this blog this evening and wanted to add my 2 cents. As a 53 year old woman, divorced for 12 years and dating for the last 9 I’ve found it difficult to find someone. First, men seem to have as much baggage if not more than women and tended to have between two to four marriages under their belt. Second, in general men were looking for companionship and sex and nothing really serious. I’ve had men tell me that at my age I had nothing more to offer than sex. Sometimes this was just over the phone prior to meeting.
My conclusions are that men in general don’t work on the issues that brought them to the divorce in the first place and they generally don’t know how to build an intimate relationship outside of sex and are painfully confused. As for women my age, in general I will state as I’ve noticed many of them will settle for men who they don’t love or even like, will try to use sex to keep men interested and don’t have a clue that if a man doesn’t respect her he won’t hang around much after sex.
My own litmus test for a man is does he respect women and namely me, is he of my faith, are his values in accordance with my own and that’s where I start. It doesn’t mean that things will progress, it just means I have a base line for what is acceptable in the behavior one exhibits and what isn’t. I would love to find that one person. So far he hasn’t shown himself. I haven’t been without suitors young or old. I may be too picky, but if one is to have a successful loving intimate relationship with someone, it’s not just about making the best deal. It’s about who that person is on the inside and how it translate outside. It’s about respect, it’s about values and character and integrity. I don’t see a lot of that anymore and I suspect that’s why there are so many divorces and relationship failures.
So, at soon to be 54, I keep my life simple. I know what type of man I’m looking for and hope that he transpires. For me to settle for less than what I have to offer is a sin against myself. How about you?
I know this topic and postings were made a while back, but I stumbled upon it. I am an older female too, and basically, I have pretty much had it with the whole thing. Though it was easy to meet men when younger, the idea of women over a certain age being sought out appears hopeless and a dating site would not be of any assistance, as stated.
Since we have increasingly become a society ruled by such superficiality, with a focus on female youthfulness and sexual imagery, it has become fairly futile for potentially good relationships to develop. What is so ridiculous, is that many older, experienced females have so much to offer, sexually and otherwise, but will continue to lose out to the “idea and imagery” of more youthful females.
I think a better option, if even possible, would be to meet under other circumstances and make a connection unexpectedly, based on getting to know real characteristics of a person.
I sympathize completely with the women who complain about men wanting to date younger women. And of course the men are hard-wired to do it. So our alternative (and what I did): Get a facelift, your long nose shortened, your teeth veneered, your skin lasered. Find a Wiley Protocol doctor for the estrogen, progesterone and testosterone so you look juicy again. Read books about thyroid problems, and don’t believe what your doctor tells you. And most importantly, start a serious body-building program and learn a sport. Ladies, if you want to marry, or even have a date again, this is what you must do. It’s a shallow world out there!