Group therapy in a blog.
The Age Thing
If asked, most people would say that they try not to judge people by their age. I was born in the 70s, and most of my friends were born in the 80s. Fine. No problems, except for when they refer to 80s music as “oldies,” which makes me wince a little.
If age is really relative, it might seem strange to establish age as a determinant in either dating or not dating a person. If theoretically, you’re only looking for someone to age 40, it makes no sense to reject someone just because he’s 41 – in all likelihood, he’s no different in terms of his ability to enjoy life and act young than any 40 year old is. And also, we all know people who act way older or younger than their actual calendar age, and so we know not to judge a book by how old its birth certificate says it is. (Yes, enjoy that mixed metaphor.)
But what’s happening online is something different. Everyone who fills out an online dating profile indicates a preferred age range for potential partners. And a woman in her thirties who indicates that she’s looking for a man in his thirties or forties will likely encounter that the men in their thirties and forties are looking for women in their twenties. Then comes the next part: men in their fifties contacting women in their thirties, even if that’s not the age range they’d prefer.
Of course, we’ve already said that age doesn’t matter. But is a woman still entitled to reject a man’s advances online if he’s over a certain age? After all, some of the men online are employing artificial age cutoffs themselves, mostly because it’s required by most dating services. Does this make her a judgmental person? Or is she just using her best judgment?
Men have it easier as they get older. Women have advantages in their 20s, and the roles reverse later on in life.
As a young woman say aged 20, I was able to choose from men
aged 19-40 if I so wished. The fact was that those over 30 I regarded as ‘old’ but the choice was there. And many men of 40 were interested in a woman of 20, and would have been happy to have a relationship with me.
But now I’m a 60 year old widow, my options are fewer. I am restricted in general to men aged 60-75.Most younger men are definititely not interested in a relationship with an ‘older woman’ past retirement age (unless for ulterior motives,and I’ve come across a few of those!). But even those men aged 60-65 are more interested in younger women of 50-55. Physical attraction is definitely what most of these men are looking for (personality and character come much further down the list for them) whereas women seem to be more interested in humour,intelligence, rather than physical looks( Which is why a younger woman can still find an older man very attractive, especially if he has a great personality, and/or financial security.)
And most 60 year old women, even if attractive, (which I have been told I am ) generally can’t compete in that area with a woman 10 years younger.
So the pool of men available for me has shrunk to those aged 65-75. And, to be honest, most men aged 70-75 are physically less agile, less interested in doing the sort of things that I’m still young enough to enjoy. Which now restricts me to men aged 65-70, a 5 year window of opportunity.
It’s quite depressing!
Sorry, not going to date someone who could be my father. I think it is legitimate for me to reject someone who is 20 or more years older than I am. Furthermore, while I agree that there is a something somewhat arbitrary in saying, “ok, the limit is 40″ and then rejecting someone is 41, being too loose with that nullifies having a preferred range in the first place. For me, it’s not necessarily about age per se – it’s about a planned life, and being in different stages in life. For example, someone who is older may be more inclined to want to start a family right away. That is not to say that I’m not interested in that, but I want to be more flexible on that front, particularly given my own life situation and the degree of uncertainty currently within it. This does make an assumption about an older person, to be sure, and maybe that is not fair of me. But isn’t that beauty of feelings? They are individual, they contain biases, and they are not always rational. Plus, it kinda’ creeps me out when I do hear from someone who is in his 50s – why is he attracted to me? I could be his daughter, and that is just gross to me.
I actually married younger and it seems to have turned out fine for us so far. The age thing always seems to work unfairly towards women in the dating game. Converting at 26, I was told that I shouldn’t get my hopes up about finding a nice Jewish husband.
The age discrimination thing is why I don’t like online dating, although, ironically, at my age (44) I’m having trouble finding an alternative. Guys my age want women who are younger than them, and I agree with Amy — it’s creepy with a guy who is close to my dad’s age or who looks like my dad. I don’t want to discriminate, but when you’re provided with a picture and an age, what else can you do? They’re doing that to me.
I find I end up in the 40-to-60 age group, which is not where I belong. Why aren’t there 30-to-50 age groups? (Answer: because 30-year-olds think 40-year-olds are too old!)
The age range, if you force me to choose one, is +/- 5 years. Guess I’m not a typical 53 year old man, then. I’m not especially interested in women younger than 48 and I’m quite comfortable with women 5 years older than I am. I’m not intertesed in dating a woman who needs to find a babysitter in order to go out. She’ll be too young for me if she can’t truly understand what its like when girls couldn’t wear pants to school, and boys spent teenage years in fear of getting drafted (for Viet Nam).
I feel perfectly comfortable discriminating for age, even in real life. I was just asked out by a 50 year old and I was very uncomfortable. The last guy I dated was 45 and that was even a little uncomfortable. Ten or fifteen years is a lot of years.
See I’ve got this huge problem with music, most pop music. I really can’t stand most of it. So when I mean ‘Oldies’, I really mean Oldies! Louie Armstrong. Fletcher Henderson. Bessie Smith. Duke Ellington. So really, other than the wife, few people my age understand anything that I’m saying about music. Be that as it may, the age crap is sometimes worse than the height crap in dating. And I for one really don’t understand it.
Me, I’m tired of seeing lovely, accomplished, intelligent men & women sitting around and making long lists of ‘Don’ts or won’ts’. Yes, 20 years difference may very well be a ‘bridge too far’ for many. But 10-15 years? For the right person? Who knows? YES you’ll have natural differences, and it may be that you will not think exactly alike on your favorite songs or tunes or groups. Is this so bad? Which is more tragic, you possibly Learning from one another, and learning how to accommodate another’s tastes, rather than coming paired up ‘perfectly’ like everyone dreams of, but rarely achieves? Why discriminate right out of the box? Is that ‘perfect fit’ going to come along any moment and you’ll have instant ‘buyer’s remorse’ giving the time of day to that ‘old’ 40 something geezer? The 40 something divorcee with (horrors!) kids?
So we get this predictable ‘negative age cascade effect’ the 25 yo’s don’t want to ever date the 35 YOs. And certainly NOT with kids or previously Married! (ICK!) Then at 35 YO, they search in vain for those kinds of lovely folks who used to contact them way back when. But Now, they steadfastly Refuse to date above 40-45. And if previously married, there’s got to be NO Kids! (Or not any at home or any ‘troublesome’ ones). At 45, they wonder why it is they even have to put up with the 50-60 crowd. And so it goes.
Yes, age is much more than a number. But it means different things to & for different people. But because we’re Able to discriminate on the basis of age in the online profiles, we think we should & can to our heart’s content. And we’re invariably missing out of a pool of ‘likely’ matches, and we’d never know it, and refuse to acknowledge it as well.
And it all comes down to facile and sometimes false prejudices we carry with us, mostly in the absence of actually knowing of any ‘alternatives’. Ditto for height requirements as well. It’s Perfectly silly most of the time for anyone to state baldly ‘I won’t date guys under 5’7″.
So there’s a lot of life’s possibilities in between & beyond the arbitrary numbers you may feel required to impose on yourself. That buffed dude who’s a 50 something cardiologist looking to restart with a 2nd family. The lovely widower/divorcee businesswoman with teens. The short but well preserved college professor looking for another chance at love. The never married 40 something successful career woman, finally looking to settle down. They come in all sizes & shapes and ages. And if you keep on neglecting to look for them, they too will be ‘gone with the wind’. And then what? Are your prejudices so powerfully determined that you’ll Never date or seriously consider anyone Over this age? Under that height? Not making such an income? Not living nearby? Not ‘tall dark, handsome & exciting with a Good job, education & steady career’? Dime a Dozen you think? How much longer to hold out for ‘the one’?
How much is your solitude worth to you? How valuable is a chance or an opportunity at love/romance/companionship/friendship and/or marriage? What price freedom? Is that a small ‘Ick’ or a big ICK? We know. It sometimes takes until 40 something to finally work all this out. By then? It’s all pretty icky. Trust us on that one! Cheers & Good Luck, ‘VJ’
You’ve got to draw a line somewhere. For me, the limits of my age range are absolutes– if the perfect woman comes along she can be anywhere in that range. If she’s not close to what I’m looking for, being at an edge of the range is a negative factor. But I don’t think everyone works this way– because I’ve noticed that when I write to women if I’m within ten years of their age there’s no correlation between what they say they’re looking for and whether they write back. In other words, if a 38 year old woman says she wants 35-40 or 38-50 she’s equally likely to respond to me (I’m 47).
And people have an absolute right to choose their own criteria, whether it be age, height, hair color, religion, gender, politics, education, size/shape of various body parts, eye color…
The only difference is, on-line you are given the opportunity to state it directly. (of course if a guy wants a woman under 120 lbs it makes him look shallow to state it, but that’s his problem; for some reason society doesn’t look down on a woman who states that she wants a man over 6′ tall– when in fact it’s a lot easier to get lighter than it is to get taller, and there are more health issues related to weight than to height)
Men should not date any woman past 25. They are past their expiration date beyond that. Like sour milk that should be discarded of. That is the good thing about being a guy. You age but your dates can always stay the same age.
Like a car you just trade her in for a newer younger fresher model.
And I’ll tell you with that sort of Trolly attitude, your momma should have kicked your butt. Anyone’s momma too. That means that you never really want to grow up, with this sort of self imposed sentence of being a juvenile Peter Pan forever. Pretty grim & silly to boot. VJ
I used to think like that but I find that you can find an attraction in just about anyone. It requires one to discard notions that they have been indoctrinated in by reading nonsense or the media.
If you can find someone that you have fun with, what more do you need? You may not be able to passionate kiss or some other aspect, but the basic lovemaking, the feeling good, is going to be there.
What more do you need?
When I was looking for someone on J-Date I thought long and hard about what ot put for the age range. Although I at the time was 25 I tried to keep my search results to under 30. Now granted you make great points about the difference between say 29 and 30, but there are some biologoical differences I also had to look at.
I figured if I were to meet someone who is 30, date for 2-3 years and then wait another 2-3 years before having kids she could easily be 36 before having kids. To me that seemed like a bit much, which is why I stuck to the 29 limit.
Thankfully I met someone who is my own age so this isn’t an issue
Because men die at a lot younger age than women, I only date seriously men who are my age or a bit younger. If it means staying single, so be it — it’s a lot better than being a widow G-d forbid.