Lets call a spade a spade

[Storm4star]

I tend to go on this board and relationships. There are two thread's going on right now where meeting someone new in your 40s is mentioned. Now I know there are people who meet good partners at 40/50/60 and beyond! But lets get real here. The chances of meeting "Mr Right" are pretty slim at these ages. Some get lucky of course but it really isn't the same as being single in your 20's or even 30's.

I have several single, intelligent, nice and attractive friends. Only one has had a significant relationship in the 15 years I've know them! They can't all be "too fussy", they can't all be "loving" being single, well I know they're not as they often say they wish they could meet someone.

It isn't easy and I don't think we should pretend that it is. I've tried OLD on and off, and the (sometimes) single men are in roughly three groups:

1. Young men wanting an older woman for sex
2. Older men who haven't "achieved" ie they're living in a bedsit on minimum wage and aspire to be "cocklodgers"
3. The tiny third group are decent looking men with a decent career. But they want a woman 10 years younger because they feel they deserve it for being a "good catch".

Being older and trying to meet someone decent of your own age is damn tough. Lets not try and pretend it isn't.

😂 at the ‘chaff’! How insulting!

Size 8 here and no interest in being with any one.
I am happy on my own with my children.

Not everybody NEEDS to be in a relationship

TBH, the main reason I am still single is that I couldn't be bothered with it all again! Once bitten, twice shy!

@ghostylovesheets

I am currently happy single too but my point is more that on many many threads I see LTB, backed up with "you can meet someone great instead" and I just don't think it's realistic. In most cases yes they should LTB! but we shouldn't "pretend" its so easy to meet someone new. That's really what I'm trying to say.

I met my OH OLD seven years ago. He's four years younger than me and I'm 57. He's good looking, solvent, home owner, no baggage, likes the same sort of things as me. We get on well.

Unfortunately his ASD makes him quite difficult to have a relationship with, which is why, I assume, his dating history sticks at 'two previous girlfriends, neither long term'.

Tbh, I think he's about the best I'm going to do.

Not everybody NEEDS to be in a relationship

I suspect for most people here it isn't about need. I see lots of women on here who are more than capable of taking care of themselves, as I am. Sometimes people just "want" someone they can share things with, some intimacy etc. That shouldn't be seen as somehow weak or pathetic. Humans crave companionship.

I don't NEED to have a glass of wine tonight but I probably will

I did quite well (eventually) with OLD. Now married 10 years and very happily indeed. Neither of us had been married before, some long term and live in relationships, no children. He has an excellent job and a beautiful house (which is now mine too). He's a little older than me, but only four years which is fine. He may not be perfect but he's perfect for me. And I was early 40s and he was mid 40s when we met.

My sister also met someone lovely who she was with for nearly 10 years but he wouldn't marry again and she wouldn't live with someone without marriage so they split. Such a shame.

I think me and Dsis got the last two decent ones

Well i'm a 12 so theres hope yet, I'm in the almost chaff category. (quickly puts down donut)

I don't NEED a man and have been single a few years now. I don't think i've ever needed one. It would be nice to play with one every once in a while though

I have four women in my circle who divorced in their early 50's. Each of them have now got new partners within 4 years.The biggest age gap is 5 years (the male being the older).
For the purposes of this thread, not because I'm judging, each I would guess is at least a size 14. They have all got partners who are in work and owned their own homes.
Only one used OLD.
can we stop thinking all women want a man to validate their fucking existence
^this
I think one of them was desperate for a partner and would accept anything with a penis but the others were pretty discerning. I hope I am raising my DDs to not compromise themselves for the sake of a partner.

I think the OP has a point. A 40 something woman who is the primary (resident) carer of young children is 'competing' with younger women with no children. No matter how good looking, intelligent, etc she might be, most men without kids of their own (and many who do have kids) want to be with someone who doesn't have children living with them.

Its why women often go from being sought after (pre kids) to being ignored (post kids). Its not because they're 'chaff' (hideous expression).

No let’s not ‘call a spade a spade’. It’s pretty offensive.

As you were.

1. Young men wanting an older woman for sex
I'd be quite happy to be wanted by a younger man for sex!

What sort of jobs are the people who can't find partners doing?

I left a long term relationship when I was 42, and was fully resigned to being celibate for the rest of my life. I'm not hideous, but no beauty queen, and was definitely bigger than a size 12. Then I met now DP at work, and we're still together and happy 13 years later.
However, I happened to be working in IT, in a workplace where men outnumbered women by at least 4 to 1, and there were a lot of younger single men there.

I know all this is true about the available men wanting younger women and OLD being a nightmare.

But also, it wasn't so much that it was easier to find Mr Right in your 20s/early 30s. It was partly that everyone was coupling up and in a lot of cases people didn't realise he wasn't Mr Right. (Or Ms Right I suppose.) 10/15/20 years down the line when you realise he is an EA arsehole, or you just get fed up of his laziness or inconsiderateness, or he cheats on you and leaves, that's when you end up single and (maybe) looking again, and the single men include the EA/cheating/selfish ones that have also become single.

I know that sounds sexist, but it's just IME (apologies to the nice men out there). Plenty of women I know have been cheated on and left, or left of their own accord because they couldn't stand their H's entitled/selfish/lazy/abusive behaviour any more. A lot of those men are then on the market.

In my late 40s I sometimes fancy some sex and companionship but the thought of an actual relationship really doesn't appeal. I genuinely do like being single, all I need is a lovely FWB. But then the thought of trying to find him through OLD puts me off. I'm just waiting for him to appear by magical serendipity.

@CanaBanana

Join POF!
I am always being propositioned by younger men on there! I'm talking men in their 20s! A lot of them pretty hot! lol.

Chaff? You refer to other women as chaff? Jesus fucking wept.

I’ve been single - more or less - for 10 years. I am a perfectly decent, attractive, reasonable person. However, I have 3 children and an ex who doesn’t support them. I am working full time as a teacher and in the evenings I tutor. I have sod all time for a relationship, even assuming there are men out there happy to take on 3 children and the financial implications of that long term. I have dated but my expectations are high and I have no intention of lowering them. Why would I? I am perfectly capable of living a happy, single life and am content with that. If I am going to add in a significant other the. They need to add to and enhance the life I have built as well as accept a bonkers ex. If there are women out there willing to accept far less (and there really are), it is highly surprising I am single, is it?

I sincerely hope HQ remove the ‘chaff’ comment and reprimand that poster. It is utterly unacceptable.

I've met loads of great men on OLD sites. Had several relationships and recently married one. I am nearly 50.

Your bullshit detector works better at age 40 than it did at age 20.

You spend your 20s dating all the dickheads, why would you want to repeat that? Thats why it is easier to date in your twenties...

@terfinginthevoid

Yes my work place is predominantly female so I'm sure that doesn't help.

A lot of this article is US specific but I think a least some of it applies to the UK too.

www.vice.com/en_us/article/3bj5yv/youre-single-because-there-arent-enough-men-253

The author puts a lot of it on men graduating from college at lower rates then women, making college educated men relatively scarcer. Also, women postponing marriage and children to get their careers established puts them at a relative disadvantage over women who got married younger when the pool of available men was bigger.

I'm happily married (21 years this week) but I have lots of middle aged single women friends who are finding very slim pickings indeed in the dating world.

1. Young men wanting an older woman for sex
I'd be quite happy to be wanted by a younger man for sex!

Yes I can't say I see much wrong with that option :) - as long as you don't want to settle down with someone, which I don't.

Anyway, you know those t-shirts that say "Crone" and "Harridan etc. - O now want one that says "Chaff" :o

It’s the chaff that struggle & that is being blunt

No. That is being rude.

OP is absolutely right, and it doesn't get any easier. I've just turned 60, been divorced for 16 years and the last relationship (short-term, never destined to be anything more) was 12 years ago. I've had spells of not looking, while I was bringing up the children and then looking after my elderly father, but now I'm free to look and it's proving really demoralising. I've signed up to OLD recently, as I live rurally and the walking/hobby groups I've joined are all similarly aged women, and though there are a lot of men my age apparently looking, they all seem
to want a woman in her 40s. Slim and attractive to boot, no matter how lumpen and unappealing they might be.

I could settle, of course, for a nice 75-year-old, who might feel he'd scored, but why would I? I don't want to be anyone else's carer (done enough of that, thanks). It's not as if I NEED a man - I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself and running my life the way I like it, and I do enjoy my own company, by and large, but it would be lovely sometimes to have someone to share it with.

I'm beginning to think I should have thought of all this before I put my life on hold for family commitments but it never occurred to me back then, and I always felt I should - and wanted to - put my family first. I don't know what the answer is...

And, direct though I might be, that reference to "chaff" was appallingly offensive.

Also as Natalie Portman recently said "Smart women love smart men more than smart men love smart women."

There's a lot of depressing evidence that intelligent, high-status men prefer women they perceive to be less intelligent and lower status than them.