Serious? Do men know the slightest about women

[Gothamgirl1970]

Posting here for traffic and opinions.

As it’s 3 am and I am posting it’s because I simply am perplexed and need the hive mind.
Dating apps: presumably a person joins up because they would like to meet someone for company, to find love, just a shag or probably 100 other reasons I can’t contemplate this late.
I’m not sure if this holds true for all age groups but what I’ve observed is in men 46-58. In the profile area you can post some photos if you wish. A lot of men do but write no bio which tells me nothing and essentially they are just a body.
Here’s my serious question. Approximately 60% of men with photos lead the opening photo of themselves In Lycra gear with a helmet and sunglasses on, a bit of mud displaying their bicycle with pride. In many cases all 3 photos will be man and bike. Mid flight, crossing some finish line etc.
I know lots of women who are also befuddled by why a man would think bike photos would interest any woman in him at all. Shouldn’t they put a photo that shows the face, and is in a friendly happy pose?
What is it these cycle mad men are trying to convey? I cycle most of the time so I won’t have any time to spend with you? I want a woman who will cycle with me ? Look at my bike it’s impressive? I look decent in Lycra?
Please help. My friends and I are dying to know why they do this and what they are trying to communicate and further who are they thinking they can attract with this?

AIBU to not have to look at literally hundreds of cycling photos?

Honestly I think it's rather sweet if paunchy middle aged blokes are hoping to attract 20 something fit females. Easy to ID and fend off, too.

Friend (plump but fit and 30+) found a (plump) guy on Tindr... he was very keen on her, much too clingy imho. But friend is still getting over marriage so she was not ready to commit.

@lljkk I’m almost relieved you find me boring and the psychology between the way people think boring.

I can’t imagine how you could talk about Ralph Lauren Shirts which are mass produced and made in factories in third world countries for hours. What part of that process do you find so absorbing? Is it the assembly line?

I also would not be friends or more with someone like you who upon encountering a person different to them dares to suggest or enquire if they are disabled. Exactly who do you think you are?

Just because I did not reveal every interest and passion here on this thread (because that wasn’t the topic) doesn’t mean I don’t have any, that’s just you assuming things.

Or this/ and a kitchen shot just for you although I wouldn’t spend hours talking about it. I also didn’t attach my sub zero in case you thought I would want to discuss it

@TwoFlatWhitesToWakeUp that’s actually a great idea

@Gothamgirl1970
I so commiserate with your experience of OLD - it really is like trying to find a needle in a largely unsavoury haystack. I've been trying it on and off over the past 13 years, in hope rather than expectation. With the exception of meeting one man, with whom I had a 4yr long-distance relationship (it foundered due to a string of broken promises), I stopped each time due to boredom, unpleasantness and the lack of finding anyone of any interest.

Like you, OP, I'm intelligent (post-grad), have succeeded in my career and had an interesting and varied life. I'd love to find someone to share the rest of it with and add to the mix. I've brought up my family entirely on my own, am resourceful (I had to be, when my ex-H went after a woman 20yrs younger), independent, attractive/still in good shape and always curious - why does this package appear to be so challenging to so many men?!

A friend who's dabbled her toes in OLD has given up, due to the large number of BOFs she's come across (boring old farts). We're now in our (very) early 60s and, like you, have so much still to offer. Why is it so difficult?

RIP Guardian Soulmates. Anyone with any other positive experiences of alternative sites/agencies to try? I'm in Scotland, where the pool seems to be quite small...

Ralph Lauren: I don't talk about it. I let them talk & nod politely coz I know nothing & don't care but it doesn't bother me that they care. When I make the effort i'm an amazing listener. I don't get confused or wonder why they care so much. OP has very strong opinions about men that don't fit my experience and sound rather prejudiced, which made me wonder "Why does she extrapolate so much."

I am no one, OP. I just wondered why you overthink so much.
You're a bit... er, reactive, don't you think?

@Gothamgirl1970 - I am:being as thick as two short planks - but why have you attached rNdom photos to your previous two posts?

Has the car really got an upturned horseshoe to keep luck on the road from spilling out;?..

It’s hard to write about yourself for OLD. Women find it hard too. Yet they do it. They don’t take the easy way out and say sod all on their profile.

IME this just isn't true. I've used OLD before and loads of women just write 'fill in later' or 'ask me', or even just 'xxx'.

Ha ha! My experience too. Not helped by the fact that my Ex was on OLD and contacted hundreds of women, dated many, texted loads. While we were married... so unfortunately I am very cynical!

like trying to find a needle in a largely unsavoury haystack.

Like you, OP, I'm intelligent (post-grad), have succeeded in my career and had an interesting and varied life. I'd love to find someone to share the rest of it with and add to the mix. I've brought up my family entirely on my own, am resourceful (I had to be, when my ex-H went after a woman 20yrs younger), independent, attractive/still in good shape and always curious - why does this package appear to be so challenging to so many men?!

I don’t know but it does! I don’t know why young women go after these older men, who have mostly had mid life crises, ditched their family and gone for someone they can show off... why would you even touch these men?! I do wonder, as fewer men will go for an older woman for a relationship (sex definitely but not much more)! Am also well educated, well rounded, take care of myself, fit. I know so, so many women who are interesting, capable. But because they are over 40? Not a chance...

@ForrestTrump Shame on the women too! In the end, anyone who does this loses out. It’s lazy and entitled. Puts all the work on the other person.

I look at these younger women and think they are fools. If my DH moves onto a younger woman I will pity her, rather than be upset. Any young woman who gets together with a man in his 40's or 50's is setting herself up for massive issues later on. She will be 40/50 and a carer to an older man and her DC will not have a great relationship with a much older dad who is too knackered and out of touch with them. I have a few friends in this position now, 40's/50's and a much older partner, whilst their DC are early teens and they are all miserable.

It's pretty well known that prolonged cycling can result in terribly atrophied genitals for men.
Perhaps not the best thing to advertise on OLD.

IceCreamSummer - older men go for easily manipulated younger women. There are a few exceptions, but generally it's not Oxbridge educated scientists or lawyers these older men are getting into relationships with.

My ex (40, graduate engineer, very clever) is dating a 27 year old who left school with no qualifications, who works, peripatetically, mucking out horse stables.

My friends DH who is 55 and has a very well paid job, left her (absolutely beautiful 50-year old woman who is also lovely and intelligent) for an unemployed 26 year old with 2 DC from different dads. The girl is hassling him to get married to her after a few months together.

I wonder what it is that she sees in him

@Justaboy if you look at the photo previously posted you will notice it is for a horseshow. I am an equestrian so the horse shoe is a bit of whimsy but if it gives me good luck I will take it

I'd meant to add in my previous post that being tall (5'10") also seems to be a real problem for men. Back in the day, being tall, willowy and attractive was a Good Thing. These days it seems to bring out the worst Wee Man Syndrome I've ever come across. Is that generally the case, or am I particularly unlucky?

It's definitely the case that lots of men seem to want a younger gf. One of my mates used to date women close to his age, but now at 45yo his last two partners have been 31 and 30. He does look young for his age though, naturally dark complexion/hair and physically fit. Not much grey yet. Very funny and personable too.

I know that statistically men get happier with age and women go the opposite way. It's a bit chicken/egg - are they unhappy because men leave them, or do men leave them because they're unhappy. 🤔

I also wonder if a factor is that men's peak earning power is in their 40s. At this point, they're reaching the pinnacle of their success, whilst some women may be feeling at a bit of a loose end as the kids start school and they realise they've fallen behind in their career. On the other hand, in some cases they might be driving a Range Rover Sport and enjoying lunches with friends while poor Hugh sits in yet another board meeting.

I know that statistically men get happier with age and women go the opposite way. It's a bit chicken/egg - are they unhappy because men leave them, or do men leave them because they're unhappy.

This is not my experience - regarding happiness. In my experience and anecdotally, men tend to become sofa bound and more moody / inward looking as they get older, whereas women become more adventurous and outward looking than their mates and want to keep on living joyfully and doing new things.

Ditto with the being left - I don’t doubt the number of men who leave their wives for younger models, but it is mostly women who file for divorce - and in my case my abusive ex would never have left if I hadn’t put an end to our toxic marriage.

I think many men can’t handle their partners going through the menopause, not realising that they go through something equivalent 🙄. Or not caring.

And there is also no doubt that we live in a casually misogynistic and ageist society. So fucked up and short sighted really - we are only mammals living out a fairly short life cycle and age comes to us all if we are lucky. I find it all terrifying personally.

That’s probably what men are doing when they go off with younger women - trying to escape mortality.

On the whole I think older women are more resilient, independent and philosophical than older men. Generalising wildly.

That’s probably what men are doing when they go off with younger women - trying to escape mortality.

Indeed. My mate mentioned in passing something about him being in his prime and I said I thought a man's prime was actually around 30. 🤭😂

This is not my experience - regarding happiness. In my experience and anecdotally, men tend to become sofa bound and more moody / inward looking as they get older, whereas women become more adventurous and outward looking than their mates and want to keep on living joyfully and doing new things.

If I remember rightly, I heard the statistic in a debate and it was from several studies of self reported happiness which had been conducted over the decades. Of course, the obvious argument to this is that 'ignorance is bliss', which is a fair point IMO.

[quote Gothamgirl1970]@TomPinch since you seem to have a good handle on psychology, psychiatry, science and pseudoscience, it would be great since you seem to have spare time enough to post here trying to discredit other’s posts without supplying any backing citations as to why you write posts off as “pseudoscience” if you could please do this:

Email the department head of experimental psychology or better still a Don or Emeritus in psychiatry at Oxford University and share with them that you feel that they are lecturing, training, authoring, and contributing to world renowned research based on pseudoscience. You can close with your sentiments that graduates who have read these 2 disciplines and devoted decades of their lives studying and training there to obtain degrees are idiots.[/quote]
I have no idea whether you have the qualifications you claim, or what they are in fact in. But your tendency to pigeonhole people so rigidly makes me question whether your views, or the basis on which you hold them, are particularly helpful.

By which I'm not calling women ignorant. More mentioning that women are now perhaps more aware of inequalities than in previous generations where the roles were much more divided and they weren't as likely to be competing with men in the workplace etc as they do now.

But of course the counter argument is that the grass isn't actually greener...