To feel that I have to compete with younger women?

[LastHope30Something]

Ever feel like that? Yes I’m still kinda young (early 30’s) but when I’m out I feel I have to compete with women 10 years younger than me to be accepted and be taken for younger than I am and to recreate my youth

OP it sounds like your issue really is low self esteem - coming off SM will be a big help with that.
Did you move from controlling parents to a controlling husband? Do you not feel valued by your husband?
Can you work OP, that can be a big source of self esteem for people. Does your disability make working impossible or is that just what your controlling parents led you to believe? Perhaps you could begin by doing some volunteering? Also very good for self esteem.
Only you can change your life OP, start making one small step at a time.

Nope.

I'm 40 and have never felt like this about younger women.

I wouldn't say more attracted to women in their thirties, just more realistic about their chances.

Speak for yourself with this evolutionary psychology gibberish. Sorry you feel acting in accordance with 21st century civilisation is beyond your uncontrollable animal instincts but it doesn't apply to other people.

Lol at the irony of using the cosmetic industry as an example of how the trappings of modern civilisation are meaningless, too. You couldn't get any less natural!

Anyway on the subject of the thread, no, I don't feel in competition with beautiful younger women. I didn't feel I was competing with them when I was younger - I enjoyed being one and I enjoyed surrounding myself with them. Now when I see a gorgeous, radiant, intelligent young women with the world at her feet I actually get a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling, I want to stand and applaud her.

They're also a little reminder to keep my vanity in check. I'm happy with how I look, I'm fitter than I've ever been and have the abs to prove it, I'm mentally the healthiest I've ever been. But no matter how I dress or how much I exercise I'm not going to look as young as I did 20 years ago, or as young as 22-year-olds look now. So there's no point chasing after something unattainable.

I think @CandidaAlbicans2 is making perfectly valid points - a theory ( animal instinctive brain )!backed up by evidence - hard facts

She never said cosmetic surgery was natural or gave a natural look

She did suggest that the drive to look young and therefore is basic to thats industries very existence . Ever seen a treatment advertised that will make you look ugly or older ?

I think we are more than our animal instinctive brains. Or at least, I'd like to aim higher.

I think there is a chicken or egg argument to be had here.

Hear hear.

There’s also the weirdness that is very young women in their early twenties now getting Botox and fillers, so they actually look far older than their age for a while because they have that ‘standard’ tweaked look we’re more accustomed to seeing on women who use these procedures in their forties and above. So they ‘age’ early but then stay looking the same, presumably, for decades, unless they stop the treatments.

I’m an academic so I’m surrounded every day by women between 18 and 21/22 or so, and while I’m delighted by them, I’m happy with how I look in my 50s. I certainly don’t want to emulate them.

Evolution is not "gibberish". it's one of the most powerful explanatory theories in science. Women have to compete with younger women, the same as men have to compete with taller men.

To paraphrase Sarah Blaffer Hrdy and David Buss, "men are one long breeding experiment conducted by women".

Didn't Sarah Blaffer Hrdy also do work on infanticide as an evolutionary strategy?

Evolutionary psychology in humans is gibberish because it reduces us to base instincts and biology and assumes they override the complex human social mores we've developed over millennia. If you feel civilisation doesn't apply to you, feel free to go live in the woods and compete with younger women there all you want.

Compete for what, anyway? The last thing I competed for was my job and it wasn't gender-specified.

The way I see it we had our time being young. Not everyone gets the chance to grow older. Early 30s is a fabulous age to be anyway.

Evolution and evolutionary psychology does not reduce us to "instincts and biology", and by stating this, you're just displaying your ignorance of how evolution and biology work.

You're the one who thinks all men are competing with taller men. Batshit and retrograde.

Taller men are more successful in the dating market, in the same way that younger, attractive women are. Neither of these facts are particularly controversial.

How is 'success' in dating measured, though?

Most people end up with a partner. Yes there are some unlucky/awkward/uninterested people who do not.

I don't think this thread will help you OP, I'd walk away now if you haven't already.

It sounds like you've had a terrible time with disability and those around you being very unkind.

I expect what you're really wishing for is to be young again and have it all happen differently, a nicer life.

All the best x

The dating market is a tiny portion of life (and frankly a fairly uninteresting one). People tend to want partners, but they also tend to want good jobs, social status and money. Youth and height are a good deal less important there.

And people's tastes within the dating market can't be boiled down to average likelihood anyway. People have very individual tastes and different priorities when it comes to attraction.

A short man isn't competing with a tall man. If a woman prefers tall men, he's not in the running anyway (thus isn't competing). If a woman prefers short men or doesn't care about height, it's not a factor in her choice, thus he's not competing.

Dating, getting married and having children are not a tiny and uninteresting part of life. if you think that, then you've really missed the point of life.

As far as the tall v short men argument, we're not dealing in absolutes here, we're dealing in probabilities. A Doctor who is 175cm is far more likely to be more successful at dating that an unskilled worker who is 180cm.

Luckily for men, women are more likely to evaluate potential partners on a variety of characteristics (intelligence, wealth, health kindness, attractiveness and yes, height). On the other hand, men are really just interested in youth (albeit as a proxy for fertility) and attractiveness (as a proxy for health).

Lots of people are childfree by choice, increasingly so, and stats from a few weeks ago show that the percentage of married and civil-partnershipped adults in England and Wales has dipped below 50%, and is predicted to decline to the point where, in 2050, only 3 in 10 people will be married or in a civil partnership.

Dating is obviously a separate thing, but if people are increasingly choosing not to marry and have children, I imagine the practice of dating will change too, if people aren’t looking for a permanent partner to have children with.

Do you honestly think all these people, in voting with their feet, have all ‘missed the point of life’?

The thing is not everyone feels that they are competing with others, even if you can argue that they are from a societal/evolutionary psychology perspective.
I'm a 50 year old woman and I'm sure that if I was stood next to a gorgeous 25 year old and a man could pick one of us - well, I'm sure he'd pick the gorgeous 25 year old! I know that! Yet I still don't feel like I'm in competition with younger women. I'm simply at a different stage of life.
Firstly, I'm settled so not looking for a man, secondly even if I was single I'd probably want to remain single now. If I did want to date, I wouldn't go for the same type of man that a gorgeous 25 year old would (and also the vast majority of men my age would be rejected by 25 year olds).
It's the same for other areas of my life. Work? Maybe some employers prefer to recruit young people but I'm established and respected within my organisation and I don't feel like I'm competing with anyone.
I just don't see life as a competition. I never have done.

The vast majority of people do have children and even those that don't, very few are not in relationships. For those that don't have children, they are doing so for reasons other than maternal or paternal instinct, such as not being able to find a suitable partner or finance.

I don't have children, and although I'm happy it is and will increasingly be my one major regret in life.

When you're older you'll realise that social media is a crock of shite, that it's a curated, filtered and heavily skewed view people's lives and you will bitterly regret how much of your energy you gave it for so long.

Sincerely,
Someone slightly older than you but not by that much

Maybe you just need to get a bit older and the ' I dont give a shit' stage. It will come. Ive been there since I was about 15. Its nice here.