Is it true most men would rather be with women under 35?

[adjani77]

Unfortunately for me I have been reading a lot online on the "manosphere" recently and a lot about what men think about women ( or a certain kind of man). Talk about "Sexual market Value" which basically amount to women of 30+ are basically hideous monsters to men their own age and older. I see this to on dating websites where men mostly are prepared to date women 10 - 15 years younger but will often not even want to date women the same age as them!

In the press recently 2 high profile men Stephen Hendry and Rowan Atkinson have both left their wives for women half their age (both women are also dead ringers for the 1st wives!).

I find it really depressing. I understand that we can get attracted to other people but if you have a good marriage, if your man is getting love, sex, affection and friendship surely he will have no reason to stray right?

I just don't know. Perhaps I am just worried about getting older 40 in a few years and how will that affect my partners satisfaction with me?

It seems that even men who are happy and love their wives / partners can fall in love with someone else, someone younger and transfer their love and affection to another. I guess I just need to accept that nothing is ever certain in life.

Has anyone else read any of that manosphere stuff about women and SMV etc what do you think?

[Suzannewithaplan]

ok, I know we all have our insecurities, so do men, and broadly speaking I reckon men need women more than vice versa (they are the ones who benefit most from being a couple)
So please dont feel as if men always have the upper hand, they dont.

[expatinscotland]

Maybe those guys are just arseholes.

Meh.

When I met my husband he was 24. I was 31.

Before that, I met a bunch of pricks, who just wanted someone stupid.

Ah, finally, I met DH.

[neiljames77]

I think I'd have a job finding anything in common with a woman under 35.
Half of it would be me feeling paranoid and insecure. If I was with a 30 year old, I'd be thinking, "in 10 years, she'll still be a young woman and I'll be an old bastard".

[adjani77]

Neil I think you are right about having something in common with a woman and wanting someone you can relate to at a similer stage of life. Personally I don't find guys who are much younger attractive in a wanting to date them kind of way, they might be handsome and sweet but they always seem too much like kids to me and I'd feel a bit pervy. Obviously though all that goes out the window when you meet someone you just click with. That is part of what I don't get all the criteria people pre-apply why not just keep an open mind?

Perhaps some men aren't interested in the mental or emotional connection. Seriously some men talk about women as if they are merely useful for sex and that is all. Some men rich enough do just that look at Jimmy Page the guitarist, he has been married several times but never gets past 35 years old with any of them and trades them right in for a younger model.

I guess I should be grateful that most men like this are self selecting themselves out of the running for mature single women.

[expatinscotland]

You might be on to something there, neil, if your age is the same as your 77.

I was single and childfree when I met DH. I had been divorced, from a man, 3 years older, who determined he never wanted children and in an on/off relationship with a man a year younger but not ready. He didn't become a father until he was 40 but was then married to a woman 7 years younger than he.

[SolidGoldBrass]

Well, a percentage of men may want women under 35 simply because the men want to have children and women over 35 are likely to be less fertile.

But a lot of men don't want children, don't want any more children or don't want children now, and there are quite a few men (or so I have found) who are very keen on older women because older women either can't have children, have had all the children they want, or never wanted any. In my late 40s I have found it surprisingly easy to pull really rather gorgeous men much younger than me for that sort of reason.

[Suzannewithaplan]

I think we can leave ageing rock gods out of it Adjani, they're not exactly typical, no doubt there are also ageing rock goddesses who go for younger men :o

[expatinscotland]

There is truth in that, Solid. Definitely no more kiddies for me.

[adjani77]

SolidGoldBrass, are these men interested in a long term relationship with you or just dating? Obviously it also depends on you and what you want but for me I want commitment.

[neiljames77]

Well the likes of Jimmy Page don't want a relationship, they want a trophy. It can't be nice for him knowing that these women are with him for all the wrong reasons.(not that I feel sorry for him)

[expatinscotland]

Well, there's the rub.

I stopped, at 31, looking in the wrong places, tbh.

[FloraFox]

adjani if you see the words "sexual market value" read that as a useful marker that the guy is to be avoided at all costs. As with any mention of red/blue pills, game or PUA, it's a term only used by pathetic losers.

[adjani77]

Suzanne I agree they are not typical but maybe they are just doing what many would do if they had the chance?

I know I'm being sill now, should just get to bed!

[expatinscotland]

But for me at that time, I was looking for long-term commitment and family.

I'm married, but if I weren't, I would be open to anything and content to play along because I have had all the children I want and marriages, so in a different situation if I had not had all this.

[TristanandIsoldeareoff]

1. No

2. You know those uggos sitting in a van flicking through their Daily Mails and Suns going nah mate, I wouldn't have Cheryl Cole, she's too skinny.? Those uggos can afford laptops now, and call themselves the "manosphere".

As a rule of thumb, anyone who has to go to the Internet and make a point about bleating on "my opinion, as a member of X group" is probably an outsider of that group - so wholly unmasculine (take a pick: smoking, height, weight, job) and IRL less desirable than a piece of shit on a ballgown.

3. Just no.

[adjani77]

Neil, yes re Jimmy Page and other rich men with trophy wives e.g. Wayne Rooney when Coleen kicked him out after he was caught cheating he said she could leave if she wanted that there were 100's of girls just waiting to take her place. She came back of course.

I don't know how they do it, its like she is bought and paid for so he can do what he likes because as long as he keeps her in the lifestyle she expects he is keeping up his end of the bargin and she know it. On the other hand he knows that if he weren't a football star she would never have looked twice at him .... grim.

[neiljames77]

Expatinscotland - I'm 47. The 77 in my username is very misleading. I might change it. Or were you saying I was 77?

[expatinscotland]

Would she not look at him? There are plenty of women here who do, and she's been with him since she was about 15. I know a lot of women who put up with all sorts from men they have been with from that age.

[expatinscotland]

I thought born in 1977, neil!

[expatinscotland]

No, I didn't think you were 77. My dad is. You would not find him on MN .

[faracrosstheroad]

I think this perception is out there, sometimes. But here's how I think it actually pans out. A case study of our older Lotharios.

Two former colleagues in London: in their late 30's, only dated 20 somethings (often foreigners). So could claim they were desirable to that demographic. Indeed, seemed to have some success.

But -another way of looking at it - it was more turning a predicament into a virtue - because women who were more at their level (so who "got" them and could "place" them) were phasing them out?

It wasn't youth that was attractive: it was that 20-somethings weren't socially adept enough at to recognize these guys weren't all that? Or didn't care? These younger women were seeing them as someone for attention and support who had the financial clout to take them out on nice dates. Not a realistic partner.

A 22 year old globetrotting Japanese student is not looking to have babies and settle down. So she'd be their lover, let them buy her dinner and show her round town. In THEIR eyes they had the option of these women, who were shaming all their jealous frumpy old English sisters.

But these guys weren't being taken seriously? Their young "girlfriends" would always end up "getting back with an ex" or "cultural issues, my mother won't approve of you" or having "commitmentphobe issues".
If the guys suggested maybe visiting her in her next country or whatever, they'd get blank looks.

Nothing blatantly wrong with these guys, just mediocre...so yes, they'd done Oxbridge: yes they had ok City jobs. But both had nightmare mothers, weren't conventionally masculine, and since those uni days hadn't moved forwards as their peers had?

So trying to compensate by finding a Miss Perfect to build their self-esteem, give them a dream life, protect their precious ego/feelings (at not quite being as good as their peers) and basically turn them into a man.

(All you single over 35 year old women: you've had a lucky escape, methinks).

Our two heroes? One went to the Phillipines to get a wife. One also moved abroad and got married there: he is still under thumb of his mother, and soon to be divorced and sent back to the UK (oh dear).

Still, looked happy for a while. They are both still presumably mediocre and frumpy, and the women (age/looks/nationality etc) are irrelevant to the equation.

So life goes on...

[adjani77]

I am sure he was totally into her and asking her out all the time and she kept turning him down and then the day he got picked up by a football scout she said yes.

its all just celebrity gossip but I am really only using them as an illustration and I hope I'm not right and that they do love each other however he did indeed welcome her to leave him as he could easily fill her shoes with a new women.

[expatinscotland]

I was ready to go it alone, when it came to having children, or to co-parent with a man who was homosexual but wanted children, of whom I had met some. Believe me, I was living in a place, it was full of pricks! I just didn't have time for it anymore.

I got made redundant from my job with a payout and I thought, 'Fuck this! I'm outta here. If it pans out, maybe I meet someone, fine. If not, I'll find a way to go for it (because I wanted a child).'

And just stopped trying.

[adjani77]

Well yes there is the theory that is a man is still single at 35+ especially if he has never had a long term relationship, been married that there is something wrong with them. Personally I don't like to generalise, I'm sure its true in some cases but people who are single in their late 30's are probably single for all kinds of reasons maybe even out of sheer shyness.

[expatinscotland]

What reasons, though?

I'm 43 and my husband is 36. The age gap isn't even one and never was. BUT, when we met were on the same page about what we wanted and open about it very early on.

I guess it just depends what you want.