I turned 33 and online dating went dead...

[hopeisfadingfast]

Just wondered if anyone else has had this experience?

I started dating around 6 years ago and got loads of attention in my late 20s. I was in a relationship when I turned 30 and didn't start dating again until I was 32, which was noticeably harder work but I was still getting enough interest to meet a handful of (seemingly) quality new people every month.

Since turning 33 it's like I'm invisible to everyone except those over 60 who can't write in sentences and have no teeth. Slight exaggeration but I'm not getting anyone contacting me who actually looks like a match and even when I message men whose age range I'm within, they never write back. When I was 32 my profile was pretty much the same and I'd say at least half would write back, if not more. I can only think they don't want to look ageist in case it puts off the younger women who they're actually aiming to date.

I'm in the central belt of Scotland, I don't know if that's relevant. I phoned a dating/introductions agency as I'm considering my options and they implied that eligible men are particularly thin on the ground in Scotland but I'm thinking it might be in their best interests to say that!?

I have written profiles professionally for other people and feel that mine is what I want it to be; I used to get men writing to say they liked it even though they didn't think we were a match so I don't think I'm doing anything majorly wrong on that front but I'm not ruling it out. I'm not sporty, outdoorsy or spontaneous which I know means I'm not what the majority of men are looking for in the first place but I do come across people who look like matches in their mid to late 30s and they don't even seem to entertain the idea of talking to me in my old age.

I changed my hair and makeup (and also stopped wearing contact lenses - now always wear glasses) round about the time I turned 33 so it's possible that might be affecting my success rate but I'm getting more real life attention so I don't think I look any worse.

I found an article online that said that most women experience a sharp decline in interest on turning 33 but I hadn't expected it to be quite so sharp! Is anyone else in the same boat? Any tips?

Thanks for all the replies. Lots to think about. I haven't really changed my profile much since I started dating. The only things that've changed a lot are my age and photos. A while back I messaged a few men who I thought looked like good matches but who didn't reply and asked them for feedback but they didn't reply or just said there was nothing wring with my profile - just didn't think I looked like the right person. And yet I was potentially the right person this time last year.

Can I ask if there's anyone with glasses on in all of their photos and doesn't live in a huge city like London that gets the kind of dates they want?

Also, here's the Amanda Platell article

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3273255/Why-today-s-young-men-t-stop-chasing-older-women-s-trend-reveals-modern-relationships.html

And here's another which seems to suggest 33 is some sort of freak age, before and after which things are better -

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2533290/Are-25-year-old-Catholic-woman-owns-dog-drinks-alcohol-three-times-week-Congratulations-youre-likely-date-online.html

Also, some pick up artists who have identified 33 as a watershed age - although I'm not looking for a pua so maybe not that relevant but a little worrying nonetheless

www.blackdragonblog.com/2011/02/16/women-over-30-and-online-dating-yeah-i-think-ive-had-enough/
Annoyingly I can't find the original article I read which said women experience quite a drastic drop in interest on turning 33 but I'm going to keep looking for it. It's interesting that others don't think it should be as steep as what I'm finding...

op, 2 out of 3 of those articles are written by the daily mail. Are you aware that they write complete shite..? If not, I'm telling you now.
If you're that worried why not just knock 2 years off?

I'm not sure why you feel glasses are such an issue . As stated previously I need glasses but would not wear them in a profile pic just as I wouldn't wear sunglasses/ hat etc as people prefer to have a clear facial view.

Yes, obviously the daily mail often writes complete shite but one is an opinion piece and I like Amanda Platell. The other is just a report on some actual research which I presume is sound as it's quite simple - response rates by age. You don't have to run any statistical analysis, just add all the figures up.

Thing is is that I just always wear glasses. I am extremely short sited so only take them off when I switch the lights out for bed as I just can't see anything with them off. And I wear eye makeup that looks odd without glasses. Any photo of me without glasses isn't really going to look like me all that much but I suppose I can only give it a try.

Ditch the glasses for the pic, change your age to 32 and see what happens...

N0More314 & kua

May i just put the record straight please?.

Please do not be afeared by my presence here. I think you'll find at the top of this screen there is a bit that says by parents for parents well I do qualify in that respect. I am the father of three daughters by two mothers one now deceased, and at present fit the category of a single stay at home male parent and do indeed live with my youngest daughter and take care of her.

However to answer your question on why is it I'm "advising and not doing" well at the moment I'm not in much of a fit state to get out that much. I'm still recovering from a bad climbing accident and am not probably much use to anyone hobbling around on sticks!. However given time all that will heal and i too will be out there looking for that special lady!. In the meantime its of interest to see and observe if that's not to "creepy" how the modern day dating scene works and No I'm not a journalist or TV researcher just a single dad. However i have learnt a lot here and am grateful for that and i think i can comment on some aspects but obviously not all but with age comes that realisation that you don't know as much as you think you do!

Also have recently come out of a rather profound divorce where I had my trust badly broken and betrayed.

However i found this forum quite by accident and i will say its a very interesting one quite unique in some ways. I do have a rather enquiring mind as to how things work how people tick and try my best to understand the why and wherefore and reasons behind of a matter.

kua, you say that you may well feel intimidated by my presence but i really cannot think why that should be, this is a public forum albeit an anonymous one and here I think people can talk about personal matters perhaps without the knowledge of their friends and relatives etc and you must bear in mind that anyone can log on here and look and read without even replying to anything. I do comment sometimes where i feel i might have something to add. In a way its a suppose a bit of a privilege to be here and yes some people are expressing their personal thoughts with regard to on-line dating. A also find it of interest how people interact in an on-line environment too it is different than from fact to face and I think it would be very good for someone to research this phenomena to the best of my knowledge no one has done so thus far?

And yes i am some 20 years older then it seems most of the posters here but I don't know where it gives an age limit in the terms and conditions of posting do you?. I make no secret of my age why shoudl I lie about it?
I am who i am and that's well it no different really to most anyone else who posts here.

Perhaps more men should post here and yes younger ones to there does seem a dearth of them perhaps they don't want to be on what does seem a predominately female site but OTOH it might improve their understanding and comprehension what's wrong with that?

Anyways nuff said. I don't intend to bore anyone, got to fly and cook dinner!. Be back later's.

The point is not only how it makes you feel to post Justaboy, it's also obviously about how it makes the rest of us feel. So you can't 100% set the record straight, because the rest of us still have our perspective on your presence even if you insist it's your right to loiter reading all our posts.

You hang about on the dating thread like a voyeur, ''advising'' us. NObody's complaining about more men on the site. There are plenty whose opinion would be valued. What's odd is not that you're here on mumsnet but that you are on that dating thread. And every dating thread. Despite not dating. Despite not being welcomed with open arms.

I think it's not that you believe you can offer us some unique perspective, it's that you're are the one who is looking for insight in to younger women. And that is a bit creepy. You hang about reading everything we post about sex and then making comments about romance being dead. It's awful for the rest of us. That's my record set straight.

^ What she said

Because he's the only man in the world!?!? lol.

I'm not trying to be mean to you justaboy but you have to see that we are entitled to our perspective. That's not something that you can come along and clarify for us. Our gut reaction is that we feel a little less easy sharing with you reading and advising. You can't come along and set the record straight and tell us that how we feel about your presence is wrong.

I wonder if this is why you are not successful in your personal relationships.

justaboy God knows where you get the idea that I am "intimidated" or "afeared" by your presence mate AND the reason it "seems predominately female"? The name Mumsnet was not enough a clue for you?

Nothing like a bit of mansplaining, is there?

Justaboy your previous assertion that you would not consider dating a woman your own age, only younger, makes your responses in this particular thread even more ironic.

OP - I agree with others for a proper scientific test, you should change your profile pic to one without glasses first, give it two weeks and see if the number of decent messages received increases. Then reduce your age to 32, and again leave two weeks and count messages.

In order for a fully rigorous scientific testing (which I'm sure you're dead set on ) you'll need to test these in isolation, i.e. don't reduce your age AND ditch the glasses together.

Yes I'm not ''afeared'' either.

I'm ........exasperated that you don't respect our perspective. My perspective is that it should be a private place. You're there at the window, looking in. I don't like it. You don't intimidate me. I feel sorry for you.

It's not your age. It's something else. Friends of mine in their forties are meeting people via Match etc.

Yes Pocketsaviour, he was rightly mocked for those comments where he said he would consider dating women 40-50 (that was the essence of what he said). So the oldest woman he was going to consider dating was 14 or so years younger than he is. I don't think he realised that we would all leap on this comment. He has since gone round in circles trying to retract it, so I'm glad others noticed his comments.

There are 1000s of men on the net saying they'd only date women 15 years younger. Are they actually doing so? No. Mostly they're making mashed potato for one.

Ha ha ha

Omg.

Whoopee do!.

Now lets see . OK soz of the word afeared upset anyone scared, concerned offended and quite a few others would have sufficed just as well! as to a voyeur?, no bloody way!. OK if it might seem like that not intended in the slightest.

But this is a fairly public forum you do not even have to be registered to the site to read any of it just to comment and OK perhaps I've not got any recent dating experience but have made some observations and haven't posted that much anyway. But isn't it odd that this forum is about relationships and those are between men and women.

N0More314 I do take a bit of umbrage re your comments on personal relationships. When younger i did have a few, most anyone has I suppose of the marriages the first lasted 13 years and was ended on the death of my first wife after a severe depressive illness which I did my damnedest to support her with and through.

The second lasted close on 20 years so something must that been right somewhere?. OK it ended due to country and culture and work differences if i was at fault anywhere I was spending too much time at work supporting our children through the private education that we wanted plus the lifestyle she wanted. I did my best for her. It wasn't me who had the affair who broke the trust.

And yes there was quite an age gap there. That in practice was never a problem quite a few posters on in these boards have those, most are quite successful. I do think that much more than that gap is not really that good a thing due to the differences likely to happen as the older party ages but that's another subject.

And NoMore I do rue the day i made that comment 40 to 50 it caused poor Foxey to have apoplectic fits over that it was just a figure that came up in my head at the time. If their was a correction facility I'd have erased it PDQ but there isn't. Perhaps the board mods ought to look at that that edit capability? As to absolute age its not really that much of an issue anymore. I don't need a young bit of arm candy to make me feel better thanks. In fact there is a woman I know who I'd very much like to be involved with but its not likely to happen even her being a year older as she is married to a friend of mine, and I'm not one to cause marriage breakup to to do anything duplicitous. There is also another who is a couple of years younger than me also married tho why she puts up with him beats me.

There you are. I've said my bit. I'll shut up for now. Please post in peace and please don't feel sorry for me i don't need that thanks!

And now less about me lets help the OP in her queries and quest.

What everyone has said about justaboy

I'm a long-term user and I find men who pop in to "advise" women especially when they seem to have a disastrous track-record themselves creepy.

Especially when they are nowhere to be seen on the vast wider MN site (not talking about parenting or current affairs)

they just like sitting in on dating and sex chat

It's not a men vs women thing, I know men who happily interact with women IRL. They have good, non-dramatic interactions with those women they come across naturally.

They aren't sitting online seeking out threads with (possibly vulnerable) women so they can pester them with their fortune cookie "support".

Wasn't there some guy who used to be on the dating thread who kept having these "relationships" with women (who basically would dump him after two dates)?

He did some creepy, creepy things, basically he was trying out all these weird theories he'd read on the internet on women there (she isn't "putting out" after three dates, etc).

And he sent vicious e-mails to women he'd wanted but who had rejected him.

Basically everyone's nightmare "Tries To Appear Nice But Passive-Aggressive" Ex.

and then he would bang on about all his (dull) theories on how men interacted with women.

I think he took in some vulnerable women on that thread, with his passive-aggressive ramblings (some sort of failed scientist so could do lots of pseudo-intellectual bombardment) and it was unpleasant to witness.

Apparently his marriage ended because he was too needy and demanding too much attention from his wife

and even online he was a bit of a boring shit-stirrer who enjoyed playing women off against each other.

yuck yuck yuck

"The second lasted close on 20 years so something must that been right somewhere?. OK it ended due to country and culture and work differences if i was at fault anywhere I was spending too much time at work supporting our children through the private education that we wanted plus the lifestyle she wanted. I did my best for her. It wasn't me who had the affair who broke the trust.

And yes there was quite an age gap there."

Did you buy yourself a young foreign bride? Are you looking for the same thing here?

Not sure why Justaboy is getting such a hard time . Sorry, we're not all like that.

Telling him to 'fuck off back to his mashed potato for one' is out of order.

• short sighted. Here I am having a go about men who can't write in sentences and I can't even spell the name of a condition I've had since I was nine. Sigh.