Only younger men seem interested, what the heck?

[Waytooearly]

I'm 48 and divorced. I recently ended a post-divorce relationship with a man 16 years my junior, having decided that he was just too young for me. I know that there are loads of age-gap relationships that work out fine but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were at different life stages. Plus he was very hot and cold, flakey... Anyway it's over.

So I'm ready to date again and the only men who seem interested in me are the younger guys. Like 35 and under. Like young enough that I'm taken aback when they ask me out. I'm thinking, 'What? I thought we had a big sister/little brother vibe here, why are you asking me out?' Most recently a guy from yoga class and a guy I met through work (not a co-worker).

I'm not particularly interested in younger guys (in fact my ex is older). I do have friends across different age groups so there's a big pool. But it happens so often I think it must be a vibe I'm giving out unconsciously.

I'm looking to share my life with someone BTW, not have flings.

I've tried some friendly overtures with interesting guys in my own age bracket but that always falls flat for some reason.

The very sweet guy I met through work just texted me again to say let's get coffee and I'm kind of tempted but... Ugh, no I just had the whole heartbreak of the flakey younger guy and I want to try someone my own age.

Any advice?

The men your age will be chasing 20 year olds, arms and legs flailing trying to prove to themselves they've still got it...😳🤡

Would you consider someone perhaps 10 years younger....seems like a sensible enough gap, the MLC switch also won't have flicked by that point 😂

Lol @ the ok Cupid charts, women adjust their expectations as they get older but men still think they can pull a 20-year-old when they're 50

This exactly.

I'm nearly 50 and in terms of physical attraction, I find younger men much hotter than men my own age. I don't know any of my peers who disagree. However, we know that a) we probably have very little chance of a relationship with a young hottie and b) even if young men are lovely to look at (well, some of them) what are you going to talk to them about?

But qquite a few men my age probably think that even though they're divorced dads with little to offer, young women will still be queuing up for them.

I'm 58 and work in a shop (so have access to a wide demographic of blokes who like to chat up women).

Young men (20-30) think they might be in with a chance of have sex with a woman who will put no demands on them.
Men 60+ think they might be in with a chance of having a woman who wants to 'look after someone' with no real expectation of sex and will let them watch motorsport every day while she...i dunno, knits and watches Loose Women?
Men between 30-45, are either attached, or just want to talk to someone about why their last relationship failed. Ad infinitum.
Men 45-60, who want easy sex, but for relationships they are looking for someone young enough to 'keep up with them' (ie young enough to be bamboozled into letting them buy a big motorbike).

I find younger men much hotter than men my own age
Ditto all this stuff about 'men are visual creatures and women arent' hogwash

Ditto all this stuff about 'men are visual creatures and women arent' hogwash

Yeah, I think that's wishful thinking on the part of men.

There's also the "Sorry but biology dictates that men can reproduce well into old age whereas women can't" line of argument, the implication being that men retain their physical attractiveness longer. Which is nonsense obviously. Look around you on any given day in any given town, and I'll bet you'll find the number of attractive women in their 40s and 50s - and above - way exceeds the number of attractive men in the same age group.

Yes, I always feel like it'd be unkind to say to men ''yeh but you need to find somebody under 40 who'd sleep with you''.

I dated a man 2 years younger than me a while back and he had put off fatherhood for decades believing he had all the time in the world. He got to 44 and realised that the women of 36 or so, the age group he thought would SCOOP him up, they weren't racing to date him. There were so many of 'him'.

@unboxaLoeweHammock
Isn't it funny how women are always the ones warned 'not to leave it too late', even though most women are very very well aware that their fertility has a time limit? It's the men who need to be warned not to be so complacent.

At the end of the day, it's women who have babies, not men, and there are only so many women of child-bearing age out there. Yes, men do have a somewhat longer time frame than women, but unless he's got something special to offer, a man of 50 or so is not going to find it easy to attract a woman 15 years his junior. As you say, it's a crowded 'marketplace' out there, and young women who are happy to date significantly older men can take their pick, since the internet is heaving with 'womb shoppers' in their 40s and 50s.

@Waytooearly
I have closed my OLD account now but i think another reason men my own age wouldn't date me is because they know that if you're dating them with their bald heads and their bellies, it's not for a fling. It's in the hope that it develops in to something lasting and franking,, something long term is not what they're looking for. And that is the hardest to explain / wriggle out of when the woman is actually genuinely in their appropriate age range.

Don't let OLD lower your value as a woman. After five years of internet dating I had come to the conclusion that if I ever had a relationship again, it would have to be with somebody a decade + older than I am! And not even fit and healthy for his age. So that didn't appeal. I had gone on so many dates and a lot of them were with men my own age approx but it always fizzled out early.

Correct Iced but make up, a good haircut and a bit of style usually has something to do with that.

I didn’t want younger men either. Zero in common.

@icedpurple, ha ha ''womb shoppers'' that is very astute. Yes, if you're womb shopping in your late forties and you work part time and you don't own your own house and you're a bit jaded with life then The Womb is going to go with another buyer.

I think Alot of men can take or leave kids. You would think a women who is past the age of having kids would appeal to a lot of men!

I think Alot of men can take or leave kids

A lot of women too.

Correct Iced but make up, a good haircut and a bit of style usually has something to do with that.

True, but makeup aside, there's no reason a man in his 40s or above can't take a bit of care with grooming too. Makes all the difference.

By the time you're 49, a man 5 years younger does not seem like a ''younger man'' and thankfully the man I'm seeing now has the self-awareness to know that the age difference between us is small relatively. All the tossers I met on the internet, I'm glad I met somebody in real life. I didn't know what age he was when I first saw him, I thought he was about 2 years younger than I am so having had so many experiences of being undervalued by men my own age online, I assumed he wouldn't date me! When we went out a few times, we hit it off brilliantly and age seemed irrelevant. And I realised he was terrified he'd lose me. The internet is shit for women. And it nearly made me relegate myself as a woman. Ykwim? I nearly threw MYSELF on the scrap heap.

5 years age difference is nothing, especially when you're in your 40s. Put it this way: if a 49 year old man was dating a 44 year old woman, would anyone consider her a 'younger' woman? I doubt it. In fact, they'd probably be praising the man for choosing a woman his own age and not going for one of the young hotties who of course are queuing up for men in their 40s!

I thought you were talking about online dating before OP. But Zaphotshead is right. Few men have the gumption to try and chat up strange women. Those that do tend to mostly focus on younger women. The couple of younger men who asked you out would probably have done so because they thought their relative youth would make them attractive to you, and you would be up for easy sex.

The chart asks who do you think looks best?
I have to say as a forty odd woman, I don't look bad for my age, but yes, I looked a lot better and got a lot more male attention when I was 20. I think the chart just shows that women are probably a lot more people pleasers (saying men their own age look best to them) and men are more honest.
Let's face it, unless the men are rich/famous most men in their 50's can't get a decent woman in her 20's.
Decent women in their 20's are generally have fun with guys their own age, or thinking about settling down marriage/kids.

Men can reproduce well into old age
Indeed in theory a 50 year old man sperm can fertilize the eggs of a 25-year-old woman, but if I were a 25-year-old woman wanting to have a baby I'd be getting it on with a young fit man and I'd want young healthy sperm to fertilize my young healthy eggs.
It's as if older men think that thier seminal fluid is a magical fountain of youth

I think also some men think that 'the menopause' is some mystical process that turns women into their mothers. They don't understand the physical processes and think that any woman over 45 is pretty much going to want to spend their spare time knitting, sitting down and cooing over grandchildren.

They don't get it as just another life stage and that post-menopausal women can be just as fit, active and attractive as those pre. So they dismiss the possibility of dating anyone who might be 'at that time of life', because of preconceptions.

Indeed in theory a 50 year old man sperm can fertilize the eggs of a 25-year-old woman, but if I were a 25-year-old woman wanting to have a baby I'd be getting it on with a young fit man and I'd want young healthy sperm to fertilize my young healthy eggs.

Yup. Not to mention that I'd rather not go through the physical taxing phase of looking after a small child with a man in his 50s, or to raise grumpy teens with a man pushing 70.

They don't get it as just another life stage and that post-menopausal women can be just as fit, active and attractive as those pre. So they dismiss the possibility of dating anyone who might be 'at that time of life', because of preconceptions.

This is part of the reason why I dislike the current media obsession with The Menopause. Yes, it's good in one way that it's not taboo to talk about, but I don't think this pathologising of a perfectly normal stage in a woman's life is useful. In many ways, I think it's a contemporary version of "It's your hormones, dear."

But I guess that's another story.

Yes, but is it another story? Might be part of the general theme of weirdness you get directed towards you as a middle-aged woman.

Men can reproduce well into old age

But a fact that most men are neither aware of or want to know; is that fertility clinics wont take sperm from donors over 39/40 .. and there are reasons for that.

(Of course they won't take eggs from women over 30-35 either, but both cases are relevant. All genetic material ages).

*nor