Is OLD as hard for men as it is for women

[Beanfry]

I keep reading about how OLD is a cess pit for women, that there are no good men out there. But are men finding it the same in reverse, or are there really 100 women to every good man?

starting to think about dipping my toe back into the dating world, but the stories of how bad OLD is is putting me off. For context i turned 40 last week, so my dating age range would be 37 - 45

I agree. Last guy I dated was only about an inch taller than me and he had a real thing about it.
If I wore even smell heels he’d comment that I wax trying to embarrass him. He was a twat anyway but he did have a hang up about his height.

Funny now he’s engaged to a woman who towers above him

It's difficult for tall women. A woman in the region around 6 foot will realistically actually have a requirement for a man over 6 foot.

It's a bit more self-defeating when you get a woman who isn't much more than 5 foot and won't even give the time of day to a man who isn't over 6 foot.

The irony is that many women on OLD have high sex drives and do want to find someone to have hot, hard sex with…. just in the context of a respectful and loving relationship. These men want to skip that bit and treat women as sex objects.

Then there is me with quite aconservative views on sex. It's just never been the most important thing in my life and has caused problems in the few relationships I've had. I now know that as an autistic man I just dont like people that close to me unless I know them really well. It also makes it really difficult to understand people.

OLD requires perception skills that I simply dont have. It can take me years to really trust someone and seconds to not trust them. OLD also doesn't help me because my primary goal has always been to look after people without fuss or praise

So I know why I've been on my own for 18 years, but OLD is not going to help me.

Absolutely. The lack of sex is the only downside of being single for me but I’m not interested in casual, I need a connection first to be intimate.

So in a relationship I would be very sexually driven however seems a lot of men think unless you’ve jumped into bed by the 3rd date that means you have no sex drive and they’re been friend zoned.

Unfortunately so many older men’s idea of flirting is about as subtle as a housebrick.

Ir seems that build up and getting b to know each other phase doesn’t exist anymore which is a real shame.

For women, these apps are like online shopping.
For men, they're like online job hunting.

Am guessing by your response you are in Scotland?

I think the dating pool there is much smaller. I remember about 20 years ago, a friend was on a dating website ( we lived in London). She had loads of nice, attractive decent men to choose from- I mean almost 100.

I had recently moved temporarily to Scotland, so asked her to bring up who on the website in Scotland. There were 3! For the whole country.

I don’t think it’s any different for men in Scotland. If you only have 3 women to match with, there’s a much smaller chance you’ll find someone you like. OLD is a numbers game.

I wish it were true! I think what’s probably true is ‘man or woman, if you’re not fussy you’ll get snapped up’.

You mean like shopping at a church hall jumble sale for designer shoes…

And looking for a job on a “jobs for surgeons” website when you have a couple of GCSE grade Gs.

I think this is the crux of dating between men and women and something I experienced long before online dating was a thing.

women love sex. I did. As a young woman I would have really enjoyed having casual sex with men who were mutually respectful. But they rarely exist. So many men seem to think that they have to trick a woman into sex.

i found it really difficult to find decent men who liked women but also wanted casual sex

@Thatsthebottomline I'd say the only issue you'll face is the driving thing unfortunately.

If your up front with men about just looking for something fairly casual in what way are they still tricking you into sex? Maybe that's one good thing about OLD as you can clearly state what your looking for and casual isnt one where men will feel the need to lie about their intentions

I’m talking about before online dating. The context of meeting would make it very clear this wasn’t a long term thing ( met at a party while visiting friends in another city, on holiday etc.) but still guys would go heavy on future faking and trying to create false intimacy because they thought it would get you into bed.

Now men might be more upfront but they tend not to treat women as well if it’s casual.

Well you were going to sleep with them anyway so no harm done.

I went through a phase of casual and I cant say i encountered any disrespect. That was through OLD.

I'd say the disrespect comes when you are looking for a relationship, you make that clear but they lie about their intentions.

The more I read responses like this, the more I think I must be the needle in the haystack. Yes, I absolutely want to have a long term, physical relationship - I've always had a pretty high lobido. But there's no way I'm interested in sex straight away. If it was on offer on a 1st date, you wouldn't see me for dust. On a 2nd, I doubt I'd be interested in a 3rd. And even if it was suggested on a 3rd or 4th I'd be pretty cautious. I think I actually turned it down on something like a 5th or 6th date aand then ended up dating that woman for about the next 6 months.

I think probably more men are like this than people think, but they aren’t lingering on OLD sites much after 40. They are probably in relationships.

however, would like to pick up on the fact you’d essentially be put off if a woman suggested sex on a 1st or 2nd date. that actually comes across as slightly judgemental. There is nothing wrong with that if it’s a natural progression.

I disagree that it’s judgemental. I’d be put off by someone suggesting sex on the first few dates - it would show we’re not aligned in how we see sex and therefore it would be an incompatibility.

This thread is fascinating. As a widowed man I did OLD for a couple of years. Never had a problem getting matches really, not inundated by any means but a steady stream of matches.

Im okay looking I suppose, nothing super amazing but I am educated and write well as that’s a huge part of my job. The first year the matches weren’t great, a few nice dates, a few weird dates including one women who I didn’t even recognise when she showed up. Her Pics must have been at least ten years old.

So many women with filters too!

After a year nothing has really progressed beyond a few dates. I reassessed my profile and looked at which photos were getting likes and put more like those up. The next twelve months I had a great time, things developed more with a couple of women and one relationship lasted about 5 months before we realised we weren’t really compatible but it all ended amicably.

I guess the one issue I can up against constantly was the apps throw you up with people in such a random way it’s incredibly likely you won’t have much in common. I found that fir sure. Even if the chemistry was there it always wore off and there was no base underneath.

overall I enjoyed OLD and would carry on but then in the last few months I’ve met someone at work, we’d been friends for about nine months first and now we’re coming up to eight months together and I’m head over heels. It just feels so much deeper if you start off as friends and things develop rather than being thrown together by an algorithm

What I find fascinating are the general misconceptions. You get strong hints (and has been mentioned elsewhere) that a red flag is that a man is on OLD! A decent man isn't going to be around for long on OLD, so any man on OLD is dodgy.

Obviously you can't vouch for anyone on an anonymous forum, but the general feeling is that for men (and particularly the decent ones) OLD is a waste of time.

Isn't it interesting that all the awful men tend to get matches and then that's where women experience all the awful behaviour after matching? I've been to a few single's events and there are some men there that are total arses, and guess what? They end up being successful, whereas the decent respectful men are left talking to each other.

How can a woman tell a man is awful if he has a good dating profile? Or if he presents himself a certain way on dates?

And how were you so certain that those men at dating events who were successful were awful and the men left were definitely good men?

That’s the thing. I was very selective who I swiped on, read the profiles carefully and unmatched any chats that turned sleazy quickly or where the chat was crap.

I still ended up with the bloke who wanked down the phone (54 year old sales manager), dick pic the day before the date (56 year old IT professional) and the one who tried to shove his tongue down my throat and grope me in car park after first date (59 year old investment banker)

Tye reason I’ve added ages and jobs is to show that on paper these were good catches, good jobs etc and they were all articulate and seemingly polite and respectful - until they weren’t!

No, i just went there on holiday. Scotland was peaceful and quiet

I don't think I've had a single unsolicited dick pic - they've all asked first (and it has been nearly all who has offered.

Hint to men: an image of your penis is very unlikely to make the difference to whether a woman is attracted to you or not. It will either make no difference or will actively cause her to block you.

They’re flashing (virtually). I doubt men don’t know it’s not appealing to women

Well I think sometimes men forget our brains dont work like theirs- they can get turned on by a picture of a random woman's vagina without caring who it belongs to.