Finally, dating women in their 40s generated more than I expected and not what I expected I suppose.
Forties? I think women in their forties are a different game entirely. Less bullshit, more directness.
They are a different species from the twenty-somethings. They've been married, divorced, widowed, or they've spent fifteen years building a career and realised they missed the window on the traditional path. Whatever brought them there, they've got one thing in common: they know exactly what they don't want.
I don’t really push dating women in this age bracket, but I have had various chats and been on dates with three that led to the bedroom, so this is from limited experience and my perspective. You don't get the princess archetype with this age group. You don't get the long lists of demands or the vague "see where things go" energy. They'll tell you in the first message if they're after companionship, sex, or something more serious. And they'll expect you to do the same. If you try to play games or be coy, they'll unmatch you before you finish typing your second message.
The flip side is they carry more baggage. Ex-husbands, kids, complicated custody arrangements, careers that don't leave much room for spontaneity. I suppose you have to be willing to work around their schedule, not the other way around. Yet the payoff is a woman who knows what she's doing in bed, knows how to hold a conversation, and won't ghost you because she's anxious about what her flatmate thinks.
Sexually a twenty-five-year-old might be figuring out her preferences, trying things because she thinks she should, performing for your approval. A woman in her forties has had twenty years of experience to learn what actually works for her. She knows, and she's not shy about showing you. They're not afraid to ask for what they want in return. Then there’s the confidence. That's the big one. A woman who's comfortable in her own skin, who's not worried about how she looks from every angle, who's not performing for an imaginary audience? That frees her up to actually be present.
My nights with women in their forties put almost every twenty-something I've been with to shame. Not because they're technically better at any one thing. It is because they're not afraid to be themselves. That makes all the difference.
The best ones, the ones worth your time, are I expect the ones who've done the work on themselves. They've maybe been to therapy, they've figured out their patterns, and they're not looking for someone to save them. They're looking for someone to share a life that's already full. If you can offer that without trying to fix them, a man will have more luck with a forty-five-year-old than with ten twenty-five-year-olds combined. Or that is my tentative suggestion.